Development and characterization of chickpea based ready to use replacement beverage mix

• Published in: Journal of food measurement & characterization 2024-05, Vol.18 (5), p.3595-3618
• Main Authors: Kaur, Ravneet, Prasad, Kamlesh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acceptability; Aluminum; Beverages; Cereals; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Chemistry/Food Science; Chickpeas; Convenience foods; COVID-19; COVID-19 infection; Digestibility; digestible protein; Engineering; Flour; Food Science; ingredients; jaggery; Legumes; Linear programming; Low density polyethylenes; Nutrient content; nutrition; Nutritive value; Original Paper; Packaging; pandemic; Pandemics; people; polyethylene; Prepared foods; protein content; protein value; Proteins; Rheological properties; Rheology; savory; sensory evaluation; Sensory properties; Sweet taste; viscosity
• ISSN: 2193-4126; 2193-4134
• DOI: 10.1007/s11694-024-02430-z

After the pandemic (COVID-19), people are becoming more aware of the importance of nutrition and health. As most of the working-class people don’t find time for cooking, there is a shift towards convenience foods, which has led to the emergence of a sector for meal replacements. The present work, thus focused on the development of a meal replacement beverage mix using chickpea as the major ingredient in the form of malted and roasted chickpea flour. Linear programming approach was used to finalize the ingredients as per the requirement, and the developed product was further characterized for its various physico-chemical, functional, microstructural, nutritional, thermal, rheological, sensory and storage characteristics. The protein content of the developed beverage mix (PBM) was found to be 21.39%. Beverage mix in the reconstituted form was also characterized for sensory profile and rheological properties. It was found that the developed beverage mixtures had better protein quality in terms of biological value (92.46) as well as in vitro protein digestibility (89.13–90.40%). Savoury and sweet variants of beverage mix were found to have better sensory acceptability. The addition of salt and jaggery in the beverage mix significantly affected its rheological properties. The peak viscosity of PBM was 182 cp and it reduced to 112 and 117 cp in the case of savory and sweet beverage mix. Storage studies of the beverage mix indicated that aluminum laminate packaging is better as compared to low-density polyethylene pouches. It was interpreted that traditional products like roasted chickpea flour (sattu) can be reformulated by combining with roasted cereals to improve nutritional quality and acceptability. Graphical abstract