Resistant Starch, an important component of the diet, shows the potential health benefits against lifestyle diseases and many other health conditions. Resistant Starch (RS) refers to the portion of starch and starch products that resist digestion as it passes through the gastrointestinal tract, gets fermented in the colon by colonic microflora and produces short chain fatty acids which directly or indirectly help in preventing and/or controlling many diseases.Since the main sources of RS in the Indian diet are starchy foods like varieties of cereals, cereal products, roots and tubers, raw and processed legumes etc.it becomes important to determine the RS content of typical traditional Indian starchy cereal and legume preparations.Therefore the aim of this research was to estimate the RS content of selected, routinely consumed Indian food preparations and to determine the change in RS content of cereal and pulse preparations on cooking and on storage. RS content was estimated for two varieties of rice and four rice preparations, whole and refined wheat flour and four preparations made using these flours, legumes like whole moong, Kabuli chhana, Chana flour and preparations made using them. Five of these preparations were also analyzed for their RS content after an overnight storage in the refrigerator, to understand the effect of storage on their RS content. Amount of RS was estimated using the procedure given by Parchure and Kulkarni. RS content in freshly cooked preparations was compared with RS content in equivalent amount of raw ingredients. RS content of freshly cooked preparations was also compared with RS in equivalent amount of cooked and stored samples. Comparison of means was done using paired t test. One-way ANOVA was also used to compare RS content of freshly cooked rice preparations, wheat preparations and legume preparations. P< 0.05 was considered statistically significant.The RS content of raw food samples ranged from as low as 0.50g% in whole wheat flour to 27.67g% in Kolam rice. The two varieties of rice, Basmati and Kolam contained 20.22g% and 27.67g% RS respectively whereas Whole wheat flour and Refined wheat flour contained 0.50g% and 0.65g% RS respectively. The RS in raw legumes was 1.93g%, 1.98g% and 4.52g% in Kabuli Chana, Chana flour and Whole Moong respectively.Among four freshly cooked rice preparations RS varied from 0.46g% in cooked Kolam to 0.78g% in Khichdi. Among four wheat preparations (freshly cooked) RS content varied from 0.47g% in Puri to 0.61g% (food as eaten) in paratha. Chapatti and Bhatura contained 0.49g% and 0.54g% RS (food as eaten) respectively.RS in legume preparations ranged from 0.09g% in freshly cooked Pithle to 2.38g% in cooked Chole. The RS values for germinated Moong, Moong Usal, and soaked Kabuli chana were 0.79g%, 0.87g% and 0.73g% (food as eaten) respectively.In case of rice preparations RS content was significantly lower in all the four freshly cooked rice products as compared to RS in equivalent amount of raw rice. All freshly cooked wheat products ...

Foods rich in resistant starch RS can play an important role in the management of chronic diseases. Legumes contain higher amount of RS than cereals, roots and tubers. Therefore the current study was undertaken to estimate RS content of some commonly consumed Indian legume preparations. 26 cooked legume based products including 6 readymade traditional snacks were tested for their RS content using Megazyme Assay Kit for Resistant Starch. RS content was estimated for 100 g cooked food and for the cooked portion obtained by using 30 g of major ingredient. One way ANOVA with post hoc Tukey’s test was used to compare the mean RS content in one portion of different categories of legume preparations. Level of significance was set at p<0.05. RS content of four types of plain pressure cooked dhal, common to Indian cooking, was in the range of 1.21 g% to 2.16 g% whereas aamti, a thinner preparation of dhal contained RS in the range of 0.42 g% to 0.69 g%. In both types of dhal preparations, red gram dhal showed highest RS content followed by bengal gram dhal. Usal made using bengal gram kabuli contained 2.38 g% RS followed by 1.42 g% RS in bengal gram brown usal. RS in bengal gram flour based traditional recipes like zunka, dhirda and pithle was 1.23 g%, 1.48 g% and 0.09 g% respectively. When mean RS content of one portion of different categories of legume preparations was compared, there was no significant difference p≥0.05 found among any of the categories. The results of the study generated useful data with respect to RS content in 100 g as well as RS in one portion of legume preparations and identified preparations with red gram dhal, bengal gram kabuli and brown variety and lentil as relatively higher in RS content.