Effect of Autoclaving on Proximate and Anti- Nutritional Factors of Jackbean (Canavalia ensiformis L) D.C. FLOUR

Abstract

Jackbean (Canavalia ensiformis) is a legume with high nutritive value but with elongated cooking time, hard seed coat and anti-nutritional factors as limiting factors. There is a dearth of information on the impact of different pre-processing methods on the proximate and antinutritional factors of Jackbean flour. Therefore, this study is on the influence of autoclaving on proximate and anti-nutritional factors of Jackbean flour. Jackbean procured from the Genetic Resources Unit of International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Oyo State Nigeria were subjected to autoclaving at 121 0C for 30, 60, 90, 120 mins, dried to 12 % moisture content and milled into flour while flour from untreated seed served as control. The data generated were subjected to statistical analyses using SAS 2.0 and SPSS 20.0 packages. The results revealed that autoclaving at 121 0C for 120 mins resulted in maximum protein content of 34.97 % and drastic reduction in all anti-nutritional factor most particularly trypsin inhibitor from 27.88 % in raw seed to 17.86 % in autoclaved seed. Autoclaving thus had positive effect on the proximate and antinutritional factors of Jackbean.