Green lavers are green algae of the family Ulvaceae and the genus Enteromorpha. Among them, Ulva linza mixed with U. prolifera is utilized as foods. Green lavers have the highest iron content among algae, i.e., 77.0mg/100g of dry weight. On the other hand, the iron content of U. prolifera from Muroto is remarkably low. Here we studied the iron contents of U. prolifera and U. linza from different locations. The iron content of U. prolifera from the Shimanto River was lower than that of U. linza from the Ehime Prefecture and U. prolifera from the Yoshino River, i.e., 23.3 ± 1.2mg/100g, 114.3 ± 0.5mg /100g, and 113.4 ± 16.0mg/100g of dry weight, respectively. The iron content of U. prolifera from the Yoshino River was affected by commercial lots.

　The objective of this study was to determine the effect of heating with water vapor using a pressure control chamber on quality and microbiological property of ready meals. Temperature of “kinpira-gobou” filled with plastic cups followed the temperature change of inside the chamber almost simultaneously. The max strength and the hardness score of “kinpira-gobou” heated at 80 ℃ for 1 min did not decrease at all compared with that of non-heated samples. Furthermore, the hardness score of the samples did not decrease when heated at 100 ℃ for 5 min or lower. Viable cell counts of “kinpira-gobou” heated at 80 ℃ for 1 min using a pressure control chamber were below 2.0 log CFU/g for 10 days at 10 ℃; however, that of non-heated samples stored at 10 ℃ were 4.4 and 7.2 log CFU/g at 3 and 7 days, respectively. These results indicated that the heating with water vapor using a pressure control chamber could extend shelf-life of ready meals with large void fraction, such as “kinpira-gobou”, without loss of textural properties.