Nutritional and bioactive components of rice-chickpea based snacks as affected by severe and mild extrusion cooking

Severe extrusion cooking (SEC) has been extensively explored for product development and has been compared with mild extrusion cooking (MEC). Different blends of chickpea-rice flour for extrusion can be used to achieve a balance between nutritive value and valued product characteristics. This study was therefore designed to optimize the severe and mild extrusion conditions for rice-chickpea flour blends to cater for increasing consumer demand for snacks with the aim of comparing the effects of severe and mild extrusion cooking (MEC) on nutritional quality.

The results revealed a significantly (P < 0.05) higher percentage reduction in sucrose during severe extrusion (46.85%) compared to mild extrusion (7.88%). Likewise, the percentage increase in maltose, glucose, and fructose was significantly (P < 0.05) higher during SEC than during mild extrusion. Total phenolic content increased by 13.96% during mild extrusion, whereas, during severe extrusion it decreased by 15%. Total flavonoid content and total antioxidant activity decreased by 11.11% and 15.63%, respectively, during severe extrusion whereas, total flavonoid content and total antioxidant activity increased by 13.17% and 24.29%, respectively, during MEC. The loss in condensed tannin content was significantly (P < 0.05) higher (33.82%) during SEC than with MEC (12.05%). With regard to amino acids, the maximum loss was observed in methionine (53.38%) followed by lysine (40.63%) during SEC. However, the mineral content was found to increase during SEC.

This study revealed that MEC is superior to SEC in terms of minimizing deleterious effects on overall nutritional value of ready-to-eat snacks. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.