Medical

Nutrition

Foods of plant
Lecture 5 origin MNT 403
Legumes
Introduction

•In terms of agricultural production, cereals are the most important

source of human food and animal feeds but the legume family,
Leguminosae, encompasses an extremely diverse group of herbs,
vines, shrubs and trees.
• Over 80 legume species are consumed world-wide and represent
the second most important food source.
 •About 20 legume species are cultivated on an appreciable
hectareage.
•These legume crops are primarily herbaceous annuals that can be
consumed directly as mature dry seeds, as immature green seeds, or as
whole green pods.
•The most important food legumes are listed in Table 2.1 with their
botanical names, global distribution, and approximate annual
 Scientific and Common Names and Annual
Production of Important Food Legumes
 •Soybean and peanut are grown widely for extraction of refined
vegetable oils and high protein meals, but also have important whole
seed uses.
•About one-half of the world production of peanut is crushed for
production of edible oil and meal for animal feeds.
•crop is processed into peanut butter or roasted for direct
consumption.
 •On the other hand, over 80% of the world soybean production is
pressed for the edible oil and valuable soybean meal, and only about
15% is processed directly into food products.
•Pulses have limited industrial applications and are mainly consumed
directly as whole or dehulled split seeds.
•Common beans and dry peas constitute about one-half of global
pulse production of about 58 mt, and production is widely distributed
among countries in the Americas, Indian sub-continent, Asia, and
 •However, about 90% of global pulse utilization is concentrated in
developing countries.
•In these low-income food-deficit areas, pulses contribute about 10%
of the daily protein and 5% of the energy intake of human diets.
Production and Consumption

•A large proportion of the available pulses in Northern Europe are

grown locally, for example beans, white as well as brown, and peas.
•Soya beans are imported from Brazil and China.
• Lentils are still imported from Asia minor.
•The harvested plants are dried and are then threshed, which frees
the seeds.
 •The seeds are mechanically sorted for size, colour and soundness,
and dried and packaged. The new harvest of peas is for sale in the last
half of August, the new harvest of beans in October and November.
Kinds of pulses

•Beans, peas and lentils belong to the pulses group, and each can be
subdivided again into a number of varieties.
•Beans
•There are many kinds of beans. Some, such as the white and brown
bean.
Brown beans
•The taste of brown beans is more appreciated than that of white
beans.
•They are more easily processed in soups and dishes because of the
soft structure.
•Some varieties are: the small round bullet bean, which does not
disintegrate during cooking and is suitable for dishes in which whole
beans are wanted; and the large oblong bean, which disintegrates
during cooking and is especialy used for the preparation of bean
White beans

•White beans are firmer and crumblier in structure than brown

beans.
• Some varieties are: the large kidney-shaped beans ('bent beaks'),
which stay whole during cooking; the small round beans (Walcherse
beans); and the large flat beans, which are slightly sweet in taste.
Soya beans

•are known in many varieties. They vary among themselves in

shape (oval, kidney-shaped), size (0.5 to 1 cm) and colour (light
yellow to brown or black).
•In Northern Europe, mainly the light yellow, round soya bean is
available, originating from South America and China.
 •The main difference between soya beans and the beans already
mentioned is that the soya beans are harvested fully grown but not
completely ripe.
•The reason for this is that ripe soya beans are difficult to cook.
•Soya beans have a specific taste and smell, which differs from that
of other beans.
•The bitter taste is caused by the decomposition of phospholipids (fat-
Peas

•The pea family is less extensive than the bean family.

•Green peas are mostly used for the production of soup. Some
varieties are: the round green pea and the marrow fat pea (angular
green pea). Split peas are round green peas, cleaned of their skin, in
which process they split in two.
•Yellow peas are available as whole round peas and in the split
form. They are less used than the green peas.
Lentils

•Lentils have a flat, round, discus-like shape. They vary in size and
colour (green, yellow, red, orange, brown and black) and can be
traded whole or split.
•In the Indian, Turkish and Moroccan kitchen, lentils are often used.
Microstructures of seeds

