Ficuscarpensis commonly known as fig tree is a medicinal plant found in tropical forest and grassy woodlands and possesses high antioxidant capacity.This study investigated the concentrationsof antioxidant vitamins: A, C and E in the boiled and fresh leaf extract 'of Ficuscarpensis using Spectrophotomer. The result obtained showed that boiling reduced the concentration of Vitamin C (0.26mg/g) compared to that in the fresh leaf (1.445mg/g). Vitamin A and D were not detected in the boiled leaf extract. The fresh leaf contains Vitamin A (0.133mg/g) and Vitamin E (0.41mg/g).This result suggest that these antioxidant vitamins are heat labile and hence can be easily destroyed by heating.
1.1 Introduction
In this section, Determination of Boiling Effect on Ascorbic Acid, Tocopherol, and Vitamin a Content in the Leaf of Ficuscarpensis is discussed, with relevant and recent citations. As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the aim and objectives of the study. Others are significance of the study, scope of work, research hypothesis and questions, limitation of the study and definition of terms.