Changes in Polyphenol Content of Newly Released Varieties of Wheat during Different Processing Methods

Background: Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is the most important food crop in India and most important cereal grain. It is widely consumed in northern India. It is the leading source of all the macronutrients like proteins (especially vegetable protein), energy and carbohydrates and micronutrients like minerals (iron, calcium, zinc, potassium etc.) and B vitamins. It is currently second to rice in terms of total production (tonnes) as the main human food crop. The wheat flour besides various nutrients also contains anti-nutrients like phytates, oxalates, polyphenols, tannins etc. Polyphenol are the phytochemicals i.e., compounds which are found abundantly in natural plant food sources that have antioxidant properties. These phytochemicals are found in many types of plant foods, such as grains like wheat, pearl millet, maize etc., legumes like peanuts and soybeans, nuts, and seeds. There are various factors which affect the polyphenol content of plants and these include environmental factors, degree of ripeness at the time of harvesting, processing and storage. Polyphenolic content of the foods are greatly affected by environmental factors as well as edaphic factors like soil type, sun exposure, rainfall etc. Methods: The treatments like soaking, roasting, sprouting and malting reduce the polyphenolic content in wheat varieties. Two newly released varieties of wheat (WH-1080 and WH-1025) and one conventional wheat variety C-306 were collected from the Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, CCS HAU, Hisar in a single lot. All the three wheat varieties obtained were cleaned, washed well under running tap water to get rid of all the dust, soil particles and foreign matter adhered to the grains, dried and ground to flour using conventional flour mill and processed in three different ways roasting, sprouting and malting and then used for nutritional evaluation of raw and processed wheat varieties and interpretation. Results: Polyphenol content in wheat varieties which were unprocessed ranged from 234.15-338.4 mg/100 g (on dry weight basis) and in processed wheat varieties from 218.98-338.4 mg/100 g. Processing treatments showed significant decrease in the polyphenol levels. Lowest polyphenol content was found in sprouted WH-1080 variety 218.98 mg/100 g. Sprouting significantly (P<0.05) reduced the polyphenol content as compared to malting and roasting. Conclusion: Sprouting treatment was found to be most advantageous in reducing the polyphenol content in all the wheat varieties when compared to other treatments like roasting and malting.