Nutritional Potential of Ridge Gourd Peels: A Comparative Study

According to FAO 1.3 billion food items are wasted annually and a majority of them comes from vegetable by-products like peels, pulp and seeds. The ridge gourd is a vegetable that is consumed after its peels are removed and discarded as household trash. The rough texture and high dietary fibre content of ridge gourd peels makes them an edible biowaste that is rarely utilised. Hence the objective of the paper is to study the nutritional potential of ridge gourd peels through laboratory analysis using AOAC procedures and compare the values with ridge gourd peels analysed by other researchers, cereals, millets and other fruit and vegetable peels. Ridge gourds were cleaned, peeled, peels were dried and powdered for analysis. The ridge gourd peel flour was used to analyse its proximate composition by using AOAC method. Results showed that the ridge gourd peels contain 6.75g moisture, 7.35g ash, 21.47g protein, 63.32g carbohydrate, 1.11g fat and 349.15 Kcal of energy per 100g sample. While comparing the nutritional quality of ridge gourd peel flour with other cereals, millet and fruits and vegetable peel flours, it was found that the ridge gourd peel flour was a good source of energy, protein and carbohydrate and low in fat. Thus, it can be concluded that ridge gourd peels can be used as a nutritional supplement with value addition to address food insecurity and the nutritional problems of the society as well.