Abstract
Human consumption of fruits and vegetables are generally below recommended levels. Waste from the production, e.g., of un-used parts such as broccoli leaves and stem when producing broccoli florets for food, is a sustainability issue. In this study, broccoli leaves were analyzed for the content of various dietary fibre and phenolics, applying the Uppsala method and HPLC analyses, respectively. The results showed that broccoli leaves had comparable levels of dietary fibre (26%–32% of dry weight (DW)) and phenolic compounds (6.3–15.2 mg/g DW) to many other food and vegetables considered valuable in the human diet from a health perspective. A significant positive correlation was found among soluble dietary fibre and phenolic acids indicating possible bindings between these components. Seasonal variations affected mainly the content of conjugated phenolics, and the content of insoluble dietary fibre. This study verified the importance of the use of broccoli production side streams (leaves) as they may contribute with health promoting components to the human diet and also socio-economic and environmental benefits to the bioeconomic development in the society.
Highlights
Human health benefits from diets being rich in fruits and vegetables have been verified in a range of studies, and is partly due to an association with a reduction in cardiovascular disease and cancer mortality [1]
The present study clearly showed that broccoli leaves, today commonly not used as food, have high content of both dietary fiber and phenolic compounds and that the content of some of the dietary fiber constituents and phenolic compounds co-varied
A side stream in the broccoli production, contain high levels of dietary fiber and phenolics, comparable with other vegetables currently used as food
Summary
Human health benefits from diets being rich in fruits and vegetables have been verified in a range of studies, and is partly due to an association with a reduction in cardiovascular disease and cancer mortality [1]. Both fruit and vegetables, as well as other plant based foods, are rich in compounds that are suggested to have health beneficial properties [2]. Dietary fiber is important as energy source for the gut microbiota, which will use the dietary fiber to produce short chained fatty acids (SCFA) [11] These SCFA can be absorbed and can help in regulating the metabolism and immune system of the host [11]. Fruit and vegetables have been shown to be good sources of dietary fiber [14]
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