Chemical composition, phytochemical and mineral profile of garlic (Allium sativum)

The practice of complementary and alternative medicine is now on the increase in developing countries in response to World Health Organization’s directives. This has culminated in several pre-clinical and clinical studies that have provided the scientific basis for the efficacy of many plants used in folk medicine to improve growth performance in farm animals and treat infections. This study was carried out to investigate the chemical, mineral and phytochemical contents of garlic as a preliminary work to evaluate the influence of garlic on the performance characteristics of broiler chickens. Garlic bulbs (Allium sativum), including cloves and hulls, were obtained from the open market at Ado-Ekiti-Nigeria. The garlic bulbs were desegmented into cloves and were cut into chips. The chips were sun-dried for 3 weeks. The dried garlic chips were milled and analysed for the chemical compositions. The results obtained indicated that garlic on dry matter basis contained 4.55 mg/100g, 73.22 mg/100g and 15.33 mg/100g of moisture, carbohydrate and crude protein respectively. The crude fat was 0.72 mg/100g while crude fibre and ash were 2.10 mg/100g and 4.08 mg/100g, respectively. Garlic contained 10.19, 26.30, 10.19, 5.29, 0.001, 0.34 and 0.001 mg/100g of potassium, calcium, phosphorus, iron, magnesium, zinc and manganese respectively while lead and cobalt were below detection level. Garlic is acidic (pH = 3.91) and contained 4.21, 3.54, 0.64, 0.80, 5.56, 0.04 and 0.02 mg/100g of alkaloids, tannins, carotenoids, saponin, flavonoids, steroids and cardenolides, respectively. Garlic as a feed additive possesses nutritional properties for use in the enhancement of improved livestock production.