Proximate, Minerals and Anti-Nutritional Composition of Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) Grass

Abstract

The peels of Eichhornia crassipes were evaluated for its proximate and anti-nutritional composition. The results show that the moisture, ash, crude protein, crude lipid, crude fibre, available carbohydrate and energy value were 89.20 ± 0.23% weight wet, 18.20 ± 0.21 %, 8.2 ± 0.18 %, 2.20 ± 0.03 %, 21.56 ± 0.10 %, 49.98 ± 0.48 % and 252.52 ± 0.50 kcal/100g dry weight respectively. The result of minerals analysis showed that the grass is a good source of both macro and micro elements with calcium as predominant. The result shows that the hydrocyanic acid, nitrate, oxalate and phytate were 0.56 ± 0.01 mg/100gDW, 0.38 ± 0.01 mg/100gDW, 0.33 ± 0.05 mg/100gDW and 4.06 ± 1.69 mg/100gDW. The results indicate that if the grass is properly exploited and processed, they could be a high quality and cheap source of carbohydrates and minerals supplement in the formulation of animal feeds.