Nutritional and Phytochemical Analysis of Ripe and Unripe Roystonea regia Fruit Pericarp
Pages : 1301-1306Download PDF
This study investigated the potential of Roystonea regia fruit pericarp for use as food and medicine. This was done by comparatively assessing the mineral, proximate and phytochemical compositions of ripe and unripe fruit pericarps. Results of phytochemical screening of the pericarp ethanol extract showed that reducing sugar, tannin, saponin, cardiac glycoside, alkaloid, phenolic and flavonoid were present in both ripe and unripe fruit pericarps while anthocyanosides and anthraquinones were not detected in both. Results of the proximate analysis showed that the ripe pericarp contained more moisture (7.58 %), crude protein (8.07 %), ash (11.14 %), fat (9.80 %) and carbohydrate (39.86 %) while the unripe pericarp contained more dry matter (92.90 %) and crude fibre (30.56 %). However, results of the mineral analysis showed that Ca, Mg, K, Na, Mn, Fe, Zn and Ni were higher in the unripe pericarp while both pericarps had the same concentration of P (119.95± mg/100g). Co, Cd and Pb were not detected in both samples while Ni (0.73 mg/ 100g) was found only in the unripe pericarp. Relative to other minerals, K was highest in both ripe (1600.24 mg/100g) and unripe pericarp (1804.42 mg/100g). Based on the presence of pharmaceutically important phytochemicals, essential minerals and proximate values, this study concluded that both ripe and unripe R. regia pericarps have significant nutritional and medicinal potentials which could be exploited domestically and industrially.
Keywords: Roystonea regia, phytochemical, mineral, proximate, fruit pericarp