Analysis and Comprehensive Evaluation of Nutritional Quality of Bamboo Shoots from Different Cultivars

The contents of basic components, amino acids and minerals were analyzed to explore the differences in the main nutritional components for square bamboo shoot, mati bamboo shoot, datou bamboo shoot, ma bamboo shoot and sweet bamboo shoot. First of all, inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and amino acid analyzer were used to determine the content of mineral and free amino acid, respectively. Subsequently, amino acid ratio analysis and comprehensive evaluation of principal components were conducted. The results showed that the protein content (3.73 g/100 g), K content (4031.52 mg/kg), Ca content (276.82 mg/kg) of square bamboo shoot and crude fiber content (1.59 g/100 g) of mati bamboo shoot were significantly higher than those of other four varieties. Moreover, the contents of Mg, Fe and Mn in sweet bamboo shoots were higher than in other bamboo shoots up to 153.16 mg/kg, 5.57 mg/kg and 17.46 mg/kg, respectively. Simultaneously, a small amount of Se existed in datou and sweet bamboo shoots. Besides, the content of harmful elements Cr, Pb and Hg were within the allowable range of the state. Therefore, square bamboo shoots could be used as a good source of protein, K as well as Ca and mati bamboo shoots were deemed as a food which was rich in dietary fiber; sweet bamboo shoots could be considered as an excellent source of Fe, while datou and sweet bamboo shoots were regarded as Selenium-rich vegetables. The EAA/TAA and EAA/NEAA of square bamboo shoots reached 0.44 and 0.79, respectively, via the analysis of EAA/TAA (ratio of essential amino acids to total amino acids) and EAA/NEAA (ratio of essential amino acids to non-essential amino acids), which had met the standards required by FAO/WHO reference model for EAA/TAA and EAA/NEAA up to 0.40 and 0.60. At the end, PCA was used to cluster analysis for the 5 species of bamboo shoots. The datou bamboo shoot and mati bamboo shoot clustered into one category, and the other 3 bamboo shoots clustered into one category, respectively. In a word, the nutritional composition analysis of bamboo shoots can provide theoretical support for the further processing of bamboo shoots.