Recent studies have been related a food lacking state of population in states from north of Brazil. Paradoxically in this region a great biodiversity in the flora can be found with various fruits and vegetables, not very known so far, but researchers believe in their high nutritional values. One of them is Cariru, an herbaceous plant to Portulacea family, vegetable native from Amazon region and easy to grow. Sample of this vegetable was transformed in biomass and submitted to a quantitative analysis in order to have a lot of information about nutritional value. Analysis showed that the biggest amount was moisture (92.44%), followed by lipids (3.04%), carbohydrates (2.94%), total minerals (1.71%) and protein (0.07%), compound a reduced caloric food, 40 kcal/100g. Analyzing the mineral results, cariru can be consider as an excellent iron, zinc and molybdenum source, that the consumption of 200 gin the vegetable/day would attend daily needs of these nutrients. This is very important to selenium and manganese contents, because 100g fresh of biomass can supply 2 or 3 times, respectively, the RDI for adult. The excess of this oligominerals can be hazardous for human body. Therefore, the inclusion of this vegetable on a diet of Brazilian is recommended, because it presents enough minerals to minimize the food lacking state of people who lives in North of Brazil.
Iron; Zinc; Molybdenum; Manganese; Selenium
