**3. Nutritional potential of genus** *Abelmoschus*

Production of nutritionally rich food is the major challenge in the fulfillment of healthy diet against tremendous explosion of population. Throughout the year, numerous vegetables have been basically examined for their nutritional parameters. Nutritionally, okra plays an important role in the human diet because it contains carbohydrates, protein, fibers, minerals and vitamins, including vitamin C which will fulfill dietary requirements of the body [27]. Some nutritional parameters with their quantity were depicted in **Table 2**.


#### **Table 2.**

*Nutritional potential of* Abelmoschus *taxa.*

Sun dried okra fruits were examined for the nutritional parameters like moisture, ash, crude fat, fiber, carbohydrate, protein and microbial composition. Dried okra with light deep green and light purple colored had highest carbohydrate (76.8%) and crude protein (23.2%) [53]. Effect of different processes like cooking, sun drying of okra fruit caused effects on proximate composition and some other parameters like loss of vitamin C and nutritional factor [54]. Fruits of cultivated as well as wild taxa are the rich in, proximate and mineral composition. The highest fiber content i.e. 23.49 and 22.90% were isolated from the wild species *A. ficulneus* and *A. manihot* respectively [20].
