CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
In Nigeria, as in other tropical countries of Africa where the daily diet is dominated by starchy staple foods, traditional vegetables are the cheapest and most readily available sources of important proteins, vitamins, minerals and essential amino acids (Okafor 2013). The nutritional importance of this leafy vegetable is evident in the result of proximate analysis of some leafy vegetables by Okafor et al. (2016) showing that vegetables including uziza (piper guineensis) are valuable sources of sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, fats and oils, and proteins. The result showed that uziza (piper guineensis) is very high in moisture content (78. 58%), has high ash content (15.56%), oil (9.3%), protein (18.54%), sodium (3.5ppm), potassium (320ppm), calcium (7.11ppm), magnesium (147ppm), iron (6.12ppm), zinc (2.05ppm) and copper (0.15ppm). The result of this proximate analysis for some other leafy vegetables including bitter leaf (vernonia amygdalina) are prescribed in Table 1 below.
Table 1: Chemical Analysis of some leafy vegetables of Southern NigeriaScientific Name Moisture Ash Oil Protein Na K Ca Mg Fe Zn Cu Mn P
% fresh % dry % % (ppm) (ppm) (ppm) (ppm) (ppm) (ppm) (ppm) (ppm) (ppm)