Nutritional Content of Vietnamese Edible Bird’s Nest from Selected Regions: A Recent Study

Aims: Edible bird’s nest is well known as health food and Chinese’s traditional medicine. Edible bird’s nest(EBN) is made from saliva secretions of the swiftlets, genus Aerodramus, whose habitats are Southeast Asian countries. It is believed that different nutritional composition of EBN is dependent on the geographical origin, environmental condition, climates and food availability . This study reports on the nutritional content of edible bird’s nest of two different sources - house-farmed bird’s nest (Long An and Kien Giang Province) and cave bird’s nest (Khanh Hoa Province) in Vietnam.

Methodology: Samples were collected from three different selected regions of Vietnam. Determination of protein, lipid and carbohydrate content was performed by AOAC Official Method 2001.12 (2005), AOAC Official Method 986.25 (2012) and FAO (1986), respectively. Meanwhile, Analysis of amino acid was conducted using Shimadzu gas chromatography equipped with flame ionization detector (GC-FID 2010) (EZ: faastTM USER’S MANUAL).

Results: Analytical results showed that the most abundant component found in these edible bird’s nests was protein (49.43 - 51.17%), followed by carbohydrate (36.93 - 38.53%), and lipid (0.01 - 0.04%). Fifteen amino acids including seven essential amino acids were found in the house-farmed bird’s nest while seventeen amino acids including eight essential were identified in cave bird’s nest. Proline (3.68 - 4.69%), aspartic acid (3.58 - 4.52%), and serine (3.74 - 4.09%) were the major amino acids found in both house-farmed and cave bird’s nests while lysine was found to be the lowest concentration (0.74 - 0.87%). Methionine and 4-hydroxyproline were presented only in the cave bird’s nest.

Conclusion: These findings indicate that there has been no significant difference in the content of protein, carbohydrate, and lipid (p > .05); however, the quality and quantity of some amino acids could be considered to be one of the key factors making the difference (p < .05) between house-farmed and cave edible bird’s nest.