Physicochemical, phytochemical and nutritional impact of fortified cereal-based extrudate snacks:Effect of underutilized legume flour addition and extrusion cooking

摘要

Legume seeds have high nutraceutical appeal and they can produce a balanced food when mixed with cereals. There has been little research on developing extrudate snacks with special health-enhancing characteristics. Therefore, the aim of this study wasto estimate the quantitative changes in the nutritional, physicochemical and phytochem-ical properties of rice-horse gram flour blend extrudate. Rice and horse gram flour blends were prepared in 70:30 proportions and were subjected to extrusion cooking.The effect of feed moisture (14-18%) and barrel temperature (140-180°C) on the nutritional, physicochemical (expansion, density, water solubility index, water absorption index and hardness) and phytochemical (total phenolic content [TPC] and total flavonoid content [TFC]) properties were studied. Antioxidant capacity was measured using the ABTS assay. High die temperature combined with low feed moisture was suitable for obtaining well expanded snacks having desir-able density and hardness values. A significant decrease in TPC and TFC was observed upon extrusion and a further decrease of 8-29% in TPC and 13-27% in TFC was observed when feed moisture and die temperature were increased. Antioxidant activity increased upon extrusion and this increase was the highest (36-49%) at 180°C with 18% feed moisture. This study demonstrated the potential for production of low-cost expanded snacks with improved antioxidant capacity.