An overview is given of three legume pastures with potentials as sources of crude protein and other important nutrients for livestock production in Botswana. This paper reviews distribution, plant description, agronomic characteristics, chemical composition and utilization in livestock production of Lucerne, lablab and L. leucocephala. Production and utilization of these 3 legumes for animal production will provide adequate nutrition and also reduce grazing pressure on natural ranges.

Key words: Lucerne, lablab Leucaena leucocephala, nutrition

Kefir is fermented milk only made from kefir grains and kefir cultures as no other milk culture forms. Kefir grains are the mixture of beneficial bacteria and yeast with a polysaccharide matrix. During fermentation lactic acid, CO₂, ethyl alcohol and aromatic compounds that make its unique organoleptic properties are occurred. Kefir is used for the treatment or control of several diseases for many years in Russia. It is begun to consume in some areas of the world, southwestern Asia, eastern and northern Europe, North America and Japan for its nutritional and therapeutic aspects. This paper attempts to review the consumption, process, chemical and nutritional composition and the health benefits of kefir.

Key words: Kefir, probiotic, fermented milk

Ostriches are monogastric herbivores. Palatability is crucial to stimulate feed ingestion by the birds. When formulating rations for ostriches, cotton seed cake, meal or seeds should not be used to avoid gossypol poisoning. Salt in mixed ration should not exceed 0.5% of the ration. Fresh, clean water must be available for the birds free choice. The water economy of the ostrich is similar to that of other large savannah and desert animals such as antelope and camel, although the partitioning of water loss differs. The ratio of water intake to dry matter intake is relatively constant at about 2.3. The diet composition of the ostrich is similar to that of grant's gazelle on the ranges, however differ in that the birds eat some silica-rich plants which are not utilized by ungulates. Ostriches may therefore be considered useful addition to mixed species game ranching.

Key words: Ostrich diet, feeding behaviour, feed digestion

Goat milk is known to have better qualities such as digestibility and longer shelf life when processed than cow milk. Despite these qualities, goats are kept mainly for meat in many countries. The promotion of the full use of goat milk at household level to achieve cheap balanced diet and food/nutrition security is yet to be exploited. This paper discusses the possible differences between goats and cow milk, the importance and usefulness of processed goats milk and products for food/nutrition security in the household.

Key words: Goat milk, balanced diet, household level

Atriplex nummularia (Old man saltbush) is widely planted on salt affected land to provide a vegetative cover, which can be used as fodder reserve. Such plantations are also perceived as having the capacity to use saline groundwater and hence affect the extent of shallow water tables. Atriplex spp. contains high concentrations of nitrogen (N) in winter as compared to summer when it has high concentrations of sodium. The sum of soluble protein-N, amino acid-N, nucleic acid-N and nitrate-N is about half of the total nitrogen. The remainder includes non-soluble protein-N and other N associated with cell membranes and walls. Phosphorus is known to uniformly distribute among pools of inorganic-P, phytate-P, nucleic acid-P and other (residual) fractions. This paper reviews the potentials of A. nummularia as a forage for arid areas of Botswana with saline ground water.

Key words: Atriplex nummularia, salt affected land, halophytes

Street foods provide a source of affordable nutrients to the majority of the people especially the low-income group in the developing countries. Street foods are ready-to-eat food items retailed by vendors and can be snacks, main meals, or beverages. They are usually sold from pushcarts or baskets, or stalls or shops. Urban Street food vending provides employment and income for many people, and can provide economic support to small farmers as an outlet for rural produce. In Botswana the majority of street food vendors are women, while in Bangladesh the opposite occurs with women-primarily the vendors' wives and female children-are involved in food preparation. Examples of street foods in Botswana are Fat cakes (magwinya) doughnuts; corn-on-the-cob (mmidi) crisp (madubula) extruded products, roasted beef and chicken, apples, bananas, pears, oranges, grapes and mangoes. Dried mophane worms-a high protein larvae of the emperor moth, imbrasis belina (Westwood), soft drinks, juices, and ice pop, Rice served with chicken or beef with gravy and salads, Maize meal with meat served with beef or chicken with gravy, "Samp" (broken maize corns) served with beef or chicken with gravy, "Dikgobe" "Samp" cooked with beans, "Bogobe" sorghum meal served with meat. Street foods are also prepared in a variety of ways including frying, roasting, boiling, baking and steaming, as well as served raw. Some populations, such as students and the homeless, are almost totally reliant on street foods, whereas other population groups buy them occasionally. Further an EU study in Botswana showed that the consumers of street foods in Gaborone and Francistown included both the working class and professionals. The number of customers served per day varied form 20 to 40 people. The vendors reported that the most food sold was maize-meal porridge, followed by rice, "Samp" and sorghum porridge in that order. Also dumplings, plain "Samp", "Samp" and beans were sold in smaller quantities. Due to lack of transportation, the street food vendors in this study reported that the frequency of buying raw materials was high. Finally the paper reviews the importance of the nutritional issues of street foods due to the fact that most villages in Botswana today are urbanizing and more street foods are likely to be consumed. Also the improvement of the health of the population must be of paramount concern to every one as it had been shown that HIV/AIDS has a relationship with nutrition.

Key words: Street food, fat cakes, nutrition, sanitation

The pH, ascorbic, citric and total organic acid content of some local fruits in Nigeria were determined. The mineral content of the fruits, amaranthus vegetable and cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp) were also determined. Orange juice had the highest level of ascorbic acid but low in citric acid while lime juice is very rich in citric acid. Pine apple juice contained a low level of the organic acids. The effect of the juice from the different fruits on the amaranthus and cowpea composite diets were investigated and correlated with the acids content of the fruits. Orange and grapefruit enhanced Fe and Cu from both amaranthus and cowpea but seem impaired by pine apple and lime juice. All fruit juices enhanced Mg and Zn availability from amaranthus vegetable and cowpea composite diets except that Zn was inhibited by all the fruit juice from cowpea meals. There was generally a strong correlation between ascorbic, citric and total organic acid content of the fruits and the enhancement of mineral availability.

