Determination of the mineral composition of Caigua (Cyclanthera pedata) and evaluation using multivariate analysis.

Caigua (in Brazil "maxixe do reino") is a fruit that is generally consumed either cooked or even raw as salad. This fruit has been used as a food and also in folk medicine. In this work, the mineral composition of Caigua was determined for the first time. Twenty-nine samples from five farms located in the southwestern region of Bahia, Brazil were acquired and analyzed using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. The elements determined in this fruit included calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, phosphorus, manganese, iron, zinc, copper and vanadium. Principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were applied to evaluate the obtained results. The average concentrations of the determined elements (expressed as mg 100 g(-1)) were as follows: 0.91 for sodium, 152 for potassium, 19.4 for phosphorus, 11.9 for calcium, 8.4 for magnesium, 0.074 for manganese, 0.21 for iron, 0.013 for copper, 0.13 for zinc and 0.015 for vanadium.