Abstract
Developing countries, especially in Africa are facing challenges of malnourished conditions and food insecurity generally. Nutrients, being components of food ingredient required for survival, normal body function and satisfying the physiological and dietary requirements of the body metabolism [38]. Hence, for meaningful growth and developments in man, the type and amount of nutrients intake and its rate of absorption or level is crucial. However, much emphases and consumption pattern in Africa had been on common or routine food crops like rice, common beans, cassava, maize e.t.c., resulting in the reduced utilisation of other plant species, termed neglected and under-utilised species (NUS), like Bambara groundnut. Selected accessions of Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdc), assembled at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria were analysed for important nutrients parameters including moisture content, carbohydrate, protein, crude fibre, total sugar, fat, starch, ash and minerals, based on standard and established protocols at the Crop Utilisation laboratory, IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria. Moreso, samples were sent to the South African grain laboratory, the Willows, South Africa, for the determination of free and essential amino acids using HPLC and UPLC conditions. Results revealed that accessions TVSu – 1235, TVSu – 1231, TVSu – 1205, TVSu -729 and TVSu – 1824 could be regarded as high nutrients varieties, while TVSu – 1744, TVSu – 553 and TVSu - 922 are medium nutrients type, while the remaining accessions falls below the medium nutrient range, among these lines of Bambara groundnut evaluated. The protein values has a range of 15.88 ± 0.005 g / 100 g for TVSu – 1202 to 24.91 ± 0.011 g / 100 g for TVSu – 1231; while their carbohydrate content ranges from 42.77 ± 0.001 g / 100 g for TVSu – 1202 to 62.76 ± 0.223 g / 100 g for TVSu – 1744.
Highlights
Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdc) is a grain legume crop which constitute an important food in some areas of the semi-arid regions of Africa [1,14]
Developing countries, especially those mostly in Africa are suffering diverse malnourished conditions, resulting in loss of life, especially in infancy [32,33,37]. These are sometimes as a result of micronutrient deficiencies; Bambara groundnut had been discovered to be able to have the potentials to alleviate these challenges [15,27]. Some of these African accessions of Bambara groundnut, which has the ability to alleviate majority of these nutrition challenges were randomly selected for evaluation in this study after the initial screening; to be able to discover those that can best be recommended for certain nutrition and health-related challenges
The result obtained shows that the Bambara groundnut accession TVSu – 1744 among all the 20 evaluated has the highest amount of carbohydrate
Summary
Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdc) is a grain legume crop which constitute an important food in some areas of the semi-arid regions of Africa [1,14]. The plant has the ability to fix nitrogen and it is resistant to high temperatures and drought tolerance, making it a valuable crop in areas where soils are too poor for other leguminous crops to thrive. It often has its fruits in the soil, thereby protecting them from insect damage, which can ravage other crops such as cowpea, common bean and soybean, whose tastiest parts are found usually above the ground. Bambara groundnut is rich in carbohydrate and protein content making it an important addition to the diets of people who cannot afford expensive animal protein [15]. To be able to fully understand its immense potentials in nutrition, there is a need to determine the quantities of the protein
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