QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Tovar, J. Articles by Asp, N.-G. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Tovar, J. Articles by Asp, N.-G.

Incomplete Digestion of Legume Starches in Rats: A Study of Precooked Flours Containing Retrograded and Physically Inaccessible Starch Fractions^1,2,

Department of Applied Nutrition and Food Chemistry, Chemical Center, University of Lund, S-221 00 Lund, Sweden

The digestibility of starch in precooked flours from green coat lentils (Lens culinaris Medik) and red kidney beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) was investigated by balance experiments using rats treated with antibiotics to suppress hind-gut fermentation. The legume preparations were rich in intact cells filled with denaturated starch and contained retrograded amylose. Between 8% (beans) and 11% (lentils) of the total starch ingested appeared in the feces, indicating a relatively low starch digestibility. Red bean flours of two different particle sizes were similarly digested. Sixty percent of the fecal starch in the bean-fed animals and 70% in the lentil-fed group was retrograded amylose. The in vitro indigestible starch content of the flours was evaluated with three different methods that gave rather different values. The retrograded amylose fraction, measured after alkaline treatment of a dietary fiber residue obtained by enzymic digestion, was quantitatively recovered in the feces. None of the procedures gave accurate estimates of the total in vivo indigestible starch. Fecal excretion of starch in rats not treated with antibiotics indicated that the indigestible starch in lentils was less susceptible to fermentation than that in the red bean preparations.

KEY WORDS: • starch • indigestible starch estimation • legumes • resistant starch • rats

¹ Presented in part at the First General Meeting of the European FLAIR Concerted Action No. 11 on Resistant Starch (EURESTA), May 1991, Crete, Greece [Tovar, J., Björck, I. M. & Asp, N-G. (1992) Digestibility of starch in legumes using the rat. Eur. J. Clin. Nutr. 46 (suppl. 2) (in press)].

² Supported by the Swedish Council for Forestry and Agricultural Research (grant 50.117/90) and the Swedish Institute.

³ On leave of absence from the Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Manuscript received 28 October 1991. Revision accepted 9 March 1992.