Nutrients in Nuts, The Nutritive Value of Fresh and Roasted California Grown Nonpareil Almonds

A review of composition studies of cultivated almonds: Macronutrients and micronutrients

“…Protein contents of 16-23 g/100 g have been reported in studies of commercial California-grown almond cultivars (Ahrens et al, 2005;Hall et al, 1958;Sathe, 1993;Venkatachalam and Sathe, 2006). In general, a similar protein content range has been reported for other almond cultivars in the few studies that provided adequate information on the analytical method used for protein analysis (Table 1).…”

“…Studies on California-grown almonds have observed lipid contents from 35 to 54%, with some (but generally not consistent) differences among cultivars (Abdallah et al, 1998;Ahrens et al, 2005;Hall et al, 1958;Sathe, 1993;Venkatachalam and Sathe, 2006). In a recent study of the fatty acid composition of major cultivars from different California counties over two years, Sathe et al (2008) reported that total lipids ranged from 49 to 66% of the edible kernel weight, but total lipid data specific to each cultivar were not provided.…”

“…Almond kernels contain approximately 3 g ash/100 g (fresh weight); the limited data reported in the literature for ash content includes an average of 3.05 g/100 g obtained for a mixture of three almond cultivars grown in Spain (Saura Calixto et al, 1981), 3.4 g/100 g in Lebanese-grown almonds (Cowan et al, 1963), 2.3-3.7 g/100 g in various almond cultivars grown in Italy (Barbera et al, 1994;Ruggeri et al, 1998) and 3.8 g/100 g (mean) in selected Turkish almond types (Aslantas et al, 2001). The ash contents of various commercial California-grown cultivars have been reported to range from 2.6 to 4.6 g/100 g (Ahrens et al, 2005;Hall et al, 1958;Sathe, 1993). In almond skins, ash contents of 3.4% (Hall et al, 1958) and 4.0% (Saura- Calixto et al, 1983a) have been measured.…”

“…The ash contents of various commercial California-grown cultivars have been reported to range from 2.6 to 4.6 g/100 g (Ahrens et al, 2005;Hall et al, 1958;Sathe, 1993). In almond skins, ash contents of 3.4% (Hall et al, 1958) and 4.0% (Saura- Calixto et al, 1983a) have been measured.…”

Almond (Prunus dulcis L.) Protein Quality

“…Calixto et al [23] determined almond protein amino acid composition of five Spanish almond varieties, but did not determine protein quality, and opined "almond protein is considered to be of good nutritional quality." Hall et al [24] [25], based on amino acid supplementation of almond-based diets determined that methionine was the most limiting amino acid followed by lysine and threonine. Interestingly, Cowan and coworkers also found that although the order of limiting amino acids by biological and chemical methods did not agree, deletion of any one of the three limiting amino acids methionine, lysine, and threonine, resulted in very poor growth.…”