Trace Elements Profile of Some Legumes Consumed in Plateau State, Nigeria

Abstract

Trace elements are essential to both plants and animals for the maintenance of life and for healthy living. Deficiency of any of the elements, especially the 5 well-characterized elements: Fe, Zn, Cu, Se and I, will results in symptoms associated with that particular element. Leguminous food crops constitute a large portion of staple food stuff of Nigerians, especially in Plateau State. Hence, the need to determine the trace elements contents of this class of food crops. The trace element content of five different legumes were analysed using inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrophotometry (lCP—OES). Statistical analysis was performed on SPSS Version 17.0 and the results expressed as arithmetic mean1SD. The result showed that pigeon peas has the highest trace elements content (Zn = 1338.7510.40[,ig/100g; Cu = 212.3811.47ug/100g; l= 201.Z4i25.34[,ig/100g; Se = 1.7510.14pg/100g), except in Cr where kidney beans is the highest (9.76:7.81yg/100g), followed by soya beans. Mineral contents of crops are directly related to the minerals in the soil on which they were grown. Therefore, the large variations in the trace elements contents of the crops reported here corroborate earlier findings. Further studies on trace elements in staple foodstuffs on the Plateau need to be done in order to compare with their respective RDAs.