Studies of nutritional properties and antioxidant po-tential in green leafy vegetables

BACKBROUND: To estimate the nutritional and antioxidant potential of green leafy vegetables (GLV’s),  an investigation was carried out with ten GLV’s, namely Fenu-greek (Trigonella foenum graecum L.), amaranth (Amaranthus tricolor), spinach beet or palak (Beta vulgaris var. bengalensis), spinach (Spinacia oleracea), chenopod or bathua (Chenopodium album), sarson sag (Brassica juncea var. rapa), lettuce (Lactuca sativa), Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris spp. cicla) and Indian spinach or poi (Basella spp.) involving their most commonly grown and popular varieties/landraces in India to determine their nutritional and antioxidant composition. 

RESULT: Among leafy vegetables ascorbic acid was found maximum in amaranth variety Pusa Kiran (67mg/100g) followed by Chenopod cultivar Bathua Local (60.6 mg/100 g fw.). Significantly high level of total carotenoids and beta carotene was rec-orded in amaranth cultivar Pusa Lal Chaulai (69.4 and 7.8 mg/100 g fw. respectively) & Pusa Kiran (59.0 and 6.2mg/100g fw respectively). CUPRAC was recorded maxi-mum in chenopod cultivar Bathua Local (32.7 μ moltrolax/g) followed by Pusa Bathua-1 (23.0 μ moltrolax/g), however Swiss Chard Local (4.2 μ mol ascorbic acid/ g f.w.) recorded maximum FRAP value. Amaranth cultivar Pusa Lal Chaulai recorded maximum poly phenol content among GLV’s (1134 µg gallic acid equivalent (GAE)/ g) , while palak cultivar Pusa Bharati recorded minimum (154 µg GAE/ g). As for as dry matter content was concerned Swiss chard recorded significantly higher dry matter (22.9 %) than other GLV’s.  Several genotypes were identified as rich source of min-eral viz.  Pusa Lal Chaulai for iron content (11.2 mg/100g), Local Chenopod for cal-cium (271.3mg/100g), spinach Sel-VSPS for zinc (12.6 mg/100g), while for potassium chenopod Bathua Sel-2 (421.1mg/100g). 

CONCLUSION: The antioxidant capacity of different leafy vegetables were in order of amaranth > chenopod > spinach > palak > fenugreek > sarson sag. These findings of this study will be helpful in tackling the problem of malnutrition by creating awareness among the consumers about the importance of leafy vegetables and development of nutritionally rich genotypes by the breeders.