Anacardium occidentale (cashew) in an evergreen tree that grows in parts of South America, India and Africa. The tree produces a nut that is dried and sold commercially as a snack and food ingredient. Cashew nuts are used in cuisine for their distinctive taste and nutritional content. A number of studies have investigated the nutritional content of cashew nuts as they are an important crop and the third most produced nut in the world. From these studies it is observed that the total fat content of cashew nuts is around 50 % of the total weight of the nut. Of the fatty acids in the fat content of the nut, unsaturated fatty acids constitute around 80 %, whereas saturated fat constitutes around 20 %. In 100 grams of the nuts, there is around 21 % protein and 20 % carbohydrate. Therefore cashew nuts have a high fat content like most nuts, but they also have an unusually high carbohydrate content. One of the major phytochemical components of the nuts is β-Sitosterol, a major plant sterol. The most abundant amino acid in cashew nuts is glutamic acid, but the nuts are poor sources of tryptophan. As with all nuts, the unsaturated fatty acids in the nut are protected by high concentrations of vitamin E in the form of tocopherols. The most abundant mineral in cashew nuts is potassium.
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Rico, R., Bulló, M. and Salas‐Salvadó, J. 2016. Nutritional composition of raw fresh cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) kernels from different origin. Food Science and Nutrition. 4(2): 329-338
