Effect of Pearling Rate on Highland Barley: Chemical, Physical, Antioxidant and Digestibility Characteristics

Abstract

The nutritional, processing, functional and edible qualities of three highland barley flour (HBF) with different pearling rates were assessed in this study. As expected, ash and dietary fiber content of three HBF showed downward trends with the increase of pearling rates, and a decreased of β -glucan content was observed. However, the total phenol and γ-aminobutyric acid contents in three HBF were overall the highest with 4% pearling rate. Pearling treatment slowed down the digestion speed of starch by decreasing the content of rapidly digestible starch and changed the thermomechanical properties. With the exception of total phenolic content and anthocyanin content, unpearled HBF showed much higher antioxidant activities such as total antioxidant capacity and radicals scavenging ability than the pearled ones. Noodles made with pearled HBF presented the better cooking and texture characteristics, which attributed to the lower breaking rate, the shorter cooking time, the higher hardness, chewiness and resilience.