Nutritional, antinutritional and antioxidant attributes of Prosopis pods

CARDOZO ML; ORDOÑEZ R; ZAMPINI, IC; CUELLO, AS; DIBENEDETTI, G.; ISLA M.I

Chillan, provincia de Concepción, Chile

Congreso; Primer Congreso Internacional de Fármaco-Botánica de Chile; 2009

Blacpma

--Prosopis species is a mayor resource for arid and semi-arid South American inhabitants. Its fruit,“algarroba” is a legume rich in protein and free sugars. Traditionally, Prosopis fruit is considereda valuable raw material for Wichí people, and its harvest represents a core economic activity. Bymeans of analyses performed on algarrobo pods (P. alba and P. nigra), we determined theirnutritional profile and antioxidant capacity. Sucrose constituted the dominant sugar found in bothspecies. Aqueous and ethanolic extractions showed around a 2.9 and 1.4 % of soluble proteins,respectively. The highest total phenolic content was observed in aqueous extracts (around 4 mggallic acid equivalents (GAE)/g DW). Condensed tannins were detected on acetonic extractionsof P.alba and P. nigra, (69.04 and 46.41 mg quebracho tannin equivalents/g DW, respectively).None of the samples presented phytic acid levels higher enough to constitute a nutritionalproblem. The free radical scavenging activities were evaluated by DPPH and TEAC assays.Ethanolic extracts showed a better scavenger capacity than aqueous extracts and P. alba was thebest one with an IC50 value of 178 μg GAE/g DW for DPPH assay. Again, TEAC values for P.alba were better than those obtained for P. nigra, except this time aqueous extract was thehighest. Prosopis species investigated in this study are shown to be a novel rich source ofantioxidant compounds.