Food

Chemistry
Food Chemistry 97 (2006) 331–335
www.elsevier.com/locate/foodchem

Nutritional quality of important food legumes

a,*
Amjad Iqbal , Iqtidar A. Khalil a, Nadia Ateeq c, Muhammad Sayyar Khan b

a
Department of Agricultural Chemistry, Faculty of Nutrition Sciences, NWFP Agricultural University Peshawar, Pakistan
b
Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, NWFP Agricultural University Peshawar, Pakistan
c
Bolan Medical College, Quetta, Pakistan

Received 4 May 2004; received in revised form 10 May 2005; accepted 10 May 2005

Abstract

The proximate composition, mineral constituents and amino acid profile of four important legumes (chickpea, lentil, cowpea and
green pea) were studied in order to evaluate their nutritional performance. Significant (P < 0.05) variations existed among the
legumes with respect to their proximate composition, mineral constituent and amino acid profile. Lentil was found to be a good
source of protein, while cowpea was good in ash among the grain legumes tested. All four types of legumes were also better suppliers
of mineral matter, particularly potassium, phosphorus, calcium, copper, iron, and zinc. However, the concentrations of various min-
eral constituents was not in good nutritional balance. It was concluded that the four legumes tested were rich in lysine, leucine and
arginine and can fulfil the essential amino acid requirement of human diet except for S-containing amino acids and tryptophan. In
order to make good, the deficiency of certain essential amino acids in legume protein, they must be supplemented with other veg-
etables, meat and dairy products (e.g., Whey, yogurt).
Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Legumes; Proximate analysis; Amino acids; Minerals; Chemical composition

1. Introduction since they are rich sources of protein, calories, certain

minerals and vitamins (Deshpande, 1992). In Afro-
Protein-calorie malnutrition (PCM) is a major nutri- Asian diets, legumes are the major contributors of pro-
tional syndrome affecting more than 170 million pre- tein and calories for economic and cultural reasons.
school children and nursing mothers in developing Food legumes are crops of the family Leguminosae
Afro-Asian countries. The present trend in population also called Fabacae. They are mainly grown for their
growth indicates that the Protein gap may continue to edible seeds, and thus are also named grain legumes.
increase in the future unless well-plane measures are ta- They occupy. large cropped areas worldwide. Grain le-
ken to tackle the situation. Provision of adequate pro- gumes are used as pulse (dhal) with cereals, grown in
teins of animal origin is difficult and expensive. An both tropical and temperate regions of the globe. They
alternative for improving nutritional status of the people enhances the protein content of cereal-based diets and
is to supplement the diet with plant proteins. Attention, may improve the nutritional status of the cereal-based
therefore, has to be directed to the nutritional evalua- diets. Cereal proteins are deficient in certain essential
tion of proteins from plant species. Legumes (poor amino acids,particularly lysine (Amjad, Khalil, & Shah,
manÕs meat) play an important role in human nutrition 2003). On the other hand, legumes have been reported to
contain adequate amounts of lysine, but are deficient in
*
Corresponding author. Present address: Home Fabiola, Room
S-containing amino acids (methionine, cystine and cys-
# 6.24, Stalhof-4, 9000 Gent, Belgium. teine) (Farzana & Khalil, 1999). Since the chemical com-
E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Iqbal). position of crops varies with crop cultivars, soil and

0308-8146/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2005.05.011
332 A. Iqbal et al. / Food Chemistry 97 (2006) 331–335

climatic conditions of the area, it is imperative to study buffer (pH 2.2). Aliquots were analysed in an LKB Bio-
the chemical composition of some important food le- chrome automatic amino acid analyzer (model 4151)
gumes (chickpea, cowpea, lentil and green pea). This using a buffer system as described earlier (Zarkdas,
study was, therefore, undertaken to analyze these le- Yu, Voldeng, & Minero-Amador, 1993). Methionine
gumes for their protein, amino acids and mineral con- and cystine + cysteine were analysed separately after
tents in order to highlight their nutritional significance. performic acid acid oxidation and subsequent hydrolysis
with HCl (Khalil & Durani, 1990). Tryptophan was
determined after alkali (NaOH) hydrolysis by a calori-
2. Materials and methods metric method (Freidman & Finely, 1971).

