NUTRITIONAL COMPOSITION OF FRESH ORGANIC VEGETABLES

Vegetables are important elements for rational and healthy diet due to active compounds and their nutritive values. Currently, technical progress in food industry offer new solution for processing vegetables. The purpose of this study was to determine the nutritional composition of different organic vegetables which can be used as raw materials for healthy chips. Several vegetables (beets, carrot, sweet potato, and turnip) were purchased from organic certified farms and further analysed in terms of dry matter content, total phenolic content, antioxidant activity, and ascorbic acid. When comparing the vegetables in terms of total phenolic content and antioxidant activity, 'Detroit' beets variety registered the highest values, followed by sweet potato and turnip. The ascorbic acid content of sweet potato registered the highest values, but the 'Detroit' and 'Albino' beets varieties registered values below limit of quantification. The total phenolic content and antioxidant activity registered similar trend for all analysed samples. All studied organic vegetables can be successfully used for healthy crispy snacks.