Excerpt from Studies on the Digestibility and Nutritive Value of Legumes at the University of Tennessee, 1901-1905

Some attention has been paid to the study of the thoroughness of digestion of legumes. Hoffman found in some experiments with men that 47 per cent of the protein of a diet of bread, lentils, and potatoes was excreted as compared with a loss of 18 per cent of an equal amount of meat protein eaten by the same person. Strum pell b also studied the digestibility of lentils. When he ate about 250 grams of those that had been soaked awhile In water and cooked in the usual manner, about 40 per cent of the protein was excreted. In the same investigation he made experiments with a mixture of lentil and cereal meals, a commercial preparation, which he made into cakes with milk, eggs, and butter. The quantity of protein in the feces from the whole diet was but 10 per cent of that in the legume preparation used. With all allowance for the fact that part of the protein of the preparation was from cereals, and also that the cakes contained considerable animal protein, which may have had a favorable influence on the digestion of that from the legume, the results would indicate that the legume protein was more thoroughly digested when the lentils were ground and specially prepared than when they were eaten whole as usually cooked. These results have frequently been quoted as showing that the method of preparing the legumes has considerable effect upon their absorption.

Strumpell found as a result of several tests that distilled water alone and distilled water containing magnesium phosphate were absorbed by the dried lentils in larger quantities than distilled water containing calcium phosphate, and, though he made no experiments with the lentils thus prepared, he was persuaded that the method of cooking has an important influence upon the digestibility of legumes.

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