Nutritional Assessment of Indonesian Chilli Landraces (Capsicum chinense Jaqc.)

Abstract

Chillies (Capsicum spp.) are highly nutritious vegetables and spices and are an important component in the Asian cuisine due to their aroma attributes and health value. To gain a better insight of the health value of chillies in North Toraja, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, the nutrient content, the morphological parameters and the yield of three different chilli landraces of the variety ‘Katokkon’ (Capsicum chinense Jaqc.), i.e. ‘Limbong Sampolo’, ‘Leatung 1’, and ‘Leatung 2’ were investigated. The nutrient parameters included capsaicin, pro-vitamin A, and vitamin C contents. Moreover, those differences were studied in two villages (Buntu Datu and To’pao) for the landrace ‘Leatung 2’. The research was performed with dried chillies using high pressure thin layer chromatography for the determination of capsaicin content, spectrophotometric determination for pro-vitamin A and iodometry for vitamin C content. The results showed that the capsaicin content varied between 7.91 mg/g DM (‘Leatung 1’) to 9.94 mg/g DM (‘Limbong Sampolo’) which corresponds with values on the Scoville heat unit (SHU) ranging from 118,712.677 to 149,074.747. The pro-vitamin A content was found to be highest (1.01 mg/g DM) in ‘Limbong Sampolo’ and lowest (0.60 mg/g DM) in ‘Leatung 2’ from To’pao. Vitamin C was found to be lowest (0.20 mg/g DM) in ‘Leatung 2’ from Buntu Datu and highest (0.26 mg/g DM) in ‘Leatung 1’. The statistical analysis showed that there were no significant differences between the landraces and the villages for ‘Leatung 2’. Compared to the capsaicin values in literature (up to SHU 600,000), the landraces showed lower values. This was also found for the pro-vitamin A contents. In contrast, the vitamin C values were higher than those reported in literature. In conclusion, it can be stated, that the three landraces of ‘Katokkon’ in general showed high nutritious values, irrespectively of the different growing conditions in the two villages.