PROTEIN DIGESTIBILITY OF CHIA SEED Salvia hispanica L
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008Volumen 9 No. 1
Enero-Marzo 2008
Salus cum propositum vitae
PROTEIN DIGESTIBILITY OF CHIA SEED Salvia hispanica L
Rebeca Monroy-Torres, Maria Lourdes Mancilla-Escobar, Juan Carlos Gallaga-Solórzano*, Sergio Medina-Godoy**, Enrique Javier Santiago-García*.
Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Guanajuato. Departamento de Nutrición (León, Gto., México); *Laboratorio Estatal de Salud Pública de Guanajuato. Secretaría de Salud (Léon, Gto., México); **Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigación para el Desarrollo Integral Regional, CIIDIR-IPN, (Guasave, Sin., México)
E-mail: rmonroy79@yahoo.com.mx
Introduction
Alternatives sources of high quality protein are required by the accelerated increase of population, to exploited alternative food sources and also to obtain and additional benefice from its source. Chia, native to southern Mexico, was use by ancient Aztecs, Mexicans and habitants of Southern California and Arizona as food supplement for energy, endurance and strength needed under extreme conditions such as heat, dryness, short-term food, water deficiency and for medicine (1). About this crop the plant explorer Edward Palmer wrote (1871): “In preparing chia for use the seeds are roasted and ground, and the addition of water makes a mucilaginous mass several times the original bulk, sugar to taste is added, and the result is the much prized semi-fluid pinole of Indians and others—to me one of the best and most nutritive foods while traveling over the deserts (2)”.
Chia is a cereal composed of several species: Salvia polystachya, Hyptis suaveolens and Salvia hispanica L (3), the last one, currently harvested in a small scale in few Mexico´s states like Morelos, Puebla, Guerrero and Jalisco (4).