Characterization of selected cereals and pulses for the development of functional foods

Abstract

newline It s the need of the hour to deliver affordable good quality formulation in a convenient format to ensure nutrition security especially amongst vegetarian populace. Consumers demand can be addressed by making available cereals: pulses based ready to eat products. Cereals and pulses are important crops of Indian dietary as they are enriched with functional components. To characterize and optimize high fiber and low protein formulation, important crops of the State viz. oat, pearl millet, sorghum, finger millet, horse gram, chick pea and rice bean were selected. Since consumption of these crops in the form of ready-to-eat food as extruded form is becoming a common approach. The selected crops were estimated for their quality traits. Amongst cereals and pulses, oat and chick pea came out to be best as far functional properties are concerned. Oat and horse gram are rich in crude fiber as 5.34 and 5.40 per cent respectively. While finger millet and horse gram bagged lowest values for protein (7.45; 21.28 %) and fat (2.00 and 1.80 %) content respectively. Finger millet attained highest score for Ca (269.54g/100g). Finger millet and chick pea was found to be highest values for saponins (5.29; 4.78). Whereas, maximum value for tannin was calculated in pearl millet (228.00). Oat and rice bean can be consider as an alternative for diabetetic patients palate as they obtained maximum score (2.69; 2.58%) for resistant starch. All the selected cereals and pulses came under the class of low glycemic index. Although slight decline in proximate, nutritional and sensory composition was observed with the increase in storage period within acceptable limit. Amongst the prepared products kurkure have the best storage stability and acceptability during storage period up to 120 days. It is conferred that multigrain formulations can be used for the development of value added products with high nutritional profile which might have great potential in food industry.