Cereal Chem 55:512 - 517.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Nutritional Aspects of Fermented Foods from Chickpea, Horsebean, and Soybean.

C. Kao and R. J. Robinson. Copyright 1978 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Soybean, chickpea, and horsebean are three major leguminous seeds cultivated by mankind. The antitryptic activities of soybean are much stronger than those of chickpea or horsebean, but almost all such activities can be destroyed by autoclaving the dehulled seed grits for 15 min. When autoclaved grits were fermented to prepare tempeh or miso, essential amino acids of their proteins were virtually unchanged, but water- soluble vitamins increased considerably. No aflatoxins were produced. Diets were prepared from freeze- dried tempehs or autoclaved (unfermented) grits for protein efficiency ratio (PER) tests. Rats on freeze- dried tempeh diets ate more, gained more weight, and had higher PERs than did rats eating autoclaved (unfermented) grits. The PER of chickpea tempeh was slightly higher than that of soybean tempeh. The PER of horsebean tempeh was significantly lower than that of either of the other two tempehs, but the PER of horsebean tempeh diet enriched by 0.2% L-methionine and 0.1% L-tryptophan exceeded that of soybean tempeh. The poor performance of horsebean tempeh resulted from amino acid imbalance rather than from toxic material. Misos contained about 25% salt db - too much to be acceptable rat diets.