Impact of Electron Beam Irradiation on the Nutritional Attributes of Seeds of Coastal Sand Dune Wild Legume Canavalia cathartica

Abstract

The wild legume Canavalia cathartica distributed in the coastal sand dunes and mangroves of the southwest coast of India possesses several traits like fast growth, production of large quantity of seeds, tolerance to adverse conditions, resistance to pests, and sand binding. Seeds of this legume consist of low fat, high protein, high colorific value, essential minerals, and essential fatty acids. Owing to meager studies on the impact of electron beam (EB) irradiation on Canavalia seeds, this study attempted to understand the changes in nutritional qualities of C. cathartica seeds. The EB irradiation resulted in the increase of carbohydrates, Ca/P ratio, albumin/globulin ratio, essential amino acid (EAA)/total amino acid ratio, EAA score, protein digestibility corrected of amino acid score, and protein efficiency ratio. The EB irradiation decreased the quantities of crude fiber, globulin, and ratio of Na/K. However, constituents like crude protein, minerals (sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, zinc, and manganese), and EAA score (threonine, cystine, isoleucine, leucine, tyrosine, phenylalanine, and histidine) were not significantly changed. Selective alteration of nutritional constituents of C. cathartica seeds by EB irradiation provides a wide scope to maneuver the nutritional properties in favor of production of value-added foodstuff using indigenous resource.