An Analysis of Food Value and Some Selected Secondary Metabolites of Emilia coccinea (Asteraceae) Leaf

Abstract

It has been established that plants are good sources of food and medicine. In recent time, quest for greater knowledge and scientific novelty have led scientists to start paying more attention to minor constituents of food and food plant materials looking for “natural products” with healing powers. This study is an attempt to evaluate the proximate composition, constituents of trace elements, heavy metals, percentage yield of crude extracts/fractions and qualitative identification of phytochemicals in E. coccinea dried leaf. Proximate analysis employed standard analytical techniques of Association of Official Analytical Chemists. Mineral elements were analyzed using Atomic Absorption and X-ray Fluorescence spectroscopies. Tannin, saponin, steroid, alkaloid, reducing sugar, flavonoid and phenol identifications were done using standard analytical techniques. The proximate results indicated that the plant leaf contained high crude fibre content (13.39%) and carbohydrate (66.52%). The mineral elements showed that Calcium (241.78 g/kg), Potassium (46.21 g/kg), Sodium (2.85 g/kg), Magnesium (1.24 g/kg) and Manganese (0.73 g/kg), were the most abundant mineral elements in the leaf sample. This was followed by Zinc, Rubidium, Iron, Nickel, Selenium, Titanium, Copper, Cobalt and Chromium in the range of 0.0014 to 0.28 g/kg. Lead (Pb) was not detected. The phytochemical screening showed the presence of tannin, saponin, steroid, alkaloid, reducing sugar, flavonoids and phenols. These results suggest that the plant leaf is a source of nutrients, mineral elements and phytochemicals. The absence of Lead showed that the plant leaf will not constitute a health hazard for consumers.  However, these results justify the wide traditional uses of this plant leaf as food and medicine.