Comparative nutritional compositions of Irvingia gabonensis (wild bush mango) seeds and Abelmoschus esculentus (OKRA) pods

Abstract

The comparative study on selected nutritive values of Irvingia gabonensis seeds and Abelmoschus esculentus pods was carried out using standard methods. The results of the proximate analysis showed that both plants are good sources of carbohydrate and protein while their functional properties showed that they had close to neutral pH values. Thus, their inclusion in food formulation may not influence the pH of the food product. It was also observed that Abelmoschus esculentus was more viscous than Irvingia gabonensis. Therefore the former can be preferably used for soup thickening due to its greater draw ability. Furthermore, Abelmoschus esculentus seeds contained higher potassium (3600.01±2.00mg/kg) and magnesium (2300.11±1.05mg/kg) values than Irvingia gabonensis (1152.32.±2.00 and 1170.03±1.02mg/kg respectively). In addition, Abelmoschus esculentus had higher iron (40.05±1.02mg/kg) than Irvingia gabonensis (12.42±0.12mg/kg) seeds thus making it a better source of iron required for healthy bone. However, both of them can serve as good sources of the minerals involved in pH balance, regulation of heartbeat and blood pressure. The amino acid profiles of these plants showed that they were very rich in glutamic acid (14.40±0.21 and 13.18±0.12g/100g of protein) but poor in methionine (1.02±0.02 and 1.51±0.15g/100g protein) respectively for Irvingia gabonensis and Abelmoschus esculentus while among the essential amino acids, leucine was the highest (8.01±0.01 and 6.61g/100g protein respectively). Thus these values indicated that Irvingia gabonensis could be a better source of these essential amino acids than Abelmoschus esculentus.