Nutritional value of broad bean seeds. Part 1: Starch and fibre

This paper characterizes starch and dietary fibre in the seeds of fine-size and large-size seed varieties of broad bean and in edible varieties of pea for comparison. The experimental material included seeds at full physiological maturity. The fine-size seed varieties of broad bean, Gobik and Goral, contained slightly less total starch (62.32% and 62.19% of dry matter) than the large-size seed varieties, Windsor Bialy and Bartom (65.32% and 65.26% of dry matter). It was shown that fine-size seed varieties of broad bean are a good source of resistant starch, which is comparable to large-size seed varieties. As far as the content of total starch is concerned, the share of this form of starch in broad bean seeds amounted to 1/3. Digestible starch in broad beans was in the range of 39-42% of dry matter, pea contained approximately one half less starch of this type. Moreover, it was found that the relation of rapidly digestible starch to slowly digestible starch amounted to 1:1 irrespective of broad bean variety. Dietary fibre in broad beans was in the range of 20.36%-26.79% of dry matter while half of it was found to be concentrated in the seed coat. The soluble fraction of the total content of fibre amounted to 11.81% in the Bartom variety and up to 15.89% in the Gobik variety.