Abstract
The validity of the energy data of the starch-foods and seaweeds in Korean food composition tables has been suspected due to possible differences in their chemical compositions from those of western food ingredients. Energy conversion parameters being used currently in nutrition has been derived in countries where food items re quite different from ours. This study was undertaken to determine the metabolizable energy of starch-foods and seaweeds by the method selected in preexperiment20). Cooked starch foods and seaweeds were freeze-dried and fed to Sprague Dawley rat with 200∼300g body weight to measure apparent metabolizable energy (AME) values and nitrogen-corrected AME (AMEn) values for four days after three days of preliminary period for adaptation to the diets. The AME and AMEn values of the wheat noodle were 4554.6, 4584.7, the Starch Vermicelli, 3763.4, 3855.7, the Ra myon, 4916.9, 4876.0, the Buckwheat noodle, 4469.7, 4442.0kcal/kg dry matter, the Potato, 4514.6, 4520.0 and those of the Bread, 3256.9, 3582.6, 3260.5, kcal/kg dry matter, respectively. Those of Sea tangle were 1437.3, 1631.3 and of Laver, 3126.6, 3171.3kcal/kg dry matter, resectively. When the AME values of the starch-foods and seaweeds measureed in present study were compared with energy values calculated by various conversion parameters such as Atwater's Rubner's, Sochun's and FAO's, there appeared dramatic differences indicating that for many of the food items, the latter energy values by conversion factors are hardly acceptable. These data also suggest that the existing energy conversion factors are not applicable to seaweeds and a further study is needed to obtain specific factors for the conversion to biological energy from the chemical composition of seaweeds.