Key words: Ascorbic acid, citric acid, amaranthus, cowpea, mineral availability

The specific aim of this study was to determine the effects of the supplementation of separate probiotic (protexin), including organic acid combination, plant extracts, mineral salts (genex) and antibiotic (flavomycin) to broiler diets on performance, abdominal fat weight, abdominal fat percentage, liver weight, intestinal weight, intestinal length, intestinal pH, carcass weight, carcass yield of broiler chicks. In this study, 84 one-day old male broiler chicks were used and divided equally into 6 groups. When the control group was fed a diet without supplemented diet probiotic (0.1% protexin), organic acid (0.2% genex), probiotic + organic acid (0.1% protexin + 0.2% genex), antibiotic (0.15% flavomycin) and antibiotic + organic acid (0.15% flavomycin +0.2% genex) were added to the diets of the experimental groups respectively. The experimental period was 42 days. The results obtained in the experiment showed that the group receiving 0.15% flavomycin + 0.2% genex supplemented in the basal diet was exhibited higher body weight gain, feed intake and carcass weight and better feed efficiency respectively than the control and other groups (P<0.05). However liver weight, intestinal pH, and abdominal fat weight were not affected significantly by probiotic, antibiotic and organic acid treatments (P>0.05).

Key words: Antibiotic, broiler performance, carcass yield , organic acid, probiotic

The chemical composition and microbiological properties of Orgu cheese, locally produced in Turkey, was investigated. The moisture, fat, protein, salt and % acidity were 52.25, 17,86, 19.96, 5.32 and 1.11% respectively while coliform, TAMB, LAB, Lipolytic and proteolytic microorganisms and yeast-mould counts were 3.73, 6.89, 6.78, 5.29, 4.50 and 5.45 cfu/gin success in cheese samples.

Key words: Orgu cheese, production technique, chemical & microbiological properties

In this study, 34 sikma cheese samples, collected from Kahramanmaras province of Turkey were investigated and revealed that they contained 53% dry-matter (DM), 43.87% fat in DM, 20.25% protein, 3.28% WSP, 6.12% salt in DM. The average titre table acidity and ripening degree were 1.71 and 17.05% respectively. The coliform, TAMB, LAB, Lipolytic and proteolytic microorganisms and yeast-mould counts were 5.99, 7.82, 7.01, 5.73, 4.56, 5.03 log cfu/g in success in cheese samples.

Key words: Sikma cheese, production technique, chemical & microbiological properties

The meat consumed by the people is sold in the open market and even on the roadsides. Special attention was focused on the determination of selected essential/heavy metals in meat samples. For assessing daily environmental contamination, sixteen meat samples of four varieties (Fish, beef, mutton and chicken) were purchased from local market and different spots of Nalahs (ravine). The samples were analyzed for the estimation of trace metals such as Pb, Cu, Ni, Zn along with Ca, Mg and Fe. The overall concentration of Pb, Ni, Zn and Mn were found small (0-4 ppm). Among major elements Fe was found quite high (600-7000 ppm). The Ca (600-2000 ppm) and Mg (800-1300 ppm) levels were also higher. Fe was recorded higher in beef and mutton, Ca in fish and mutton and Mg in mutton, chicken and fish were comparatively noted high.

Key words: Environmental pollution, trace metals, meat samples, major trace metals

This study was carried out to produce and observe the effect of processing on the chemical quality of soft unripened cheese made from skimmed camel milk. Soft unripened cheese from camel milk was prepared by using conventional cheese-making methodology, a mesophilic starter culture, CaCl₂ and a calf rennet. A total of five experiments were included in the present investigation. While cheese from buffalo milk was kept as a control. Before making cheese all the milk samples were skimmed and analyzed for their physico-chemical composition. Cheese was prepared and analyzed for their physico-chemical properties. As a consequence of processing treatments during manufacturing of soft unripened cheese, the average concentration (on DMB) of fat, ash and chlorides of skimmed camel milk were slightly decreased (i.e. from 3.62 ± 0.93 to 2.96 ± 0.62%, 11.79 ± 0.94 to 7.30 ± 0.55% and 3.18 ± 0.15 to 2.29 ± 0.26%, respectively). While, total protein and casein contents were significantly increased (i.e. 44.72 ± 4.48 to 78.88 ± 1.64% and 21.17 ± 1.31 to 59.56 ± 2.60%, respectively) because during manufacturing of cheese drainage of whey liquid and dissolved particles which contains lactose, minerals and chlorides. While rest of the mass contain higher percentage of undissolved particles (total protein particularly casein content)

Key words: Camel milk, products, cheese-making, soft cheeses, effect of processing

The primary application of invertase from Saccharomyces cerevisiae is in the confectionary industry. In Pakistan, much of this enzyme is imported. The influence of the carbon source during invertase production is well known, but little is understood about the nitrogen source influence. We examined three different nitrogen sources using Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain for invertase production. Saccharomyces species GCA-II was used to investigate the effect of urea and other nitrogen sources on the production of -fructofuranosidase in submerged fermentation. It was found that when a very little amount of urea was added to the fermentation medium it showed marked increase in -fructofuranosidase production i.e., from 121.35 to 158.26 U/ml.

Key words: Beta-fructofuranosidase, urea, Saccharomyces, fermentation, nitrogen                            source