Compositional and nutritional attributes of seeds from the multiple purpose tree Moringa oleifera Lamarck

Moringa oleifera Lam is a multipurpose tree cultivated to use as a vegetabl e, for spice, for cooking and cosmetic oil and as a medicinal plant. Owing to the use of its seeds as food and as a clarifying agent of turbid water s ome nutritional and antinutritional characteristics were studied. The matur e seeds contained 332.5g crude protein, 412.0g crude fat, 211.2g carbohydra te and 44.3g ash per kg dry matter. The essential amino acid profile compar ed with the FAO/WHO/UNU scoring pattern requirements for different age grou ps showed deficiency of lysine, threonine and valine. The content of methio nine + cysteine (43.6 gkg(-1) protein), however, was exceptionally higher a nd close to that of human milk, chicken egg and cow's milk. The seed extrac t agglutinated rabbit erythrocytes but did not show trypsin inhibitor and u rease activities. Feeding rats with a diet containing the seed meal showed loss of appetite, impaired growth, lower NPU and enlargement of stomach, sm all intestine, caecum + colon, Liver, pancreas, kidneys, heart and lungs an d atrophy of thymus and spleen in comparison with rats fed on an egg-white diet. The results indicated that consumption of M oleifera raw mature seeds should be viewed with some caution until suitable processing methods are d eveloped to abolish the yet unknown adverse factors. (C) 1999 Society of Ch emical Industry.