Utilization of food legumes for human consumption
1989
Saxena, M.C. (Food Legume Improvement Program, Aleppo (Syria))
Food legumes are amongst the earliest food crops cultivated by man. The dry mature seeds, which have a high food value and store well, play an important part in the diets of most of the peoples in the world, ranking only second to cereals. Their significance is particularly high because of their complementary nutritional value to cereal dominated diets for masses in the developing countries. In addition to proteins, food legumes are source of several vitamins and mineral nutrients. Unfortunately their per capita availability has decreased over the years because the increase in the production has failed to keep pace with increase in population. The food legumes commonly used in West Asia, North Africa and Southern Europe include faba beans, chickpeas, lentils, dry beans and dry peas. This paper mainly covers faba beans and chickpeas as used in countries of Indian sub-continent and West Asia and North Africa. During the harvesting period green seeds of faba bean and chickpeas are commonly consumed. Dry seeds are processed variedly depending on the end usage. This may include dehulling, soaking, germination or sprouting, cooking, canning, grinding, roasting etc. Germination and heat treatment are known to improve the nutritional value. Preparations made out of faba bean and chickpeas are briefly discussed in this paper
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