Effect of Soaking Duration on Nutritional Content of Kidney Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Abstract

A study was carried out to investigate the effects of soaking duration on nutritional contents of kidney bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). Five hundred grams of the whole seeds were soaked in distilled water at room temperature in a 1:30 (bean: water) ratio for 12, 24, 36, 48, 60 and 72 hours and labelled as T₁, T₂, T₃, T₄, T₅ and T_6, respectively. The soaked seeds were drained, rinsed and dried at 105oC for about 18 hours until constant weight is achieved. The dried seeds were milled in attrition mill, packaged in polyethylene bags for further analysis.At the end of the processing, each treatment was replicated twice and samples were taken for analysis. Soaking generally increased the content of Na (0.153 - 0.178 mg/100g), K (0.467 - 0.643 mg/100g), Ca (0.2 - 0.237 mg/100g), P (0.251- 0.345 mg/100g) and Mg (0.221 - 0.254 mg/100g) as compared to the values obtained in the raw however, soaking for 60hrs gave the best results of 581.35 and 32.15 mg/100g for vitamins A and C while that of 72 hours produced the best result for vitamin B (3.16 mg/100g). The result of the effect of soaking duration on amino acids contents of KB shows a progressive increase in the values of the acids as the time of soaking increased. Soaking of KB seeds for at least 60 hours produces the best result suitable for feeding of monogastric animals including fish therefore, monogastric animal farmers can adopt the 60 hours soaking of KB bean seeds before feeding them to animals.