Nutritive and phytochemical analysis of bay leaf (laurus nobilis), nutmeg seed (myristica fragrans) and shepherd’s purse seed (capsella bursa-pastoris)

Spices are parts of plants like leaves, puds, stalks or roots that are used for organoleptic purposes, preservative in food, however some of them have therapeutic properties necessary for optimal health of humans, hence, this study investigated the chemical composition of bay leaf (Laurus nobilis), nutmeg (Myristical fragrans) and shepherd’s purse seed (Capsella bursa-pastoris) locally sourced from Offa, Kwara state and Ife-wara, Osun State. The proximate analysis of these species, bay leaf, nutmeg and sheperd purse reveal the presence of protein(2.04% - 4.7%), carbohydrate(4.5% - 32.6%), fiber (2.4% - 69.5%), moisture contents(7.8% - 12.5%), fat(7.5% - 50.5%), and ash(2.0% - 6.5%)respectively in all the spices. Likewise, the fatty acid analysis showed high values of saturated fatty acid such as oleic (5.3%-6.2%), linoleic (1.1% - 10.7%), lauric (0.7% - 36.6%), myristic(1.8% - 71.2), palmitic (14.8% - 21.3%) and stearic acid (1.3% - 3.5%) in bay leaves, nutmeg and Shepherd’s purse seed samples respectively. Also, the phytochemical analysis of bay leaves, nutmeg seed and shepherd purse seed were carried out revealed that among the phytochemicals analysed, quinone was absent in bay leaf and sherperd purse while present in nutmeg. However, the presence of the phytochemical constituents and nutritive properties of these spices shows that they can be used for therapeutic purposes.