•Compared to cereal grains, legume seeds are medium to large in

size (0.3–2.5 cm diameter), rounded in shape, with relatively hard
texture.
•Seeds vary from white to colored or mottled in appearance and
surfaces can be smooth, texured, or wrinkled.
•The proportions of the three major seed components are 8–18%
seedcoat, 80–90% cotyledons and 1–2% embryonic axis
 •Schematic diagram of the structure of a cross section through a
lentil
 •The seedcoat or testa protects the embryonic structures from water
absorption, microbial and insect invasion.
•In lentils, the seedcoat exhibits a pattern of conical papillae on the
surface, about 3 µm at the base.
 Chemical and
nutritional composition
Energy
•The metabolizable energy contents of legume oilseeds are
proportional to their oil or lipid contents.
• With over 50% lipid, peanuts average 2255 kJ/100 g while
soybean, lupin, and chickpea have 1695, 1565, and 1530 kJ/100 g,
respectively.
•The starchy pulses contain about 1440 kJ/100 g of metabolizable
energy which is similar to those of whole grain cereals but 5–7% less
 •The metabolizable energy in pulses arises from their high
compositions of starch and protein, but is subject to the slow rates of
digestion.
Energy and Chemical
Constituents in Food Legumes
Lipids

•Most pulses are low in lipid, only 1–2% (Table 2.2), of which one
half are neutral lipids (mono-, di-, and triacyl- glycerides) and the
remainder are metabolic polar lipids (phospholipids, glycolipids,
sterols, sterol esters, and lipoproteins).
•On the other hand, the proteinaceous oilseeds like peanut and
soybean are rich in neutral lipids and are commercial sources of
edible oils.
 •These neutral lipids are stored in the cotyledons as oil bodies or
spherosomes and contain primarily unsaturated and polyunsaturated
fatty acids in the triacylglycerols which have important functional and
nutritional attributes.
•Many legumes contain linolenic acid as a component in the lipids, as
well as the bound enzyme lipoxygenase, so that oxidative rancidity and
off-flavor development are a problem once seed contents are mixed by
grinding.
Starch

•While the oilseeds are nearly devoid of starch, it is the main

component in pulses
•The large starch granules in the cotyledon cells are composed of a
combination of two glucose polymers.
•Inside cell organelles these polymers are synthesized into
interwoven strands to form the semicrystalline granules.
 •Amylopectin, the larger polymer, is an α-1,4-linked glucose chain
with α-1,6 branches, with molecular weights in the millions.
•Amylose is a smaller linear polymer composed of α-1,4- linked
glucose units
•The number of glucose units in the amylose chain range from 1300
to 1900 among pulse species and the average molecular weight is
177,000.
 •In pulses, the proportion of amylose to amylopectin by weight is
about 33:67, but amylose contents can vary from 20–65%.
•Tuber starches contain up to 20% amylose.
•Genotypes of the major cereals vary from 0–85% amylose, but 25%
is normal for corn and wheat starch. As a class, pulse starches are
considered to be high in amylose content.
 •The shape and size of starch granules are also characteristic of the plant
source, those of legumes being oval, round, spherical, or kidney shaped with
smooth surfaces and no apparent fissures.
•The starch granules in pulses vary widely in width (10–55 µm) and length
(8–70 µm).
•Most of the pulse starches are simple granules, the exception being
wrinkled pea starch, which appears to be a mixture of simple and compound
granules, the latter being composed of 3–10 subunits joined together.
Proteins

•The proteinaceous oilseeds are rich sources of protein, and the

defatted meals are major protein supplements for cereal-based animal
feeds.
•Similarly, the pulses at 18–30% protein are major sources of
protein for human nutrition in low-income countries.
 •While pulses are considered to be good sources of protein for human
nutrition, their utilization may be quite inefficient.
•The digestibilities of pulse proteins can vary between 65 and 88%,
depending on the structure and composition of storage proteins.
•Most pulse proteins are rich in essential amino acids, especially
lysine and threonine.
•However, they are deficient in Sulphur-containing amino acids,
 •The biological value of legume proteins, as measured by protein
efficiency ratio (PER), may vary from 0.2 to 2.0 where a balanced
protein like casein has a PER 2.5. By blending a low PER pulse with a
source of cereal protein rich in sulphur amino acids, PER values in the
range of 1.8–2.0 can be obtained.
•Protein effciency ratio (PER) is the gain in body weight divided by
weight of protein consumed.