Exploration of the nutritional profile of Trichocereus terscheckii (Parmentier) Britton & Rose stems

PADRÓ, JULIÁN; SOTO, IM

JOURNAL OF THE PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR CACTUS DEVELOPMENT

PROFESSIONAL ASSOC CACTUS DEVELOPMENT

Lugar: Lago Vista, Texas, EE.UU.; Año: 2013 p. 1 - 15

1938-663X

Columnar cacti Trichocereus terscheckii is an important source of food and water for insects, birds and wild cattle in dry areas of North West Argentina. Their fruit have been suggested as a plausible source of food but is not directly included in the human diet yet. Stem chemistry has long been of interest because of its hallucinogenic properties, but little is known about the nutritional value. In this work we analyze basic nutritional composition of a mature stem establishing moisture, total fat, ash, fiber, total protein, lipidic and sugar profile. The main constituents fatty acid found in T. terscheckii were palmitic, linoleic, linolenic and oleic acids but also a rare isomer of oleic acid was relatively abundant. This pattern that did not agree with the profiles found in other species of columnar cacti.