Study on Nutritional Components of Codonopsis bulleyana Forrest

The nutritional components of Codonopsis bulleyana Forrest was reported in this study. Amino acids and vitamin were measured using HPLC. GB 5009.5, GB/T 5009.6, GB 5009.4 and Anthrone colorimetry were adopted to determine the content of the protein, fat, ash, total sugar of C. bulleyana Forrest. The results showed that the content of total amino acids of aerial part and under-ground part was 26.57%, 12.14% respectively, and the content of essential amino acids was 10.32%, 3.57% respectively. The contents of drug-effective amino acid,branched chain amino acid,flavor amino acid,sweet amino acid, specific amino acids to children of the aerial parts accounted for 72.87%, 19.46%, 43.81%, 25.33% and 16.30% of total amino acids respectively. But that of the under-ground parts accounted for 70.10, 13.60, 48.60, 26.53 and 17.80 percent of total amino acids respectively. The content of amino acids and protein of the aerial part was higher than the reference model on the recommendation of WHO/FAO, the nutrition of above-ground parts was better than that of underground parts. Therefore,the study reached a conclusion that C. bulleyana Forrest was rich in amino acid and vitamin, and was a kind of Codonopsis with well balanced nutrition, and the value of development and utilization of aerial parts of C. bulleyana Forrest was greater than that of under-ground parts.