Determination of Nutritional Composition of Ackee’s Apple Blighia sapida and Monkey Kola Cola millenii

Abstract

The proximate analysis of the fruit sample that homogenously sampled from the wild was taken and quartered to get appreciable weight fit for analysis. Due to it perishable nature the quartered sample for each of the fruit was stored in an air tight container and kept in the refrigerator at a temperature of about 4°C. For the determination of the nutritional composition, parameters which include their proximate, minerals, and vitamin C were quantitatively determined while the anti-nutrient composition were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. Compared to ackee’s apple, monkey cola was found to consist of 64.41% moisture content, 1.69% ash, 10.21% crude fibre, 1.25% crude fat, 4.44% crude fibre, 18.06% carbohydrates while ackee’s apple consist of 73.21% moisture, 1.49% ash, 9.38 % crude protein, 13.98% crude fat, 2.08% crude fibre, 0.86% carbohydrates and 4.45% of vitamin C. The mineral analysis for both samples was quantitatively determined using Atomic Absorption spectrophotometer (AAS). The minerals determined for ackee’s apple and monkey cola were magnesium which was 1391.65 ppm, calcium 628.23 ppm, sodium 506.96 ppm, potassium 3976.14 ppm, iron 1.0 ppm, copper 5.00, zinc 4.00, cobalt 3.0 and phosphorus 2616.90 ppm the iron however, was not detected. Ackee’s apple on the other hand, consist of magnesium 498.01 ppm, calcium 478.56 ppm, sodium 398.80 ppm, potassium 4970.18 ppm, copper 2.00, zinc 5.00, cobalt 3.0 and phosphorus 373.84 ppm. The qualitative screening of the anti-nutrients revealed the absence of phenol from both fruit samples while tannins were present only in the monkey cola. The flavonoids, phytic acid and oxalate were quantitatively determined to be 1240 mg, 625 mg and 155 mg for Monkey kola and 640 mg, 340 mg and 65 mg for Ackee’s apple.