Vol. 11, Issue 4 (2022)

Author(s):
Ankita Chib, Anju Bhat, Julie D Bandral and Meenakshi Trilokia

Abstract:
The leafy vegetables, namely Amaranthus (Amaranthus viridis Linn.) is a good source of nutrients and minerals but they also contain some anti-nutritional factors i.e. oxalate, saponins and nitrates. In the present study, an attempt was made to reduce these anti-nutritional factors and maintain their quality by thermal processing methods (conventional and microwave blanching) at different time intervals. Among blanching treatments leaves of amaranthus subjected to microwave for 15 seconds had the highest β- carotene (23.52 mg/100g), crude protein (3.11%) and iron (52.61 mg/100g) while it was lowest i.e. 12.28 mg/100g β-carotene content, 2.95% crude protein and 41.39 mg/100g iron in leaves blanched conventionally for 6 minutes. Later, leaves of amaranthus were cooked (conventional cooking, cooking under pressure and microwave cooking). The β- carotene (22.36 mg/100g), crude protein (3.23%) and iron (50.69 mg/100g) content was highest in amaranthus leaves cooked by microwave whereas, antinutrients i.e. oxalates (23.07 mg /100g) and saponins (1.26 mg/100g) were lowest in microwave cooking. On the basis of sensory evaluation, the overall acceptability of leafy vegetable of amaranthus was considered to be best in microwave cooking.