[Nutritional utilization of cottonseed flour, compared to soya flour, by growing rats with protein malnutrition]

The aim of this study was to compare the nutritional value of three diets with rats submitted to protein malnutrition. After one month on a low protein diet (2% casein), the rats were refed with corn-soya-milk (60%/30%/5%, W/W/W) and rice-cotton-milk (60%/30%/5%) diets. This produced a higher growth rate than either the corn-cotton milk (60%/30%/5%) diets or a control diet containing 20% casein. The caloric intake/100 g body weight was about the same with the four rehabilitation diets. The highest apparent nitrogen digestive utilization coefficients (C. U. D.) values were obtained with the control diet, lower values with the rice-cotton-milk diet, then the corn-cotton-milk diet and lowest with the corn-soya-milk diet. Results of lipid C. U. D. were in the same order. The highest nitrogen balances were obtained with the control diet, then the corn-soya-milk diet, the rice-cotton-milk diet and lowest values with the corn-cotton-milk diet. Our data prove that the cotton flour mixed with rice may perfectly replace soya flour associated with corn in a nutritional rehabilitation diet.