Phytochemicals in commonly consumed foods in malawian diets (original) (raw)

Functional Foods in Health and Disease

Background: Plant foods, as functional foods, provide not only the essential nutrients needed to sustain life, but also bioactive compounds (phytochemicals) for health promotion and disease prevention.Objective of the study: The aim of this research was to screen phytochemicals in commonly consumed fruits and vegetables in Malawi. The effect of processing vegetables on phytochemicals was also evaluated.Methods: The potential of some commonly consumed fruits and vegetables in their raw and cooked forms as natural source of phytochemicals was evaluated in both aqueous and methanol extracts. These fruits and vegetables were screened for alkaloids, saponin, tannins, flavonoids, quinones, coumarins, terpenoids, steroids, glycosides and anthocyanins, total flavonoids content (TFC) and total phenol content (TPC) using standard procedures. TPC and TFC were also analyzed using spectrophotometric methods.Results: Almost all the phytochemicals screened were found in some of the studied fruits ...