Evaluation of the nutritive value of some lesser known protein sources in nigerian peasant diets

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Abstract
The nutritive values of some lesser known protein sources in Nigerian peasant diets were evaluated by in vitro enzyme digestion studies and by in vivo studies with rats. Snail (Vivapara quadrata), periwinkle (Littorina littorea), dried crayfish (Palamonetes varians) and locally smoked fresh water fish (Tilapia melanopleura) had a range of digestibility of 57–75 percent with pepsin/trypsin hydrolysis. The digestibility of smoked fresh water fish and crayfish in rats ranged between 91.2 percent and 89.5 percent while that of periwinkle and snail was 80.4 percent and 85.9 percent respectively. Crayfish gave the highest PER (1.8) while the others had values ranging from 0.7 to 1.5. These values were considerably lower than that of whole hen's egg (3.5). These protein samples had high biological values (70.8–81.6) which were, however, still lower than whole hen's egg (92.0) and fairly high NPU values (60.3–73.0). In general, these lesser known protein sources if consumed in adequate quantities would alleviate protein deficiency syndromes which are prevalent in a large section of our rural population.