Abstract-

Green leafy vegetables have excellent content of vitamins as well as minerals and also contain an enormous variety of bioactive components which provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the proximate composition by standard AOAC method, antioxidant properties and DPPH free radicals scavenging activity of aqueous extract of Brassica oleracea and Spinacea oleracea. The study revealed that crude fiber, protein, iron and calciumcontent in Brassica oleracea was significantly increased by 41%, 41.6%, 8.7% and 37.23% respectively, when compared to Spinacea oleracea at p≤0.05 level. In aqueous extract of S.oleracea recorded the higher content of total phenols and total flavonoids i.e 41.2±0.18 mg GAE/g and 20.40±1.23 mg QE/g respectively as compared with B.oleracea . Although both leaves extract showed good amount of antioxidant components whereas free radical scavenging activity was higher B.oleracea leaves (IC 50 -26 µg/ml) while S.oleracea had (IC 50 -48µg/ml) when compared to standard ascorbic acid. The study may conclude that Brassica oleracea leaves are as good as Spinacea oleracia leaves which could be incorporated in food formulation as therapeutic agent apart from its nutritional essence which could be explored to provide affordable remedy to masses.

The glycemic index (GI) provides an indication of carbohydrate quality whereas glycemic load (GL) provides carbohydrates quantity in a food and the insulin demand. Diet with low glycemic index and glycemic load have been shown to improve glucose tolerance on normal healthy subjects so there is a need for a more diversified range of foods with a low glycemic response. The objective of present work was to formulate ashwagandha based food products by utilizing their root powder as an ingredient and their glycemic responses on normal healthy subjects. The products (Chappati, Naan and Thepla) were developed by incorporation of 2%, 4%, 6% and 8% aswagandha root. The result showed that the products with 2% root powder were most acceptable by semi trained panels. Further, study was conducted on randomly selected 30 healthy subjects were fed most acceptable test recipe i.e. thepla and their glycemic response was anticipated. GI and GL values were 37.30 and 11.36 found to be lower 2% root incorporated in thepla while comparing with standard thepla. The data demonstrated that the test thepla belongs to low glycemic index and medium glycemic load. Thus, the inclusion of ashwagandha powder as a constituent can be used to achieve a wider range of low glycemic functional foods possessing sensory attributes that could be valuable for managing the diabetes mellitus.