No Difference in Nutritional Profiles of Wild and Cultured Juvenile Sandfish, Holothuria scabra

The demand for sandfish, Holothuria scabra has rapidly grown in the last decades. In order to better understand the quality of this species as human food, nutritional profiles of farmed and wild juvenile sandfish were investigated in this study by measuring the proximate body compositions of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids, including the amino acid and fatty acid contents. Body wall of juvenile wild sandfish from Medana and Sekotong in Lombok, Indonesia were compared with body wall of juveniles cultivated at Marine Bio Industry LIPI, and fed with mashed sea grass Enhalus acoroides leaves for a three months feeding period. The results show that protein, lipid and carbohydrate contents of juvenile farmed sandfish were similar to juvenile wild sandfish. Amino acid compositions of wild and farmed juvenile sandfish predominantly consist of glycine, glutamic acid and alanine. Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) were the major fatty acids in the body wall of wild and farmed H. scabra. Arachidonic acid (C20:4n6) was recorded as the highest component among all PUFAs. The contents of total PUFAs, total omega-3 and total omega-6 in the body wall of farmed H. scabra were slightly higher compared to wild H. scabra. In summary, both wild and farmed juvenile sandfish contain high amounts of valuable nutrients that have the potential to be used as a functional food for human health due to beneficial FA ratios, besides being adelicious and healthy seafood for human consumption.