Sopejame M.’s scientific contributions

Marama milk was processed from the marama bean, an indigenous bean native to the Kalahari and neighbouring sandy regions of Southern Africa. The bean has become of interest to Botswana firstly because it grows with minimum effort under semi-arid conditions, both the seeds and tubers are of nutritional significance and because there is increasing emphasis being placed on adding value to traditional foods. The edible seeds, which contain large amounts of protein, oil, carbohydrates and micronutrients were heat processed into marama milk, packaged then stored under various time and temperature combinations. The proximate and physicochemical quality and acceptability of the milk was assessed. The findings demonstrated that marama milk had high quality and acceptability and that there was need for further research on utilisation of the marama bean.