CHEMICAL-COMPOSITION AND NUTRITIVE-VALUE OF NUTS GROWN IN ITALY

Cultivars of almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, pistachios, walnuts grown in Italy and commercial samples of pine nuts were evaluated. Lipids were the main component: (from 50 to 74%) in all nuts, with oleic and linol eic acids representing more than 75% of the total fatty acids and lino lenic acid in walnuts reaching 15%. Levels of saturated fatty acids we re about: 10% in all nuts. Almond cultivars and pistachios were a good source of dietary fiber (up to 13%). Sucrose was the main sugar const ituent; raffinose and stachyose were only found in hazelnuts, pine nut s and pistachios. The amino acid composition was similar in all the nu ts with glutamic acid, arginine and aspartic acid accounting for about 40% of the protein. The Chemical Score ranged from 0.38 to 0.56, lysi ne being the limiting amino acid. Protein and lipid composition of wal nut cultivars showed higher variability than almonds.