[Nutritional use of lentil proteins in the young rat]

The nutritional utilization of the lentil was compared to that of casein, used as the only protein food in young rats at two different ages: weanling and 10 days thereafter. Cooking allowed a better intake and digestive utilization of lentil crude protein by the weanling rats. In this case, methionine showed to be the first limiting factor. When lentil diets were given to the older rats, their intake and growth rates reached the level of the control rats. In this case, the free amino acid pools in the muscles were found increased in the group on cooked lentils as compared to that on raw lentils or the control group.