Chemical composition of sweet potato (Ipomea batatas Lam) dishes as consumed in Kwara state, Nigeria

The nutrient and anti nutrient composition of some standardized sweet potato dishes in Kwara state was determined using official methods of analysis. The indigenous sweet potato dishes analysed included pounded sweet potato/yam; sweet potato leaf soup; boiled sweet potato; fried sweet potatoes and sweet potato/beans pottage. There were significant differences (p 0.05) for moisture content which in the proximate, minerals and antinutrient contents of sweet potato dishes. The moisture contents varied between 35.15% in sweet potato and pounded yam to 70.54% in sweet potato leaf soup. The highest protein content of 12.21% was found in sweet potato leaf soup and least value of 1.42% in sweet potato and pounded yam. The fat content of the samples ranged from 0.30% in sweet potato boiled to 3.88% in sweet potato leaf soup. Sweet potato boiled sample had the highest carbohydrate content of 70.54% while sweet potato leaf soup sample had the least value of 25.74%. The ash contents varied from 1.13% in sweet potato boiled to 8.83% in sweet potato leaf soup. The sweet potato leaf sample had the highest content of iron 8.82 ± 0.05 mg/100g while boiled sweet potato sample was highest in zinc (0.26 ± 0.01mg/100g) among all the dishes. Phytate contents ranged from 0.57 to 1.07 mg/100g, oxalate contents ranged from 126.93 to 178.27mg/100g and tannin ranged from 0.22 to 0.86 mg/100g for sweet potato dishes. The contributions of these varied nutrient contents to reducing the nutritional problems in the society were discussed.