Description
Macrotyloma uniflorum (horse gram, kulthi bean, hurali, Madras gram) is one of the lesser known beans. In traditional Ayurvedic cuisine, horse gram is considered a food with medicinal qualities. It is prescribed for persons suffering from jaundice or water retention and as part of a weight loss diet and rich in proteins (20%). Horse Gram is mainly cultivated in India. It is consumed as a whole seed, as sprouts, or as whole meal. Medical uses of these legumes have been discussed.
Horse gram and moth bean are legumes of the tropics and subtropics, grown mostly under dry-land agriculture. The chemical composition is comparable with more commonly cultivated legumes. Like other legumes, these are deficient in methionine and tryptophan, though horse gram is an excellent source of iron and molybdenum. Comparatively, horse gram seeds have higher trypsin inhibitor and hemagglutinin activities and natural phenols than most bean seeds. Natural phenols are mostly phenolic acids, namely, 3,4-dihydroxybenzoic, 4-hydroxybenzoic, vanillic, caffeic, p-coumaric, ferulic, syringic and sinapic acids.[3] Dehusking, germination, cooking, and roasting have been shown to produce beneficial effects on nutritional quality of both the legumes.
