Thermal treatments reduce rancidity and modulate structural and digestive properties of starch in pearl millet flour.

Pearl millet is a nutrient dense and gluten free cereal, however it's flour remains underutilized due to the onset of rancidity during its storage. To the best of our knowledge, processing methods, which could significantly reduce the rancidity of the pearl millet flour during storage, are non-existent. In this study, pearl millet grains were subjected to a preliminary hydro-treatment (HT). Subsequently, the hydrated grain-wet flour have undergone individual and combined thermal treatments viz., hydrothermal (HTh) and thermal near infrared rays (thNIR). Effects of these thermal treatments on the biochemical process of hydrolytic and oxidative rancidity were analyzed in stored flour. A significant (p < 0.05) decrease in the enzyme activities of lipase (47.8%), lipoxygenase (84.8%), peroxidase (98.1%) and polyphenol oxidase (100%) in HT-HTh-thNIR treated flour compared to the individual treatments was documented. Upon storage (90 days), decline of 67.84% and 66.4% of free fatty acid and peroxide contents were observed in flour under HT-HTh-thNIR treatment without altering starch and protein digestibility properties. HT-HTh treated flour exhibited the highest (7.6%) rapidly digestible starch, decreased viscosity and increased starch digestibility (67.17%). FTIR analysis of HT-HTh treated flour divulged destabilization of short-range ordered crystalline structure and altered protein structures with decreased in vitro digestibility of protein. Overall, these results demonstrated the effectiveness of combined thermal treatment of HT-HTh-thNIR in reducing rancidity and preserving the functional properties of the stored flour.