THE APPARENT DIGESTIBILITY OF TWO PREPARATIONS OF CORN AS STAPLES IN MEN / 营养学报

ABSTRACT

The apparent digestibilities of two preparations of corn as staples in men were estimated during March and April in 1979. Seven healthy adult men, who lived in this region for many years, were accustomed to eat corn as their staple diets. Each of the two preparations from the same batch of corn was used in the experiment. One preparation was "cooked corn meal" and the other was Jian-bing, the latter was considered the better way of cooking. Other ingredients of food in these two test diets were the same. During the test periods, the volunteers ate the test diets and drank boiled water ad lib, but the quantities were recorded. No other foodstuffs and drinks were allowed. The nutritive values of test diets were sufficient to meet the subjects' physiological needs. The 12 days period was divided into adaptative and testing periods of three days each for the two kinds of test diets. During the test periods, the total foodstuffs and the volunteers' faeces were analysed for the contents of water, anhydrates, total ni- trogen, crude fat, ash and fiber in the samples. From the data obtained, the apparent digestibilities of anhydrates, total nitrogen and crude fat ware calculated. Urine nitrogen was analysed and the nitrogen balance was calculated. The body weight at the beginning and the end of test periods were measured.The apparent digestibility (%) of anhydrates was 93.31?0.393 and 94.79 ? 0.578, total nitrogrn 84.60 ? 0.843 and 87.77 ? 1.080 and crude fat 86.32 ? 1.296 and 94.68 ? 0.838 in cooked corn meal diet and the corn flour Jian-bing diet respectively. The apparent digestibility in corn Jian-bing diet was higher statistically than that of cooked corn diet. Body weights fluctuated within the normal range. The nitrogen balances of all subjects were positive and the difference of nitrogen balance studies between the two test diets was not statistically significant.The results of the experiment suggest that, the differences of apparent digestibility between two diets was mainly due to the methods of preparation, Jian-bing being better than cooked corn diet in human nutrition.