Varietal differences in proximate composition of selected commonly consumed vegetables of Bangladesh

Abstract

Vegetables are considered as protective food due to their diverse nutrient content and wide range of health benefits they
exert. Being plant origin, nutrient composition of vegetables depends on botanic and cultivar’s origin, geographical
area, climate and others. Present study was carried out to estimate the proximate composition of 17 varieties of
commonly consimied vegetables: Sweet Pumpkin, Radish, Tomato, Brinjal and Bottie gourd. All samples were
collected from the research field of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), which is involved in
development of new varieties through a standard cultivation system. The moisture, protein, fat, TDF, ash and
carbohydrate content were estimated. The moisture content in selected samples ranges from 86.86% (Brinjal; Begun-3)
to 96.74% (Radish: Mula-3), protein from 0.45% (Tomato-14) to 1.73 (Brinjal: Begim-10, Begun-6), fat from 0.02%
(Radish: Mula-2) to 0.62% (Brinjal: Begun-3), ash from 0.39% (Sweet pumpkin; Mishtikumra-1) to 8.14%
(Tomato-14), TDF from 0.22% (Bottle gourd: Lau-2) to 4.31% (Brinjal; Begun-Uttara), available carbohydrate from
0.75% (Brinjal: Begim-3) to 7.67% (Radish; Mula-3) and energy from 9.98 Kcal/lOOg (Brinjal- Begun-3) to 46.26 Kcal
(Radish: Mula-3). The differences in nutrient content among different varieties varied from around 4-37% for Sweet
pumpkin, 3-44% for Radish, 2-74% for Tomato, 8-94% for Brinjal and 17-51% for Bottle gourd. The present findings
indicate that nutrient composition differs to a large extent due to the variation in varieties which in fact allows people to
choose desired variety while planning diet and also allows to link nutrition and agriculture sectors for better nutritional
status of the population. However, further research work should be carried out on other nutrient content of such
different species to reveal the complete nutritional profile in terms of variation.