The Bioactive Compounds in Pure & Ternary Blends of Cocoyam, Soya Bean & Bambara Groundnut Flour Identified Using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) Technique

Background: Bioactive compounds (BACs) are active ingredients responsible for the biological activities of some animal and medicinal plant extracts. Among the plants foods considered as functional foods due to the presence of such BACs compositions, are cocoyam (CY), soya bean (SB) and Bambara groundnut (BGN). The BACs constituents of each of these food plants have been documented but reported BACs in flour blends of such plant foods are scanty, yet various animal experiments involving these and other flour blends are common, while consumption, sometimes on recommendation by experts, of the various plants as food mixtures, abound especially in resource-poor countries, triggering the need for this study to analyze, using Gas-Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS), the BACs of these flour blends.

Methodology: Cocoyam, soya bean and Bambara groundnut purchased from a local market were processed into fine flour and grouped into pure and ternary flour blends. To ten grams (10 g) of each of the flour blends was added 2.5 L of methanol and allowed to mix for 48 h, following which the solution was filtered using musclin cloth. The filtrate so obtained was extracted for 3 h in a soxhlet apparatus, using an oven at 500C. The extract was analyzed for phytochemical constituents, using GC-MS.

Results and Discussion: The study revealed the presence of such BACs as Phenols, thiadiazole, monoterpenoids, aziridine, thiourea, stilbenes, amphetamine/phenylethylene, flavonoids, artemisinin, naphthalenes, and 1, 4-diazepanes, in the various CY-SB-BGN flour blend formulations. Each formulation had different family classifications of identified BACs. Some of these BACs have been reported in previous studies in the various pure blends of the plant foods, but blends of the plant food flours revealed additional BACs in the ternary blends.

Conclusion: Various formulations of CY-SB-BGN flour blends have classes of BACs in both pure and ternary blends, though the classes of BACs in each family varied depending on the formulation. These findings lend credence to the fact that flour mixtures of these plant foods contain BACs that may be useful in disease management and prevention.