Effect Of Pretreatments And Drying Methods On The Physicochemical And Antioxidant Properties Of Eggplant (Solanum Aethiopicum) Flour

ABSTRACT

Vegetables play vital role in human nutrition. Each vegetable contain a unique amount of various nutrients that are strongly linked with the protection of different health diseases (Naeem and Ugur, 2019). According to Dias (2012), vegetable provide micronutrients, dietary fiber, and phytochemicals that are associated with improvement of gastrointestinal health, good vision, and reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, chronic diseases like diabetes, and some forms of cancer. 

Eggplant (Solanum aethiopicum) is vegetable crop with coarsely lobed leaves (Naeem and Ugur, 2019). It is an integral part of African tradition and diet known as ‘gauta’ or ‘yalo’, by the Hausas, ‘afufa’ or ‘anara’ in Igbo and ‘igba’ in Yoruba (Chinedu et al., 2011). Eggplants possess 4.58 to 5.79 % protein, 1.65 to 2.13 % lipid, 1.78 to 1.81 % crude fibre and 11.77 to 15.42 % carbohydrate (Agoreyo et al., 2012). It is one of the best dietary sources of biologically active polyphenolic compounds, vitamins, antioxidants and medicinal requirements (Sohani and Tawar, 2019). Eggplants possess appreciable phytochemical substance like anthocyanin (Sanchez-Mata et al., 2010). It is reported to have analgesic, antipyretic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-asthmatic, hypo-lipidemic, anti-platelet and anaphylactic reaction inhibitory activities (Solanke and Tawar, 2019).