Abstract:
Phytochemical rich plants have played a significant role in diet based therapies to prevent and cure various
ailments. The avocado (Persia Americana Mill,) fruits are much sought after for their high nutritional and sensory
value. In addition to the nutritional value of its fruit, the seeds and other parts of the plant have been used widely
as medicinal agents to treat various ailments this being one of the initial points for conducting a thorough
phytochemical investigation on avocado seeds with the focus on analysis of extractable natural products in respect
to their potential use for pharmaceutical and food applications. The aim of this study was to conduct a
phytochemical analysis on avocado seed extract. The avocado seeds were dried using various methods in order to
determine the optimum drying method, which will maximize the active ingredients. Extraction of the bioactive
constituents was then optimized to minimize the concentration of the undesirable constituents like the tannins.
Various cultivars of avocado planted in Kenya were analyzed for their levels of bioactive constituents (quercetin
and apigenin). Drying at higher temperature shortened the drying time and increased the drying rate. The total
phenolic content (TPC) in the extract was not significantly affected by the oven temperatures. It was observed that
there was a significant variation in phenol concentration among drying methods (p<0.001) and varieties (p<0.001).
However the variation among methods of extractions was not significant (p=0.303). The interactions among them
were not significant.
