ABSTRACT

A careful analysis on the nutritive values of some varieties of local legume samples were carried out. These legumes include Bambara nut, Soybean, pigeon pea, African yam bean and cowpea. The parameters determined were moisture, ash, crude protein, crude fibre, fat, carbohydrate contents and some minerals which include sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium and phosphorous. The results obtained from the analysis showed that the moisture content of the legun-ies samples was highest in pigeon pea with a value of 11.70% and least in Bambara with a value of 6. 13%. Ash content was highest in Soybean with a value of 6.02%. Pigeon pea and Cowpea had similar levels of ash content of 4.90%. Bambara and African yam bean had almost commensurate values of 4. 1 5% and 4.25% respectively. Soybean had the highest protein content of 35.44% followed by pigeon pea with a value of 18.38%. Bambarra nut had the least protein content with a value o19.63%. Fat content in Soybean is highest giving 8.75%, followed by Bambarra nut, with a value of 6.00%. Trace amounts of lat. were only encountered in African yam bean and cowpea. Crude fibre content from analysis was highest in pigeon pea with a value of 8.7% and least in Bambarra with a value 3.03%. Soybean had a value of 5.60%. Carbohydrate content was highest in Bambarra nut with the value of 71 .06% and Soybean having the least value of 34.58%. For the mineral, legumes had similar values of sodium and potassium with slight  ill that of !)11051)oflls content. Cowpea find the highest phosphorus content with the value of 0.525% and Bambara with the least value of 0.321%. Calcium contents were also similar in all the legumes except soybean, which had the value almost twice that of the others — 0.58 1%. Pigeon pea had the highest magnesium content of 0.171% with African yam bean and cowpea having the least but equal values of 0.05%. Thus the comparative studies of the nutritive values carried out in this work showed that soybean was the highest in protein and fats and lowest in carbhydrate. Bambara was highest in carbohydrate and least in protein content.