2.1. Materials 2.5. Amino acid score

Freshly harvested sun-dried seeds of four legumes Essential amino acids score was calculated with refer-
(chickpea, cowpea, lentil and greenpea) were obtained ence to the FAO/WHO reference amino acid pattern
from the Nuclear Institute of Food and Agriculture (FAO/WHO, 1985).
(NIFA), Peshawar, Pakistan. The seeds were dehulled Test amino acid
100
and then ground to pass a 50-mesh screen. Powdered Amino acid score ¼ .
Reference amino acid
samples were preserved in air-tight bottles at room tem-
perature. Sub-samples were dried in an oven at
100 ± 5 °C to constant weight, for moisture 2.6. Statistical analysis
determination.
The data, based on three replicates, were subjected to
2.2. Proximate composition analysis of variance by complete block design (Gomez &
Gomez, 1984). Standard deviation of each individual
Kjeldhal-N was determined and protein content was nutrient of each legume mean was computed and varia-
calculated by multiplying N by the factor 6.25 (Khalil tions among legumes were evaluated by least signifi-
& Manan, 1990). The other constituents, crude fat and cance difference (LSD) at the 5% level of probability
ash, were estimated by the methods of A.O.A.C. (1990). (P = 0.05).

2.3. Minerals analysis 3. Results and discussion

An acid digest was prepared by oxidizing each 3.1. Proximate composition

sub-sample with a nitric/perchloric acid (2:1) mixture.
Aliquots were used to estimate Na and K by flame pho- The results in Table 1 show the comparative protein
tometry, P by spectrophotometeric methods (Khalil & content of different legumes. It is evident that lentil con-
Manan, 1990) and Ca, Mg, Mn, Fe, Cu and Zn by atomic tained the maximum amount of protein (26.1%), fol-
absorption spectrophotometry (A.O.A.C., 1990). Each lowed by green pea (24.9%) (Fig. 1). Among chickpea,
sample was analysed thrice and the mean data are cowpea, lentil and green pea, the content of ash was
reported herein. present in cowpea (4.2%). Similarly, the crude fat con-
tent was high in chickpea (5.2%), followed by cowpea
2.4. Amino acid analysis (4.8%), lentil (3.2%) and green pea (1.5%). The result
corresponds with those of Khalil (1994). Lentil was also
Protein hydrolysate was prepared by treating 300-mg proved by Jood, Bishnoi, and Sharma (1998) and Rag-
sample, in triplicate, from each cultivar with 6 N HC1 in huvanshi, Shukla, and Sharma (1994) to be a good
an evacuated test tube for 24 h at 105 °C. After flash source of crude protein. Cowpea generally contains a
evaporation, the dried residue was dissolved in citrate high amount of ash (Khalil & Durani, 1989).
Table 1
Proximate composition of important grain legumes
Nutrients (g/100 g) Chickpea Cowpea Lentil Green pea
Moisture 7.3b ± 0.05 9.4a ± 0.07 9.3a ± 0.07 7.8b ± 0.07
Crude protein 24.0b ± 0.30 24.7ab ± 0.10 26.1a ± 0.09 24.9ab ± 0.03
Crude fat 5.2a ± 0.01 4.8a ± 0.07 3.2b ± 0.06 1.5c ± 0.04
Ash 3.6b ± 0.04 4.2a ± 0.05 2.8c ± 0.06 3.6b ± 0.04
Means in each column for each crop followed by the same letter are not significantly different (P = 0.05).
Each column contains means and S.D. of means.
 A. Iqbal et al. / Food Chemistry 97 (2006) 331–335 333

Fig. 1. Protein content (g/100 g) of important grain legumes.

