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1 Introduction
Baby corn (Zea mays ) is the ear, harvested young, when the silks have either not emerged or just emerged and no fertilization has taken place. Baby corn besides being delicious and nutritious, is a valuable and attractive product in both national and international market. Baby corn may be consumed as raw or used as an ingredient in various preparations like soups, deep fried with meat or rice, sauted with other vegetables, pickles, etc. The nutritive value of baby corn is comparable to several high-priced vegetables like cauliflowers, cabbage, french beans, spinach, lady finger, brinjal, tomato, radish, etc. ([8] Paroda, 2001). Baby corn, a new vegetable not so popular yet, is an emerging potential crop among the progressive farmers around big cities. There is very less information available about the nutritional composition of baby corn. Hence, the present study was carried out to evaluate the nutritional potentials of baby corn.
2 Materials and methods
Sample of baby corn cultivar HM-4 was procured from the experimental farms at Regional Research Station, CCS HAU, Uchani, Karnal. Baby corn was cleaned off the husk material and chopped into small pieces and dried in the oven at 50°C till moisture free and then ground in an electric grinder and packed in air tight polypacks for further analysis. The sample was than analyzed for various nutritional parameters. Proximate compositions, ascorbic acid and ß-carotene were estimated using the standard method of analysis ([1] AOAC, 1995). Total soluble sugars were estimated by the method of [19] Yemm and Willis (1954) and reducing sugars by [14] Somogyi's (1945) modified method. Non-reducing sugars were calculated by difference. Starch and dietary fibre constituents were estimated by the method of [3] Clegg (1956) and [16] Van Soest and Wine (1967), respectively. In vitro protein and starch digestibility were estimated by method given by [7] Mertz et al. (1983) and [13] Singh et al. (1982), respevtively. Calcium, iron, zinc and magnesium were determined from acid digested sample by atomic absorption spectrophotometer 2380, Perkin Elmer (USA) according to the method of [6] Lindsey and Norwell (1969) and phosphorus was determined colorimetrically by the method of [2] Chen et al. (1956). Minerals were extracted in 0.03N HCl following the method of [9] Peterson et al....