Acta Scientiarum Polonorum Technologia Alimentaria

Green pea is regarded as an important constituent of a human diet, especially for vegetarians. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the amino acids content in green pea and the quality of pea protein. The study covered raw seeds; fresh seeds cooked to consumption consistency; and two kinds of frozen products prepared for consumption: frozen seeds obtained using the traditional method and frozen seeds of the ready-to-eat type. Compared with the raw material, cooked fresh pea contained more isoleucine (15%), valine (14%) and arginine (24%) but less tyrosine (17%); cooked pea from the traditional frozen product contained less sulphur-containing amino acids (12%) and alanine (13%); while pea from the frozen product of the ready-to-eat type contained a similar or higher amount (from 12% to 38%) of amino acids, except for sulphur-containing amino acids (less 12%). The protein of green pea was of very good quality, both in raw seeds and in those prepared for consumption. In comparison with the FAO/WHO/1991 standard, the CS indexes exceeded 100. It was only for sulphuric amino acids that the CS for the ready-to-eat product was 98. The methods of culinary and technological processing applied affected the quality of protein in green pea seeds to a negligible degree.