Effect of Physical Processing of Pea (Pisum sativum) on Nitrogen Fractionation and Intestinal Protein Digestion

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different methods of physical processing of pea (Pisum sativum) on ruminal and intestinal digestion and protein fractionation using in vitro techniques. Raw pea unprocessed contain 95.8 dry matter, 22.9 crude protein, 35.4 NDF, 6.5 ADF, 6 crude fat and 1.2 minerals % per DM. Physical processing of raw peas was done using four methods 1: Soaking the peas in water, 2: Autoclaved pea for different times, 3: Microwaving of peas for 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8 minutes at 1000 watts and 4: Roasting peas for 30 minutes in a thermal tunnel. Among the various processing methods in this experiment, microwaved peas for 4 to 8 minutes and roasting caused to a reduction in NPN, rapidly degraded true protein (B1), and an increase in True protein with an intermediate degradation rate (B2) and true protein (TP). Comparing the effect of processing on digestibility of pea protein in the rumen and intestinal showed that roasting for 30 minutes at 100°C not only increased rumen degradable protein (RDP), but also increased the digestibility of protein in the small intestine.