Research Objective
The health benefits of pulses have been extensively studied because they are good sources of proteins, dietary fibres (ranged from 15%-30%), high quality starches, and other important nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, carotenoids, and isoflavones. Rice noodle, with a smooth texture and mouth-feel, is a popular food in China and many Asia countries. Unfortunately, traditional rice noodle is well known for its lacking of high quality protein and dietary fibre. Fortification of rice noodle with pulse ingredients provided a possible solution to this problem.
Incorporation of pulse flours and fiber-rich fractions into rice noodles provide the final product with significant improvements in protein content, essential amino acid profile and dietary fibre.
Rice noodles fortified with 50% chickpea flour had the closest texture compared with traditional noodles, followed by noodles fortified with lentil flour and with the addition of 0.25% psyllium.
Cooking time was significantly reduced; cooking loss and cooked weight increased with increasing pulse flour concentrations in comparison with traditional rice noodle.
The objectives of the study were to investigate the processing properties of pulse-based ingredients and flours, such as heating, extrusion properties, and compatibility with rice flours and other food ingredients. The results from the research showed that the pulse fortified rice noodles exhibited increased dietary fibre (DF) content ranging from 5.70 to 11.29 g/100g, dry mass (DM) as compared with rice noodle DF of 2.31 g/100 g, DM. The protein content of novel rice noodles improved from 7.4 to 13.4 g/100 g DM with increased concentration of pulse flour. The novel rice noodle protein had a balanced essential amino acid profile with significant enrichment of lysine, arginine, leucine, and phenylalanine in comparison to that of rice noodle. Furthermore, the novel rice noodles had increased antioxidant activities, due to the improvements of total phenolic and flavonoid components. The 50% CF substitution and 30% LF substitution had a predicted Glycemic Index(pGI)of 59 and 63, respectively, which was significantly lower than that of rice noodle (pGI=67). Sensory evaluation tests revealed that CF fortified rice noodles exhibited higher sensory scores compared with that of LF fortified rice noodle, for example 50% CF fortified rice noodles had a similar overall sensory score that of rice noodles. In conclusion, the 50% CF fortified rice noodle had beneficial nutritional profiles and displayed a greater possibility to be accepted by the consumers.