Chemical composition and content of antinutritional factors in Polish cultivars of peas.

The seeds of 15 Polish pea varieties contained from 221 to 281 g/kg crude protein with a mean of 240.2 +/- 3.5 g/kg dry matter (DM). The weight of 1000 pea seeds, depending on cultivar, ranged from 209.4 to 280.4 g. No interactive effect between the seed mass and the crude protein content was detected. The highest significant negative correlation between weight of seeds and dietary fiber content was r = -0.815XX. The content of dietary fiber ranged from 161.5 to 209.9 g/kg with a mean of 187.9 +/- 3.8 g/kg. The mean gross energy of seeds was 18.1 +/- 0.28 MJ/kg. Amino acid composition of all the cultivars was similar, which was indicated by a similar index of essential amino acids (EAAI) of about 69.7 +/- 0.25. Trypsin inhibitor content in seeds was from 2.83 to 7.32 TIU/mg and the content of phytates ranged from 6.32 to 13.36 mg/g DM. The mean content of polyphenols and flavanols in analysed pea cultivars was 0.92 and 0.46 mg/g, respectively. In the seeds of most cultivars little or no pyrimidine glucosides, i.e. vicine and convicine, were found. The overall mean oligosaccharide content was 64.3 +/- 1.8 g/kg, of which alpha-galactosides were 46.8 +/- 2.0 g/kg. The antinutritional factor content was not significantly correlated with protein content. No statistical relationship was found between crude protein and dietary fiber content. It was observed that pea cultivars with higher trypsin inhibitor activity contained significantly less flavanols (r = -0.607X) and alpha-galactosides (r = -0.617X). The varieties with higher seed content of dietary fiber contained the highest amount of alpha-galactosides (r = 0.514X).