Showing Food Eggplant
| General Information | |||||||||||
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| Name | Eggplant | ||||||||||
| Scientific Name | Solanum melongena | ||||||||||
| Description | Eggplant (Solanum melongena) is a plant species native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It is now grown worldwide and commonly consumed in many countries, particularly in the Mediterranean, China, and Japan (PMID: 16988366). The fruit is typically purple, spongy, and absorbent, with a bitter taste and astringent quality when raw, but becomes tender and develops a rich, complex flavor when cooked. Eggplant is low in macronutrient and micronutrient content, with raw eggplant being 92% water, 6% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and negligible fat. The most notable chemical in eggplant is water. Eggplant has several health benefits, including being a good source of antioxidants and fiber (PMID: 26930128). It has been used in traditional medicine for its anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties. In addition to its culinary uses, eggplant has been used as a natural dye and in the production of cosmetics. A peculiar aspect of eggplant preparation is that it is often salted and drained before cooking to remove bitterness. | ||||||||||
| Primary ID | FOOD00174 | ||||||||||
| Picture |  | ||||||||||
| Classification | |||||||||||
| Group | Vegetables | ||||||||||
| Sub-Group | Fruit vegetables | ||||||||||
| Taxonomy | |||||||||||
| Superkingdom | Eukaryota | ||||||||||
| Kingdom | Viridiplantae | ||||||||||
| Phylum | Streptophyta | ||||||||||
| Class | Magnoliopsida | ||||||||||
| Order | Solanales | ||||||||||
| Family | Solanaceae | ||||||||||
| Genus | Solanum | ||||||||||
| Species | melongena | ||||||||||
| Variety | Not Available | ||||||||||
| External Links | |||||||||||
| ITIS ID | 30446 | ||||||||||
| Wikipedia ID | Eggplant | ||||||||||
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| References | |||||||||||
| Content Reference | — Duke, James. 'Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases. United States Department of Agriculture.' Agricultural Research Service, Accessed April 27 (2004). — Saxholt, E., et al. 'Danish food composition databank, revision 7.' Department of Nutrition, National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark (2008). — U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. 2008. USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 21. Nutrient Data Laboratory Home Page. — Rothwell JA, Pérez-Jiménez J, Neveu V, Medina-Ramon A, M'Hiri N, Garcia Lobato P, Manach C, Knox K, Eisner R, Wishart D, Scalbert A. (2013) Phenol-Explorer 3.0: a major update of the Phenol-Explorer database to incorporate data on the effects of food processing on polyphenol content. Database, 10.1093/database/bat070. — Shinbo, Y., et al. 'KNApSAcK: a comprehensive species-metabolite relationship database.' Plant Metabolomics. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2006. 165-181. | ||||||||||