Effects of cooking methods on dietary fiber content of southern pea (Vigna unguiculata)

The effects of some cooking methods on the dietary fiber contents of California No. 5, Chinese Red, and Texas Cream No. 40, cultivars of southern pea were investigated. Preliminary soaking trials revealed that elevated temperature soaking increased the water imbition rate compared with the ambient temperature soaking: for all the cultivars. Only Chinese Red pea did not reach saturation point in an 18 hour ambient temperature soaking. Therefore, elevated temperature soaking of this cultivar is more critical.

Sensory evaluation studies conducted to select the optimum cooking times gave the most favorable sensory values for 30 minutes covered pot cooking, 45 minutes microwave cooking, and 15 minutes pressure cooking.

The selected soaking method and cooking time methods were used in analyzing the dietary fiber contents of the southern pea cultivars.

Chinese Red pea was found to be higher than Texas Cream No. 40 and California No. 5 peas in NDF and ADF values. Therefore, Chinese Red pea could be of interest to a population desiring a high dietary fiber-proteinous food. The three cooking methods generally increased the NDF and ADF values of the three cultivars over that of the raw state. However, no particular cooking method increased NDF, ADF, or ADL better than the other. The ADL values were generally below 1% and were too inconsistent for any valuable inference to be drawn from them.