Nutrient composition and biological evaluation of defatted tomato (Lycopersicum esculentus) seed cake.

Defatted tomato seed cake was analysed for its nutrient composition and its protein quality was evaluated in 21 day old male rats. The cake is found to be rich not only in protein (40%), minerals like phosphorus, calcium and magnesium but also in crude fiber. Lysine content of the cake protein was in the range of that found in groundnut cake protein. Sulphur containing amino acids were limiting in this protein. However, the protein quality of the cake, as judged by PER and NPU, was relatively lower compared to that of groundnut cake. Its high lysine content (5.1 g%) will be of help to improve the cereal based farm animal feed quality.