Research Article
Muhammad M. U., Kwazo H. A., A
Abstract
Plant information are vital to assess and develop nutrition, food security policies, traditional medicine and its significance in the distribution of these chemical constituents, as a result, the nutritional and phytochemical composition of Gardenia sokotensis pulp and seeds were analyzed. The moisture content, ash content, crude lipid, crude protein, crude fibre, calorific energy value and available carbohydrate were analyzed on dry weight bases. All the determinants were carried out in triplicates. The pulp had high value of ash (17.88 ± 0.41%), moisture (21.71 ± 0.00%) and crude lipid (53.96 ± 1.59%) while the seeds had high value of crude protein (13.04 ± 0.47%), crude fibre (17.65 ± 0.14%), carbohydrate (9.67%) and energy value (1445.87Kcal). The anti-nutritional factors for pulp and seeds were phytate (0.14 ± 0.00), (2.30 ± 0.00), oxalate (1.10 ± 0.00), (1.10 ± 0.00), nitrate (0.04 ±0.00), (0.14 ± 0.00), cyanide (0.12 ± 0.00), (0.21 ± 0.00) and tannins (0.21 ± 0.00), (0.27 ± 0.00) respectively and all were within the tolerable level. The results of mineral analysis of the seeds and pulp showed different concentration of the element, Na (106.67 and 85.83), K (5700 and 7666.67), Ca (0.6833 and 0.4333), Mg (0.2500 and 0.8266), Fe (4.2914 and 6.7959), Zn (1.3639 and 0.1522), Cu (1.5298 and 2.1755), Cr (0.0096 and 0.0163), Mn (0.2615 and 0.3101), Pb (0.0594 and 0.0657), Co (0.0447 and 0.1195) and for phosphorus (3.4700 and 10.3000). Phytochemical screening indicated the presence of alkaloid, saponins, steroids, tannins, cardiac glycosides and flavonoids. Based on these results, seeds and pulp of Gardenia sokotensis contains appreciable amount of nutrients and secondary metabolite which could serve as a supplementary source of food and new drug discovery for the benefit of humans and livestock.