Edible flowers could help boost vitamin E intake

In this age of Instagram and social media food photography, pretty edible dible flowers can often be seen brightening up photos of salads, soups, meat dishes and more.

But, say, Portuguese researchers flowers aren’t just a pretty garnish. The scientists from the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, Porto University, and the University of Aveiro in Portugal analysed the phytochemical composition of borage and centaurea, two popular edible flowers.

Overall their  findings suggest that “daily consumption of edible flowers may contribute to supplying some macronutrients, vitamins, and organic acids to the human diet.”​

The study, published in the journal Food Research International, ​also concluded that consumption of the petals from these flowers can, in particular, contribute to the daily recommended dose of vitamin E (mostly alpha-tocopherols), based on a 100g dry weight of each flower petal at all flowering stages.

What’s in a flower?​

Further analysis of the flower petals collected from the greenhouse of the School of Agriculture of the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, was conducted lookign at the flowers at different stages of development (tight bud stage, mature bud stage, and fully open).

They then analysed content of dietary fibre, carbohydrates, fat, protein, fatty acids, vitamin E, and carotenoids – which is a pigment compound that has been linked to eye health benefits and more.

The nutritive value of both flowers were quite similar. The main differences were that centaurea had more calories and total dietary fiber, while borage was higher in fatty-acids and carotenoids.

Looking at true petals alone, without the bud, borage had the lowest total carotenoids.

“Despite the lower amounts of some compounds…These characteristics may therefore encourage the use of edible flowers (whole flower and petals) for human consumption,” ​they concluded.

Flower Power