Dry legumes are staple and potentially functional food, being a good source of polyphenols, flavonoids, and antioxidant activity. The objective of this study was to determine the total polyphenol content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), and their relation with antioxidant capacity in 17 chickpea lines having colored seed coats (black, red, brown, green, rubiginous, gray, yellow, cream, or beige). The seed coat usually contains more than 95% of these compounds. In this study, both TPC and TFC varied significantly among different lines and were highly correlated to antioxidant activity. Colored seeds contained up to 13-, 11-, and 31-fold more TPC, TFC, and antioxidant activity, respectively, than cream- and beige-color seeds. Thus, colored chickpea could be a potentially functional food in addition to its traditional role of providing dietary proteins and dietary fibers.

Peanut skins are a good source of polyphenols, which are a major source of dietary antioxidants. Therefore, the consumption of whole peanut seeds, including the skin, has been recommended by nutritional authorities. Here, the polyphenol contents of the skins of 22 experimental line, varying in skin color, and four Israeli cultivars were examined. The total phenolic (TPC), total flavonoid (TFC), total anthocyanin (TAC) contents and antioxidant capacity (AOC) of isolated skins were measured. Whereas significantly high correlation coefficients were found among the TPC, TFC and AOC, no significant correlations were found between any of these factors and skin color. On the other hand, TAC was significantly correlated with skin color. Our results clearly indicate that the AOC of peanut skins is not directly related to the intensity of their color and that the presence of colorless flavonoids might be the reason for the high AOC of peanut skins. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONSPeanut is the main summer legume crop in Israel. Recently, in response to strong demand among the European public for food products with added health value, breeders have considered developing peanut lines as functional foods. Peanut seed coats contain large amounts of important polyphenolic compounds. For this reason, peanuts are considered to be a good functional food when consumed as whole seeds. In order to determine the functional food potential of Israeli peanuts, the variability and relations of total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), total anthocyanin content (TAC) and antioxidant capacity (AOC) among these and other imported peanut lines with a wide range of skin colors were evaluated. While significant correlations were found between TAC and skin color, no significant correlations were found between the other polyphenolic factors or AOC and peanut skin color. Actually, the Israeli cultivars that have light pink skins were found to have higher TPC, TFC and AOC than most of the lines with red, purple or white skins. This finding demonstrates that the high AOC of the Israeli cultivars is due to colorless compounds, a notion that should be taken into consideration in breeding programs aiming to integrate elevated AOC of the skin with other favorable traits.bs_bs_banner Journal of Food Biochemistry

ABSTRACT

Chickpea lines with colored testa (seed coat) contain high levels of polyphenolic compounds that exhibit high levels of antioxidant activity. In a previous study, we showed that common processing procedures, such as soaking and cooking, decrease the levels of these bioactive compounds and subsequent overall antioxidant activity. The observed reduction in total phenolic content was due to the movement of polyphenols from the seed coat to the soaking or cooking water. Here, the effects of baking, roasting and frying processes were examined in relation to total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC) and ferric-reducing ability of plasma antioxidant activity (FRAP AA) of colored chickpea seeds. Baked, fried and roasted colored chickpea seeds had significantly higher levels of TPC, TFC and FRAP AA than regular cream- and beige-colored seeds subjected to the same treatments. In contrast to our previous results with soaking and cooking, baking, frying and roasting retained most of the TPC, TFC and FRAP AA in the final products. Thus, colored chickpeas subjected to these three processing methods might be considered a functional food in addition to its traditional role of providing dietary proteins

Chickpea is the main pulse crop in Israel, covering about 10 000 ha. In order to increase the cultivation area of
this crop, efforts have been made to develop agro-techniques for the fresh (immature green) harvesting chickpea.
The objective of this study was to determine the effects of five sowing dates on the fresh and dry yields of two
important Israeli chickpea cultivars, Zehavit and Bar. A field test conducted during the 2007-2008 winter season
employed a split-plot design, in which the first and the second factors were sowing date and cultivar,
respectively. The fresh yield, percentage of waste, expected fresh yield, intermediate dried yield and final dry
yield were calculated for each plot. Cultivar Zehavit was superior to cv. Bar in terms of all of these parameters,
except final dry yield. Thus, cv. Zehavit is the better cultivar for production of fresh-harvested chickpea, due to
its ability to produce high yields of fresh seed with a lower percentage of waste. Our results indicate that some
chickpea cultivars can be commercialized for production of the fresh-harvested crop in semi-arid climates