Effect of Processing Methods on the Nutrient Composition of Four Commonly Used Green-Leafy Vegetables in Minna, Niger State
Résumé
The effect of processing methods on the nutrient composition of four commonly used green-leafy vegetables (Bitter leaf, Okra, Spinach and Ugwu) was carried out. Proximate, energy composition and vitamin (β-carotene and ascorbic acid) contents were determined using standard methods. The processing methods used were Blanching, Oven drying and Sun drying respectively. Fresh vegetables (bitter leaf, okra, spinach and Ugwu) served as Control samples. The result obtained for proximate analysis revealed higher protein value in the oven dried ugwu leaf (25.55%) followed by 25.28%, 23.10% and 21.33% in bitter leaf, spinach and okra respectively. Similar trend was observed in ash contents of the processed vegetables. The highest value (17.38%) was recorded for spinach, followed by bitter leaf (10.28%), ugwu (10.05%) and okra (8.15%). Contrarily, sun dried samples showed higher values for fat with greater value (5.08%) in spinach and lowest score (3.63%) in bitter leaf. Energy value of blanched okra had highest value of (364.10kcal/100g) followed by ugwu (344.53kcal/100g) and spinach (322.83kcal/100g). Similarly, carbohydrate content of blanched vegetable had highest values with a range of 63.30% (bitter leaf) and 76.15% (okra). Sun dried spinach had the highest value of 15.59% as against 7.67% in sun dried bitter leaf. The beta-carotene value of fresh bitter leaf (428.14mg/100g) was higher followed by blanched ugwu (377.68mg/100g) and blanched bitter leaf (310.18mg/100g). The lowest value was recorded for sun dried ugwu (33.60mg/100g). Vitamin C content of fresh vegetable was higher in all the leaves, okra (55.22mg/100g) had higher vitamin C value followed by bitter leaf (55.16mg/100g), spinach (51.22 mg/100g) and ugwu (31.02mg/100g). Blanched ugwu had the lowest vitamin C content (8.29mg/100g). Heat application was observed to reduce the vitamin C content of the vegetables. Generally, processing has shown to reduce vitamin C and beta-carotene content of the studied vegetables. This has a tendency of poor availability of the nutrients to the consumer which could result in malnutrition.
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