Abstract
Phaseolus lunatus commonly known as lima bean is one of the important leguminous crops in the genus phaseolus noted for its nutritional and medicinal properties. However, the current improved varieties released by Crop Research Institute (CRI) have no documental records on their physical and cooking properties. This informed the study to evaluate the physical and cooking characteristics of 5 improved lima beans. The lima beans were obtained from Crop Research Institute, Fumesua-Ghana and analyses on physical and cooking properties were carried out. Seed length ranged from 19.12 to 25.50 mm, breadth from 12.41 to 15.41 mm with significant differences among the accessions. However, thickness which varied from 5.10 to 6.58 mm showed no statistical significant difference. The thousand (1000) seed weight significantly varied from 886.00 to 1311.65 g. All the five lima bean accessions belonged to the Andean gene pool or Meso-American large seeded type. Length/breadth & water uptake ratio, and bulk density were within the range of 1.49 to 1.76, 1.15 to 1.81 g, and 0.59 to 0.62 g/ml, respectively. The cooking time of all the accessions ranged from 81.00mins to 91.50mins with no significant differences. Cooked Length-Breadth and water uptake ratios had minimum and maximum values of 1.39 to 1.78 and 1.15 to 1.31, respectively. Seed hydration capacity and index had values between 18.98-23.05 g/seed & 7.14-10.45; swelling capacity ranged between 17.98-20.38ml/seed and swelling index recorded values between 3.88-5.10. The physical and cooking properties of legumes are important for the design of equipment necessary for food processing, packaging, post-harvest handling and also for determination of cooking quality. The underutilized legumes have physical and cooking characteristic which make them potentially ideal for commercial cultivation, local food uses and for industrial food processing.
Highlights
Phaseolus lunatus commonly known as lima bean is one of the important leguminous crops in the genus phaseolus noted for its nutritional and medicinal properties
Knowledge of physical properties is imperative for the design of equipments which are used for processing of seeds in the industries which involves harvesting, threshing, cleaning, separation, transportation and packaging
Various physical parameters evaluated for different varieties of lima beans were seed length, breadth, thickness, thousand (1000) seed weight, length breadth ratio, water uptake ratio and bulk density
Summary
Phaseolus lunatus commonly known as lima bean is one of the important leguminous crops in the genus phaseolus noted for its nutritional and medicinal properties. They are a type of legume native to South American. In Ghana and other developing countries, legumes are the second largest sources of human food after cereals. They are the fourth important legume food in Ghana after cowpea, groundnut and bambara groundnut. The high protein content as well as the presence of the amino acid lysine makes them a suitable cheap source for fortification of cereal diets in most economies in transition [3]. The protein content of legume grains range from 17 to 40 g/100 g, much higher than that in cereals (7-11.8 g/100 g) and approximately equal to the protein content of meat 18-25 g/100 g [3]
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