Influence of processing methods on the antinutrients, morphology and in-vitro protein digestibility of jack bean

Abstract

The global community is facing a serious problem of food insecurity cum protein-vital nutrients malnutrition despite the painstakingly high rates of the numbers of underutilized legume crops commonly available around. Hence, various processing methods, anti-nutritional factors, morphological properties and in-vitro protein digestibility that would make jack bean available for wider human utilization were investigated in this study. The results of the proximate compositions revealed that the pretreatment methods significantly (p< 0.05) affected the crude proteins (28.00-24.35%), ash (4.11-3.63%) and moisture (7.26-5.29%) contents of the processed beans. However, the crude fat, crude fibre and carbohydrate contents of the treated beans were obtained as 4.70-2.72, 5.35-4.09 and 57.74-53.88%, respectively. Meanwhile, the soaking + autoclaving processing method mostly reduced the common antinutritional compositions in the treated beans when compared to the fermentation and boiling methods. Notably, all the processing methods employed, especially soaking + autoclaving increased the in-vitro protein digestibility (85.55%) of the treated beans. The observed changes in the morphological properties were attributed to the different processing methods that the flours were treated with. Hence, all the processing methods were effective in enhancing proximate compositions and reducing the antinutritional factors of the beans. However, soaking + autoclaving is adjudged as the best pre-treatment method, by giving an increased protein digestibility and significant reduced antinutrient factors.

Keywords

• Jackbean
• Antinutrient
• Morphology
• Protein digestibility
• Fermentation