Abstract:
Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) a fruit crop, is herbaceous creeping plant belonging to the
family Cucurbitaceous. It is mainly propagated by seeds and thrives best in warm areas. It can
be grown along the coastal areas of Ghana, the forest zone and especially along riverbeds in
the Northern Savannah areas. Watermelon is a highly purchased fruit because of its highly
nutritious nature, and it thirst quenching ability. Watermelon is purchased on the daily by
consumers, the seeds of these watermelon is just thrown away and tossed in the trash can
leading to high wastage of these seeds in the country. The objectives of this study is to
determine the proximate composition of watermelon seeds and to determine some selected
mineral composition of watermelon seeds. Two varieties of the watermelon seed were used;
Sweet Baby and Karoka varieties. For the proximate analysis, the moisture content, protein,
fat, carbohydrate, crude ash and fibre were determined. The minerals determined were
Phosphorus, Potassium, Sodium and Calcium. From the experimental results, it is possible to
state that these seeds which were analyzed contained significant quantities of the various
nutrients being analyzed. It was observed that for all the parameters measured, there was a
statistical difference between the proximate and mineral composition for the two seed varieties
except the Fat content which there was no statistical difference between the two varieties.
Potassium was also found to be the highest mineral in the minerals investigated in this
experiment with Potassium contents 33500.2±0.10 and 38100.6±0.10 for Sweet Baby and
Karoka varieties respectively. The findings from this study showed that the watermelon seed
varieties; Sweet baby and Karoka were good sources of various nutrients. These nutrients were
present in high quantities.
Description:
A dissertation in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Education,
Faculty of Vocational Education, submitted to the School of
Graduate Studies, in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the award of the
Master of Technology
(Catering and Hospitality)
in the University of Education, Winneba
APRIL, 2021