Prosopis cineraria (L.) Pods: A Dessert Delicacy and Disease Mitigating Foodstuff

Prosopis cineraria (Linn) Druce is commonly known as ‘Khejri’ and has been given the sobriquet ‘king of desert’ for its valuable nutritional and health-enhancing properties. The present investigation has been aimed at determining proximate and phytochemical composition and antioxidant potential of P. cineraria (L.) Druce. The food stuff contained 21% protein, 63% carbohydrate and qualifies for a low-fat food option containing 1.05% fat. It has reasonably good antioxidant potential as DPPH, ABTS and FRAP activities stood at 59.2% inhibition, 89.2% inhibition and 1.33 mmol Fe2+ equivalents/100 g, respectively. Of phytochemical content, it contains 48.06, 3.8 and 64.0 mg/g of total phenol, tannins and flavonoids, respectively. The pod extract possessed antioxidant activity to act as an antidote against free radical generation so as to make this food stuff health enhancing.