EFFECT OF PROCESSING ON THE ENERGY VALUES OF LIMA BEAN (Phaseolus lunatus)

Abstract

The energy values of iirtiatte-ans (Phaseolus lunatus) as affected by different processing treatments were determined. Average gains in body weight were 17.38g for raw limabeans 48.07g for cooked, 36.91g for autoclaved, 32.57g for soaked and 31.12g for germinated beans. Feed conversion efficiency was signicantly improved by processing and the poore­st efficiency was obtained in the raw lima-beans. Digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME) were highly positively corre­lated with trypsin inhibitor, tannin and hydro­gen cyanide (HCN) and the variability in ME due to trypsin inhibitor was 0.29% (r = 0.13), while tannin accounted for 40.81% (r = 0.64) and 'HCN accounted for 1.51% (r = 0.58). ME as percentage of DE was the best indicator of the efficiency of energy utilization and in alI raw and processed diets, high percentages of digestible energy were metabolized_ It was con­cluded that the main problem with limabean is that relP.ting to its digestibility and that cook­ing and autoclaving are the only processes that can coun