Nutritional improvement of Lobia (Phaseolus vulgaris) by supplementation with poultry, mutton and beef meat.

The study was conducted to determine the nutritional value of Lobia (Phaseolus vulgaris) in raw and cooked forms and as effected by supplementation with different kinds of meat, i.e. poultry, mutton and beef at 10, 15 and 20% levels. Nutritional assessment of all the Lobia-containing diets (without or with supplementation) was made by chemical analysis as well as through rat assay. Lobia contained 20.43% of protein. Cooking resulted in minor changes in nutrients. It had 0.54% lysine which was reduced to 0.29% on cooking. All other amino acids also showed losses during cooking. Protein efficiency ratio (PER) of diets containing raw Lobia was 1.05 and significantly (P < 0.05) improved to 1.47 on cooking. True digestibility (TD) and net protein utilization (NPU) also showed a significant (P < 0.05) improvement in the case of cooked Lobia. Supplementation of Lobia with 20% of mutton or beef meat improved the PER significantly (P < 0.05) over unsupplemented diet containing cooked Lobia only. TD was improved from 74.9% in cooked to 84.3% in diets containing 20% mutton. Similarly NPU improved as a result of meat supplementation, from 40.7% in cooked to 53.4%. Higher PER, TD and NPU values were observed in diets containing Lobia supplemented with 20% level of mutton or beef.