Abstract
Malnutrition is a medical condition caused by an unbalanced diet, typically characterised by stunting and wasting in children. Malnutrition causes approximately a third of all deaths in children between 0-59 months mostly in developing countries. In Namibia, 24% of children under the age of 5 years are stunted while 6.2% are wasted. Tylosema esculentum, commonly known as marama bean is an underutilised legume of high nutritious value. Indigenous to Namibia, marama bean seeds have comparably high protein and lipid content. Marama bean is an appealing crop to Namibia in particular due to its low cultivation demands as it grows in sandy soils with minimal water requirements and no need for fertilisers. Ten accessions of marama bean seeds were analysed for their nutritional composition. The results indicate that ash content was found ranging between 2.13% and 3.46%. Minerals analysed were calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus and zinc. Their range of concentrations were 750.1-2306.2 mgkg-1, 53.9-322.4 mgkg-1, 1764.1-7415.0 mgkg-1, 4300.8-5267.9 mgkg-1 and 32.2-48.8 mgkg-1 respectively with no significant difference in concentration among the ten accessions. Correlation analysis of the minerals within the accessions showed that the correlations between zinc-magnesium and zinc-phosphorus concentrations were significantly different as compared to the rest of the pairs for all accessions. When analysed, the maximum and minimum amounts of crude fat and carbohydrates were 29.9%-44.1% and 19.4%-39.0% respectively which were found to not have a significant difference. However, the protein analysis determined that there was a significant difference with PMBC2 (mean content 34.6%) being the most significant accession. Therefore, PMBC2 was found to be the most suitable accession for crop development and domestication. This study’s main contribution with respect to the domestication of marama bean was the identification of the most superior accession based on nutritional composition.
Highlights
Malnutrition is a medical condition that arises from an unbalanced diet characterised by two extremes of nutritiondependent health complications being undernutrition and over nutrition
The subsequent Kruskal Wallis test revealed no significant differences of ash percentages among the marama bean samples (χ2= 9.267; p=0.413>0.05)
The results for ash content were between 2.7% and 3.2%, values consistent with previous studies on marama bean samples from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa where ash contents of 2.5% - 3.7% have been reported [23]
Summary
Malnutrition is a medical condition that arises from an unbalanced diet characterised by two extremes of nutritiondependent health complications being undernutrition and over nutrition. Conditions most commonly associated with malnutrition are stunting (low height for age), wasting (low weight for height), underweight (low weight for age), and morbidity (excess weight) [1]. In cases where it goes untreated, conditions such as marasmus and kwashiorkor may arise resulting in a condition known as severe acute malnutrition [2]. It is estimated that as a result of it, one-third of all child and infant deaths in developing countries are due to malnutrition with African and Asian countries having the Paidamoyo Natasha Mataranyika et al.: Comparative Nutritional Analysis of Tylosema esculentum (Marama Bean) Germplasm Collection in Namibia highest cases [3]. The causes of child malnutrition vary but are largely influenced by social, economic and cultural shortcomings. The main signs and symptoms of malnutrition may be linked to food insecurity and the absence of varieties of food choices [5]
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