Analysis of Nutrition of Collard Green Grown in China

Abstract

Collard green is considered as one of the world healthiest vegetables. However, it has not been grown in China until recently. In these years, we have introduced the Collard Green seed in to China and grown in the foot the Qingling Mountain Area. The Vegetable grows well and can harvest twice a year in China. The green leaves have been processed under various conditions and dried to give fine powders. The nutrient elements in the various vegetable powders grown in China has been analysed and it is shown that the vegetable is slightly alkaline in its raw slurry. It is rich in K and Zn, while very low in Na. The boiling cook leads to loss of nutrients such as nitrogen, K, Ca, and Zn, while the raw washed and directly dried sample kept the most nutrient. The heavy metal content such as Hg and As and Pb are very low in the vegetable, probably due to the growth in the mountain uncontaminated area. In terms of the dry power yields (<6 wt% of moisture), roughly 10-13 Kg of the as-harvested vegetable can give 1 kg of the vegetable powder.