BIOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF PROTEIN-QUALITY OF BARLEY

Protein quality of barley cultivars, namely BH-331 (hulled), DL-88 (hu llless) and Dolma (hullless) having 2.18, 4.60 and 6.23% beta-glucan c ontent, respectively, was biologically evaluated by rat growth and nit rogen balance studies. Feeding of BH-331 barley diet resulted in marke d decrease of food intake, body weight gain, food efficiency ratio, pr otein efficiency ratio, nitrogen absorption, biological value, net pro tein utilization and utilizable protein. The diet containing Dolma cul tivar (hullless and high beta-glucan) caused by intermediate effect on all the protein quality parameters. DL-88 (hullless) gave better resu lts than BH-331 and Dolma. Therefore, beta-glucan content may not be a ffecting protein quality parameters in barley. However, hulled barley (BH-331) showed adverse effects on biological parameters in which husk seems to contribute towards unpalatability of the diet, thereby leadi ng to a reduced food intake and other related parameters. (C) 1998 Els evier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.