Adequacy of mineral contents of raw and plain sticky sauce of common and bush okra

In Nigeria, common okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L.) and bush okra (Corchorus olitorius L.) are popular mucilage vegetables used as sticky sauce for easy consumption of starchy staples.Both raw vegetables and sticky sauce of common as well as bush okra were estimated for their potential in the provision of daily dietary allowance of important minerals. Modified methods of the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) were used to estimate the assessed minerals.The results showed that the raw and sticky sauce of assessed common and bush okra contained appreciable levels and essential minerals, but are not adequate to meet recommended dietary allowance, except for Fe and Cu. Comparatively, the two species of okra varied significantly in their mineral content of the raw and plain sauce. There was also a negative effect of cooking on the mineral contents, which reduced significantly to an average of 30% on a dry weight basis.Therefore, the two vegetables, either as a fresh or sticky sauce, require additional sources of P, K, Na, Mg, Ca, Mn, and Zn to meet recommended dietary allowance. Furthermore, dried mucilagesauce, though, could be an appreciable post harvest management and storage but not without a loss of about one-third mineral content in the process. However, the sauce of common okra andbush okra are good sources for any of the assessed mineral restricted diets

Genetic diversity among yellow maize with pro-vitamin A content

An improvement in the concentration of vitamin A in adapted yellow maize varieties grown in Africa can have a positive impact on the dietary intakes in regions where maize is a staple food. The present study was designed to identify heterotic groups and divergent parents for developing new pro-vitamin A enriched maize lines. Ten Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) markers were used to generate DNA profiles among thirteen commonly grown yellow maize lines across south western Nigeria and three high pro-vitamin A lines from International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan. The result obtained estimated 100% polymorphism among the ten SSR markers with polymorphic information content that ranged from 0.28 to 0.71 on an average of 0.50. Genetic similarity coefficients among the 16 maize lines varied from 0.28 to 0.92 GS with an average of 0.63 GS. Four well defined groups were identified at 0.65 GS with an IITA line, PVA8, solely, formed a group. The study identified PVA8 and its most three distant relatives as potential divergent parents that could serve as important genetic resources for broadening the genetic base of the presently assessed IAR&T maize collections and also to develop new maize lines with higher level of pro-vitamin A content

Chemo-characterization and optimization of macro and micro nutrients for exopolysaccharides and mycelia growth in pleurotus tuberregium (RUMPH, EX FR)

Abstract Exoploysaccharides are potential nutraceutic, probiotic, phamarceutic and cosmesceutic natural products in fungi. Pleurotus tuberregium is an underutilized tropical fungus that is useful as food with recent reports of pharmacological activities. The present study evaluated and characterized environmental conditions and nutrients for optimal P. tuberregium mycelia growth (PtMG) and exopolysaccharides (PtEPS) production using batch culturing and diverse chemometric methods, respectively. Rank-sum analysis categorized the assessed conditions and nutrients into six stimulatory classes and most suitable nutrients and conditions for PtMG and PtEPS were co-identified with analysis of variance. Glucose, yeast, sodium chloride (NaCl) and tricalcium diphosphate (Ca3(PO4)2) were excellent stimulant (ES) for both PtEPS and PtMG under culturing condition of pH 6 at 30 °C for 15 d. The Chemo-phene trees generated by cluster analysis allowed visualization and clear-cut demarcation of the six stimulatory classes. The information embedded in the present study is useful for improving and developing culturing media for optimal PtMG and PtEPS yields, enabling maximal P. tuberregium utilization as food and medicine