3.2. Mineral content These ratios in legume seeds (Table 2) show imbal-
ance between the potassium content and other miner-
Among the four legumes, cowpea had the highest als. Since plants have greater potash requirements
concentrations of potassium, magnesium and phos- than do animals and humans (Khalil, 1994), it may
phorus (Table 2). Sodium was found in an apprecia- be difficult to screen the four legumes tested with pot-
ble concentration in green pea. Chickpea contained ash concentrations less than or equal to 7.0 mg/g dry
good amounts of calcium, zinc and copper. These re- matter. Mineral supplementation can be used as an
sults revealed that legumes may provide sufficient alternative approach to correct this imbalance. The
amounts of minerals to meet the human mineral mean Ca:P ratio in chickpea seed, being 0.7, reveals
requirement (recommended dietary allowance, RDA) a high concentration of phosphorus compared to cal-
(NRC, 1980). However, excess of one mineral (e.g., cium. This ratio should not be less than 1.0. The re-
K) may be antagonistic for others to be absorbed sults correspond those of Hadjipanayiotou and
and utilized properly. For this reason, ratios of the Economides (2001) and Ereifej, Al-Karaki, and Ham-
mineral constituents are important for good nutrition. mouri (2001).

Table 2
Mineral constituent of important grain legumes
Minerals (mg/100 g) Chickpea Cowpea Lentil Green pea
Sodium 101b ± 3.51 102ab ± 5.29 79c ± 2.65 111a ± 2.65
Potassium 1155b ± 5.00 1280a ± 8.62 874d ± 6.43 1021c ± 12.49
Phosphorus 25Ib ± 6.11 303a ± 7.94 294a ± 3.61 283a ± 3.00
Calcium 197a ± 3.61 176b ± 4.58 120c ± 6.24 110c ± 3.61
Iron 3.0a ± 0.20 2.6ab ± 0.20 3.1a ± 0.26 2.3b ± 0.05
Copper 11.6a ± 0.20 9.7b ± 0.20 9.9b ± 0.10 10.0b ± 0.40
Zinc 6.8a ± 0.26 5.1a ± 0.20 4.4a ± 0.20 3.2a ± 0.56
Manganese 1.9a ± 0.10 1.7a ± 0.04 1.6a ± 0.03 2.2a ± 0.02
Magnesium 4.6ab ± 0.04 4.8a ± 0.10 4.5b ± 0.04 4.2c ± 0.04
Na:K ratio 0.09 0.08 0.09 0.10
Ca:P ratio 0.78 0.59 0.41 0.39
Means in each column for each crop followed by the same letter are not significantly different (P = 0.05).
Each column contains mean and S.D. of mean.
334 A. Iqbal et al. / Food Chemistry 97 (2006) 331–335

Table 3
Amino acid composition of important grain legumes
Amino acids (% of protein) Chickpea Cowpea Lentil Green pea
Arginine 8.3a ± 0.21 7.5c ± 0.04 7.8b ± 0.03 7.2d ± 0.04
Histidine 3.0a ± 0.03 3.1a ± 0.03 2.2c ± 0.05 2.4b ± 0.05
Isoleucine 4.8a ± 0.03 4.5b ± 0.03 4.1b ± 0.05 4.5a ± 0.06
Leucine 8.7a ± 0.03 7.7b ± 0.08 7.8b ± 0.05 7.4b ± 0.05
Lysine 7.2b ± 0.03 7.5b ± 0.04 7.0b ± 0.03 8.1a ± 0.07
Methionine 1.1b ± 0.04 2.2a ± 0.04 0.8c ± 0.02 1.1b ± 0.03
Phenylalanine 5.5b ± 0.04 7.5a ± 0.06 5.0b ± 0.12 5.2b ± 0.04
Threonine 3.1b ± 0.04 3.8a ± 0.05 3.5a ± 0.04 3.8a ± 0.05
Tryptophan 0.9a ± 0.02 0.7a ± 0.02 0.7a ± 0.03 0.8a ± 0.02
Valine 4.6a ± 0.03 5.0a ± 0.06 5.0a ± 0.05 5.0a ± 0.09
Total 47.2 49.5 43.9 45.5

