Abstract:
Vegetables play a vital role in the prevention of human disease and in the improvement of general health as
these contain vitamins, amino acids, fiber, antioxidants and minerals. In the present study, some less familiar
vegetables of Pakistan namely chickpea (leaves), chungah (shoots), drumstick tree (inflorescences), radish (fruit pods), mountain ebony (flower buds), mustard (leaves), purslane (leaves) and white goosefoot (leaves and shoots) were evaluated for proximate composition, mineral content, phenolic content and free radical
scavenging activity. The protein, fat, fiber, carbohydrate and ash contents of the selected vegetables were in the range of 2.9 to 6.6%, 0.2 to 2.5%, 2.4 to 8.6%, 9.7 to 20.1% and 1.0 to 2.3%, respectively. The concentration of vitamin C ranged between 32.6 to 120.1 mg/100 g. The phosphorus, calcium, iron, zinc, manganese,magnesium and copper were 190 to 3400, 103 to 987, 19 to 93, 12 to 47, 9 to 121, 299 to 1635 and nondetectable level to 42 mg/kg, respectively. The amount of total phenolic content varied from 55.3 to 221.0 mg/gin the dry methanolic extracts of the studied plants. The EC50 values were below 1400 µg/ml, indicating that all the studied vegetables have good scavenging effect on DPPH radical.
