NUTRITIONAL AND NUTRACEUTICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF VEGETABLES OF ANCESTRAL USE IN MEXICO

Abstract

In Mexico, consumption of purslanes (Portulaca oleracea), quelites (Chenopodium spp.), quintoniles (Amaranthus spp.), huauzontles (Chenopodium spp.) and romeritos (Suaeda spp.) is maintained since pre-Columbian times. Nowadays, these vegetables are part of the customs and culinary traditions and of the great biodiversity cultivated in the country; however, their nutritional and nutraceutical quality are unknown. The objective of this study was to evaluate the mineral content, proximal composition and nutraceuticals to contribute to the food revaluation of these vegetables. The mineral and proximal analyses were performed by conventional methods and the nutraceutical concentrations by spectrophotometric analyses. The analysis of variance and the means test (Tukey, 0.05) showed that purslanes had the highest concentrations of N, P, Fe, Mg, Mn, Cu and Zn; quintoniles presented the highest content of Ca in comparison to that of the remaining vegetables. The carbohydrates contets in decreasing order were in huauzontles > quelites > quintoniles > purslanes > romeritos, and in crude fiber they were in huauzontles > quelites > purslanes > quintoniles > romeritos. Quintoniles and purslanes presented the highest levels of protein (26.2 and 25.9 % on fresh weight basis, respectively), huauzontles and quelites had the highest content of phenolic compounds (432.9 and 420.2 mg of gallic acid equivalents 100 g^-1 fresh weight), flavonoids (135.3 y 117.0 mg equivalents of quercetin 100 g^-1 fresh weight) and antioxidant activity (83.4 and 88.8 % inhibition of free radicals, respectively). The antioxidant activity in huauzontles was associated to the contents of phenolic compounds and flavonoids.