Abstract
This fundamental study was undertaken to evaluate the nutritional value of Canola rapeseed meal which has been increasingly used as a by-product with the demand for the food oil resource. To compare the nutritive values among rapeseed meal and soybean meal, two experiments were carried out by using rats. One was a digestibility test of rapessed meal and the other was the growth rate of rats for 21 days. The chemical compositions , blucosinolate and amino acids of defatted repeseed meal and defatted soybean meal were analyzed. After one week feeding, nitrogen excretion in rats was measured to study FER, PER , TD , BW , and NPU of the meals. The amount of crude proteins in defatted rapeseed meal and defatted soybean meal were 45.5% and 37.9%. The glucosinolate content of defatted rapeseed meal was 0.04% . The body weight gain of defatted rapeseed meal was not signficantly different from that of defatted soybean meal (p>0.01). After one week feeding, there was no significant differencess in organ weight and serum components between two groups(p>0.01). It was presumed that the rapeseed meal has enough possibility for developing food to use as a protein source like a soybean meal protein. However, more careful experiments are needed to clarify the nutritional value of rapeseed meal of Canola since the lipids composition of blood tended to be different when the rapeseed meal and soybean meal were used.