The nutritive value of the protein of a few South African soybean meals

Abstract

From the metabolism data in the tables, the following are the main points of interest:- 1. Raw Product and its Heated Product or "Soma meal" (ex Delmas). The mean biological value of the Raw meal was: 49·6 ± 3·092 which is considerably lower than the meal biological value of 63·3±1·354 of the Heated Soybean Meal. The heat application had also improved the digestibility from 67 per cent. to 71 per cent. In calculating the Nett Percentage Nitrogen Utilization, the heated product was 54·5 as compared to only 39·7 of the raw product. 2. "Processed" (not baked) Soybean Meal. This meal had a mean biological value of 5·1 ± 1·945, which is higher than that of the Delmas Mills. The digestibility, however, is lower, namely, 62 per cent. Comparing the Nett Percentage Nitrogen Utilization the difference is slight, namely, 41·9 per cent. in the case of the processed meal and 39.7 per cent. in the case of the Delmas Raw Meal. The superiority of the proteins of the "Soma meal" (one heated South African variety of Soybean) confirms the findings of previous workers, namely, Hayward e.t al. (1936) and Johnson et al. (1939), indicating that in practice it would be the best policy to use the heated meals, not only because of a better palatability but also because of its higher protein efficiency.