Nutritional Composition of Phacelia tanacetifolia Benth. Bee Pollen and Inflorescences

Abstract

The interest in natural products, namely, bee products is actual nowadays. The Bee pollen is a rich source of nutrients and biologically active compounds with numerous biological activities such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, etc. The search for new plant raw as a source of natural products has a practical meaning. The goal of this study was to evaluate the biochemical composition of bee pollen and inflorescences of Phacelia tanacetifolia Benth. Grown in Slovakia. The plant raw material was collected from the experimental plots of Slovak Agricultural University in Nitra. There were conducted following biochemical analyses: dry matter, protein, ash, lipid, β-carotene, fatty acid, amino acid, and saccharide content. Ph. tanacetifolia bee pollen had 73.3% of dry matter, 27.44% of protein, 2.77% of ash, 5.35% of lipids, 3.0 mg.kg^-1 of β-carotene, 32.2 g.100 g^-1 of saturated fatty acids, 5.7 g.100 g^-1 of monounsaturated fatty acids, and 55.7 g.100 g^-1 of polyunsaturated fatty acids. The nutritional composition of Ph. tanacetifolia inflorescences was 91.05% of dry matter, 18.37% of protein, 15.49% of ash, 4.5% of lipids, 50.4 mg.kg^-1 of β-carotene, 34.0 g.100 g^-1 of saturated fatty acids, 8.8 g.100 g^-1 of monounsaturated fatty acids, and 45.5 g.100 g^-1 of polyunsaturated fatty acids. The prevailing amino acids investigated raw were glutamic, aspartic acid, proline, and leucine. The content of bee pollen fructose higher 44 times than inflorescences fructose. The content of maltose and lactose in both raw was less than 0.5 g.kg^-1. Among saturated fatty acids, the most prevailed for both bee pollen and inflorescences was palmitic acid (28.42 and 27.93 g.100 g^-1 of fat, respectively), oleic acid (4.99 and 8.06 g.100 g^-1 of fat, respectively) prevailed among monounsaturated fatty acids and linolenic acid (45.47 and 23.27 g.100 g^-1 of fat, respectively) among polyunsaturated fatty acids. Bee pollen of investigated samples had the highest content of potassium (6239 mg.kg^-1), phosphorus (6039 mg.kg^-1), and sulfur (2403 mg.kg^-1). The obtained data can be useful in the food industry and further pharmaceutical and apicultural research.