Alanine 4.97a ± 0.03 4.2b ± 0.03 4.2b ± 0.04 5.2a ± 0.04

Aspartic acid 11.0b ± 0.04 10.8b ± 0.08 11.8a ± 0.08 11.0b ± 0.06
Cystine 0.6c ± 0.06 0.5c ± 0.03 0.9b ± 0.04 1.8a ± 0.03
Glutamic acid 17.3bb ± 0.08 17.2b ± 0.06 21.5a ± 0.07 17.5b ± 0.06
Glyine 3.7b ± 0.03 3.8b ± 0.01 3.6b ± 0.05 4.5a ± 0.01
Proline 3.8a ± 0.05 4.0a ± 0.13 3.5b ± 0.03 3.8a ± 0.03
Serine 3.7c ± 0.02 4.5b ± 0.06 5.2a ± 0.05 5.1a ± 0.54
Tyrosine 2.8c ± 0.06 3.0bc ± 0.05 32a ± 0.06 3.7a ± 0.03
Total 47.7 48.0 53.9 52.9
E:NE amino acid ratio 0.99 1.03 0.81 0.86
Means in each column for each crop followed by the same letter are not significantly different (P = 0.05).
Each column contains mean and S.D. of mean.

3.3. Amino acid profile for humans. The data (Table 4) indicated that all essen-
tial amino acids except S-containing and tryptophan
The amino acid composition of the four legumes were present in excessive amounts in all the cultivars
(chickpea, cowpea, lentil and green pea) (Table 3) indi- tested. S-containing amino acids were the most limiting
cated little variation in the contents of total essential amino acids in chickpea; in contrast, tryptophan was
and non-essential amino acids. However, significant most deficient in cowpea, lentil and greenpea.
(P < 0.05) variation existed in the individual amino acid
contents, particularly for arginine, histidine and methio-
nine. The arginine contents varied from 7.2% of protein 50 55
Total Essential A.As.
in green pea to 8.3% of protein in chickpea. Among the Total Nonessential A.As.
four legumes, lysine, alanine, cystine and tyrosine were 54
49
found to be rich in green pea, while phenylalanine and 53
serine were found in appreciable amounts in lentil 48
among the different legumes tested. Cowpea was found 52
high in methionine and threonine. Glutamic acid and 47
51
aspartic acid were found to be major non-essential
amino acids in the sample tested. The total essential 46 50
amino acids were maximum in cowpea, while maximum
49
total non-essential amino acid was found in lentil 45
(Fig. 2), among the tested legumes. The results are in fair 48
agreement with those reported by Bhatty, Gilani, and 44
Nagra (2000) and Hussain and Basahy (1998). 47
43
46
3.4. Nutritional quality of proteins 42
45

The nutritional qualities of chickpea, cowpea, lentil 41 44

and green pea protein were assessed. Essential amino Chickpea Cowpea lentil Greenpea
acid score was computed with reference to the FAO/ Fig. 2. Total essential and non-essential amino acids (% of protein) of
WHO (1985) standard amino acid profile established grain legumes.
 A. Iqbal et al. / Food Chemistry 97 (2006) 331–335 335

Table 4
Amino acid score of important grain legumes
Amino acids Reference pattern Chickpea Cowpea Lentil Green pea
Histidine 1.9 158 163 116 126
Lysine 5.8 124 129 121 140
Leucine 6.6 132 117 118 112
Isoleucine 2.8 171 161 146 161
Methionine + cystine 2.5 68 108 68 116
Phenylalanine + tyrosine 6.3 132 167 130 141
Threonine 3.4 91 112 88 111
Tryptophan 1.1 82 64 64 55
Valine 3.5 131 143 143 143
Limiting amino acida – S T T T
FAO/WHO (1985) amino acid reference pattern of protein for children (2–5 years old) diet. Values are % of protein. Each amino acid in the reference
pattern was presumed to score a value = 100. Values for each cultivar are expressed relatively to the reference pattern.
a
S, sulphur containing amino acids (methionine + cystine); T, tryptophan and Th, threonine.

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