Abstract
Purpose -Sorghum is a vital cereal crop and staple food for many peoples around the globe having good nutritional and health-promoting bioactive compounds and recently received great attention as gluten-free food. However, sorghum grains contain low beta-glucans contents, dietary fibre polysaccharides with great technological and disease prevention properties, and improving the concentration of these compounds in sorghum is very important. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the physicochemical and starch properties of high beta-glucan sorghum inbred line (Tabat-NL) in comparison with two commercial cultivars (Wadakar and Tabat-C).
Design/methodology/approach - Grain samples of sorghum cultivars: white colour and low tannin cultivar (Tabat-C), red colour and high tannin sorghum, and new inbred line of white sorghum cultivar (Tabat-NL) were carefully cleaned, examined for physical properties (colour, hectolitre and 1,000 kernel weights, and endosperm texture), and ground to flour and assessed for chemical composition (moisture, protein, ash, carbohydrate, sugars, fibre and beta-glucan contents). The starch was extracted and investigated for morphological characteristics and functional properties.
Findings - The results showed that Tabat-NL grains contain significantly (p = 0.05) higher values of 1,000 kernel weight, hectolitre weight, total carbohydrate, amylopectin, dietary fibre and beta-glucan compared to Tabat-C and Wadakar. Tabat-NL starch had greater (p = 0.05) gelatinization temperature, viscosity, bulk density, and water and oil holding capacities and lower (p = 0.05) acidity compared to Tabat-C and Wadakar.
Research limitations/implications - The outcomes of this study demonstrated that Tabat-NL grains had an excellent marketing and milling properties, health-promoting and disease-preventing potentials, and technological features for uses in functional and speciality foods.
Originality/value - To the best of our understating, this is the first study on the evaluation of sorghum cultivar with high beta-glucan content and could thus provide the bases for further development and application of this important food grains.