All of these results of storage and processing introduce chemical changes that affect the nutritional value of food.
Vitamins are more susceptible than minerals, and amino acids are somewhere in between.
On the other hand, appropriate storage conditions and well-controlled processing have positive effects in retaining the original nutrient content of the food, and in many cases improving the availability of specific nutrients and the overall quality of the product. Because the effects of conventional storage and processing on nutritive value of foods are well known and documented, more attention will be given in this paper to those storage and processing technologies commonly used in the preparation of legumes, since they are important sources of nutrients in the diets consumed by people whose principal foods are largely vegetable in origin. Before beginning this discussion, it should be pointed out that chemistry plays an important role in the food chain from production to consumption, and the nutrients or chemical compounds synthesized by the plant and deposited in the seed interact with each other during storage and processing to give specific nutritional values. This suggests the need for geneticists and production specialists to work closely with food chemists and technologists and with biochemists and nutritionists to insure the maximum nutritive quality and acceptability to the consumer. Furthermore, food legumes present a variety of problems, from production to consumption, that will be used to point out the effects of storage and processing on nutritive value.