Plant Foods for Human Nutrition 60: 69–75, 2005.  C 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. DOI: 10.1007/s11130-005-5102-y 69 Nutritional and Antinutritional Characteristics of Seven South Indian Wild Legumes V. VADIVEL 1,∗ & K. JANARDHANAN 2 1 Indian Cardamom Research Institute, Spices Board, Myladumpara, Kailasanadu 685 553, Kerala, India; 2 Seed Technology Laboratory, Department of Botany, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore 641 046, Tamil Nadu, India ( ∗ author for correspondence; e-mail: vadivelvds@rediffmail.com) Abstract. Seeds from seven species of wild legumes of the South India were analyzed for proximate composition, mineral profiles, amino acid profiles of total seed protein, in vitro protein digestibility, and certain antin- utritional factors to assess their potential as alternative sources of protein crops. The major findings of the study were as follows: crude protein ranged from 20.3 to 35.0%, crude lipid 3.1–9.6%, crude fiber 5.9–12.1%, ash 2.7– 5.1%, and carbohydrates 49.2–61.8%. Minerals viz., sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, copper, zinc, and manganese oc- curred in the range 42.9–135.9, 556.2–1639.5, 304.5–572.2, 174.9–686.7, 98.4–947.8, 3.6–16.4, 0.2–1.2, 2.0–30.0, and 1.0–3.9 mg/100 g seed flour, respectively. Profiles of amino acids of total seed proteins detected in the present study revealed that levels of valine, phenylalanine, tyrosine, isoleucine, and histidine of all the seven wild legume seed samples, threo- nine of Canavalia ensiformis and C. gladiata, leucine of Mucuna pruriens var. pruriens, and lysine of Cassia floribunda and C. obtusifolia were found to be higher than FAO/WHO (1991) requirement pattern. The in vitro protein digestibility of the legumes under study ranged from 63.39 to 83.32%. Antinutritional factors such as total free phenolics ranged from 0.41 to 5.96%, tannins from 0.04 to 0.60%, L-DOPA from 1.34 to 8.37% and trypsin inhibitor activity from 13.48 to 65.43 TIU/mg protein. The detected antinutritional factors probably have little nutritional significance if the seeds are properly processed. Key words: Amino acid profiles, Antinutritional factors, Chemical com- position, In vitro protein digestibility, Wild legumes Introduction Nutrition is a most important basic need, being a major determinant of health, labour productivity, and mental de- velopment. But in most developing countries of the world, hunger and malnutrition are increasing due to population explosion, shortage of fertile land, and high food prices [1]. Protein deficiency is widespread and has been cited as the most common form of malnutrition in developing countries [2]. With a high protein content, along with en- ergy values and the important vitamin and mineral content, legumes have been recognised for their nutritional impor- tance. Legumes occupy the second place, after cereals as sources of calories and protein in human diet. Nonetheless, pulse production in India could not keep pace with popula- tion growth and consequently its per capita availability has declined from 70 g in 1956 to 34 g in 1996 [3]. Intensive efforts to find alternative sources of proteins from plants adapted to adverse conditions have been conducted around the world [4–8], and have met with some success. Most of the indigenous legumes in South India and in the tropics in general are relatively underutilized compared to chickpeas, black gram, cowpeas, green gram, horse gram, pea, pigeon pea, kidney bean, moth bean, soybean, and peanut. As part of our efforts to obtain more information about these legumes toward their wider utilization, stud- ies were carried out to investigate the nutritional qual- ity of mature seeds of seven indigenous legumes, namely: Canavalia ensiformis DC, C. gladiata (Jacq.) DC, Cassia floribunda Cav., C. obtusifolia (L.), Mucuna monosperma DC ex Wight, M. pruriens var. pruriens (L.) DC, and M. pruriens var. utilis (Wall.ex Wight). Compositional knowl- edge of these materials could help in developing techno- logical processes to destroy, eliminate, or inactivate toxic antinutritional factors or make the plant material edible and more digestible. Materials and Method Materials All the investigated seven wild legume species were col- lected from different agroclimatic regions of South India (Table 1). All seed samples were collected from tropical forests of Western Ghats. The wild legumes were identified by the methods of Sudhir et al. [9], Wilmot-Dear [10], and Singh and Premanath [11]. The collected seeds were dried in open sunlight for 2–3 days. After thorough clearing and removal of broken seeds and foreign materials, seeds were stored in airtight plastic containers at room temperature (25 ◦ C ± 2). The air-dried seeds (approximately 50 g) were powdered in a Wiley mill (Scientific Equipment, Delhi, India) to 60-mesh size and stored in screw-capped bottles at room temperature for further analysis. Proximate Composition Analysis The moisture content of the seed was estimated by tak- ing 50 transversely cut seeds at a time and the weight was taken before and after incubation in a hot-air-oven (Toshniwal Brothers (SR) Private LTD, Chennai, India) at 80 ◦ C for 24 h, followed by cooling in a desiccator. Nitro- gen content in the powdered seed samples was estimated by the micro-kjeldahl method [12] and crude protein was calculated ( N × 6.25). The recommended methods of As- sociation of Official Analytical Chemists [13] were used for