Determination of health beneficial phytochemicals in commonly consumed variety of different fruits in Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

The life on this earth is circumvented by various chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers etc. In an effort to exploit nature’s best weapons such as fruits and vegetables against this, quantitative estimation of various phytochemicals present in the mostly consumed fruits was found to be of great importance. Determina- tion of the total phenolic levels using Folin-Ciocalteau method has shown that papaya possessed the highest amount with 14.75 mg/100g F.W amongst the five fruits. When the flavonoid levels were analyzed using alumi- nium chloride colorimetric method, it was seen that mango possessed 339 mg/100g F.W, holding the highest posi- tion among other fruits under study. Quantitative determination of carotenoids such as lycopene, beta carotene and xanthophylls was also carried out in which mango possessed highest amounts of both beta carotene and xan- thophylls with 522 µg/g F.W and 13.8 µg/g F.W respectively, whereas watermelon carried highest level of lyco- pene with 42.9 µg/g F.W. The present study has thus quantified the levels of different phytochemicals in fruits most commonly available and consumed in Tamil Nadu, India, thus giving awareness on the nutritional status of those fruits.