Open AccessA study on physicochemical, antioxidant and microbial properties of germinated wheat flour and its utilization in breads
Author(s) -
Bhavnita Dhillon,
Garima Choudhary,
Navdeep Singh Sodhi
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of food science and technology/journal of food science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.656
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 0975-8402
pISSN - 0022-1155
DOI - 10.1007/s13197-020-04311-x
Subject(s) - food science , germination , antioxidant , wheat flour , dietary fiber , antioxidant capacity , chemistry , whole wheat , biology , agronomy , biochemistry
Wheat is consumed worldwide because of its high nutritional content and convenience to form different products. Whole wheat is an important source of dietary fiber and its consumption is known to lower the risk of colon cancer, diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease. Germination of wheat results in better availability of nutrients and offers many health benefits. In this study, germinated wheat flour (GWF) was prepared and analyzed for its proximate composition, functional properties, antioxidant activity and microbial count along with whole wheat flour (WWF). The GWF was having 9.2% higher protein content than that of WWF. No significant change was observed in the ash, fat and crude fiber content after germination. GWF showed higher oil absorption capacity and water solubility index. Falling number of GWF was found to be lower. The total phenolic content increased more than two folds after germination and antioxidant activity increased from an initial of 12.35% in WWF to 33.28% in GWF. The microbial counts of GWF were within acceptable range for processing. Breads were prepared by replacing WWF with GWF at 0-100% levels and were analyzed for their proximate composition and acceptance on Hedonic Scale. The 100% GWF bread was having 8.7% higher protein content than 100% WWF bread. The overall acceptability score for all breads were high (> 7.3) whereas the bread prepared with 50% GWF got the highest overall acceptability score of 8.4. The results of this study indicate that bread with improved nutrition and acceptable quality can be prepared from GWF.