Essential Minerals Contained and Nutritive Contributions of Edible Parts of Some Mucilaginous Plants from Some Regions of Cote D'ivoire
Abstract
The aim of this study is to contribute to a better valorization of the mucilaginous food plants (MFPs) by the content determination in essential minerals, also to evaluate the nutritive contributions from the consumption.
Thus different edible parts constituted of leaves, fruits, flowers, calyx and kernels of nine mucilaginous food plants of Ivorian flora have been analyzed . It's about I. gabonensis, I. wombolu, C. olitorius, the varieties tomi and koto of A. esculentus, B. buonopozense, A. digitata, M. arboreus and B. mannii. The analysis of the macroelements (K, P, S, Ca and Na) gave the following contents: potassium (0.73±0.02 -4.53±0.03 g/100g DM), Phosphorus (0.40±0.03 -1.70±0.04 g/100g DM), sulphur (0.1±0.04 -0.75±0.03 g/100g DM), Calcium (0.06±0.01 -4.54±0.06 g /100g DM) and sodium (0.06±0.0 1 and 0.32±0.02 g /100g DM). The plants provided the microelements (Mg, Fe, Cu, Mn and Zn) contents following: magnesium (0.15±0.01 - 1.36±0.25 g/100g DM), Iron (6.73×10-3±2.84 -55.94×10-3±6.96 g/100g DM), copper (4.96×10-3±2.07 -54.04×10-3±4.63 g/100g DM). Th e kernels of I. wombolu and the leaves of M. arboreus provided 7.38×10-3±6.79 and 27.67×10-3±28.9 g/100g DM respectively in Zinc . The daily quantities of mucilaginous food plants consumed are consisted between 0.1 g/day and 0.7 g/day. This consumption prov ided to Ivorian adult of 70 kg the daily contributions estimated following: potassium (1.5 -27.70 mg/day), calcium (0.1 -31.80 mg/day), magnesium (1.1 -25.5 mg/day), iron (0.12 -1.18 mg/day). The leaves of M. arboreus provided the best daily contributions (0.1 9 mg/day) in Zinc. The leaves and the flowers among the parts investigated gave on the whole, the biggest daily contributions. They contributed for the majority of minerals, between 1% and 4% of the organism needs.
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Introduction
The mucilaginous food plants (MFPs) are consumed through the whole world. In Côte d’Ivoire, these plants serve to the confection of sauces very valued [1].The leaves of Adansonia digitata (baobab) and the fruits of Abelmoschus esculentus (gumbos) are used by numerous communities in the culinary preparations [2,3].They are part of a big group designated under the name of non ligneous forest plants. In the tropical and subtropical forests of Africa, Asia and Latin America, the importance of the non ligneous forestry products is not anymore to demonstrate. These products complete the agricultural production of the households while bringing them some food stuff rich in essential nutritive constituent to the good functioning of the organism [4]. A big number of nutritive substances provided by forest food fill significant functions for health and development. Thus, their absence in the diet could mean important consequences on health and well-being [5].
The non ligneous forestry products also permit a real increase of the incomes. They can be also one of the elements on which a strategy of valorization of the products of a soil can lean and generate many jobs. One of the true characteristic to these products, according to [6], resides in their accessibility, even to people not having arable earth and/or sufficient incomes. Indeed, the mucilaginous food plants are endowed with interesting properties bound to the presence of mucilages, substances of polysaccharide nature and/or protein, inflatable to the contact of water. Mucilage is a complex carbohydrate [7] with a highly branched structure that contains variable proportions of L-arabinose, D-Galactose, L-Rhamnose and D-xylose as well as in galacturonique acid [8].The possibilities of use of the mucilaginous plants are numerous. Mucilages are used in the agroalimentary, pharmaceutical and cosmetic domains [9,10,11,12].
Concerning the food habits of the populations of numerous regions, the mucilaginous plants act as agent of inflation in the local culinary preparations [1]. They are also used in the flocculation and the decanting of numerous local drinks [13]. The mucilaginous plants can be considered like functional food thanks to their properties of regulation of several parameters of health (blood sugar, blood-pressure, cholesterol, homeostasis of the nutriments). They possess the organoleptic properties and cut hunger [12,14,15]. Therefore, the objective of this study is to contribute to a better valorization of the mucilaginous food plants by the determination of the content in essential minerals of different edible parts of some plants descended of Ivorian flora.
Conclusion
This study showed that the mucilaginous food plants are rich in essential minerals to the organism. It showed also that the leaves and the fruits generally have more elevated contents than kernels and flowers. We notice that the quantities of mucilaginous food plants ingested per day were very weak (0.1g/day to 0.7g/day) when we take the total daily quantities ingested by Ivorian populations (1018.1 g/day). The parts of mucilaginous plants provided substantial daily contributions in some minerals, contributory thus of efficient manner to the needs of the consumers. The evaluation of the contributions showed that leaves and flowers had the biggest contributions to the needs in relation to kernels and fruits. The studies of variability divided the mucilaginous plants relatively in two groups to the mineral contribution. This classification orients the populations better on plants and specific parts to consume for an optimization of the contributions in mineral elements. Mucilaginous food plants especially present themselves like an asset in the struggle against the malnutrition and its perverse effects in the farming zones .