Assessment of Proximate, Minerals and Amino Acids Content of Black Plum (Vitex doniana) Young Leaves as Dietary Vegetable Substitute

Abstract

Vegetables have been widely used for their health-promoting properties, as they have been found to be rich in minerals, and phytochemicals. The utilization of available leaves rich in essential nutrients is limited in the northern part of Nigeria; this may probably be due to ignorance. The specific objective of this work was to assess the proximate, mineral, and amino acid content of Vitex doniana’s young leaves as dietary vegetable substitutes. The leaves sample was analyzed for proximate, minerals, and amino acids content using established procedures. The result for proximate content revealed the following values 11.83±0.21, 21.16±0.11, 15.73±0.01, 12.83±0.08, and 12.73±0.01 and 41.31±0.05% for moisture, ash, crude protein, crude lipid, crude fibre, and carbohydrate respectively. Calcium had the highest concentration (23.53±0.35) while iron, potassium, magnesium, zinc, and copper were 18.87±021, 13.89±0.47, 12.71±0.33, 4.74±0.23 and 0.92±0.09 (mg/100g) respectively. The amino acid content of the black plum young leaves was 47.87,18. 21, 10.14, 18.26, 8.29, 1.49, and 1.02 for cysteine, leucine, tyrosine, proline, threonine, lysine, and methionine respectively. Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that these leaves contain essential nutrients that could complement well-known vegetables to enhance food security in Nigeria.