Abstract
Wild edible plants are important nutrient contributors in the diet of populations both in rural and urban areas. Eastern Anatolia has high plant diversity, and many plants are widely used as traditional food and medicine. In this study, approximate compositions, bioactive compounds and antioxidant capacities of twelve edible wild plants in Eastern Anatolia were investigated. L-ascorbic acid, total chlorophyll, total carotenoid and total phenolic contents of analyzed edible wild plants ranged from 1.03 to 10589.71 mg/kg dw, 88.70 to 1740.02 mg/kg dw, 25.00 to 700.20 mg β-car. eq./kg dw, and 444.14 to 2071.96 mg GA eq./kg dw, respectively. Chlorogenic and gallic acids were the most abundant phenolic acids in the plant samples. Rutin, quarcetin, kaempferol and luteolin were identified and quantified in the samples. Luteolin (15.98- 832.82 mg/kg dw) was identified in almost all tested plants (except Coriandrum sativum). The results showed that Arum conophalloides, Rumex tuberosus, Rheum ribes, Plantago lanceolata, Tragopogon longirostris, and Chenopodium album had high contents of different phytochemicals, and antioxidant activities. These plants are available for a short time of the year and in small quantities. Future studies should be focused on biological, functional and toxicological assays and finally for commercial production of these promising plants.
Highlights
Plants have played an important role throughout the human history in all geographical regions of the World
While the protein (1.20%) and pH (4.99) values noted by Tosun et al (2012) for E. spectabilis were in good agreement with our results, dry matter (10.87%), ash (0.87%) and titratable acidity (0.57%) values were higher than our results
The results suggest that DPPH may be more useful for assaying the antioxidant activity in plants than ABTS, because DPPH shows good correlation with several antioxidant compounds
Summary
Plants have played an important role throughout the human history in all geographical regions of the World. Several researchers have studied the properties of traditional and wild edible plants (Sommano et al, 2013; Tunçtürk & Özgökçe, 2015; Alam et al, 2020). Most of these studies have shown an important positive relationship between usage of these plants in diet, and health. Antioxidants are the most important parts of human nutrition due to the correlation of their intake with the lower incidence for chronic diseases associated with various inflammations and oxidative stresses such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and age-related degenerative processes (Kaliora & Dedoussis, 2007; Alam et al, 2020)
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