Nutritional and Functional Properties of Gluten-Free Flours

Abstract

This study characterized and compared 13 gluten-free (GF) flours (rice, brown rice, maize, oat, millet, teff, amaranth, buckwheat, quinoa, chickpea, gram, tiger nut, and plantain) for their nutritional and functional properties. For all GF flours investigated, starch was the major component, except for gram, chickpea, and tiger nut flours with lower starch content (<45%), but higher fiber content (8.8–35.4%). The higher amount of calcium, magnesium, zinc, potassium, phosphorus, similar values for iron and lower content of sodium in gram, makes this flour a good alternative to chickpea or other GF flour to develop healthier food products. Amaranth flour had a high protein digestibility, while tiger nut and millet flours were less digestible. Gram, chickpea, quinoa, buckwheat, and oat flours fulfilled amino acids recommendation for daily adult intake showing no limiting amino acid. Total polyphenolic content and antioxidant capacity showed higher values for buckwheat, followed by quinoa and maize flours. Gram, chickpea, maize, and quinoa flours are good candidates to improve health conditions due to lower saturated fatty acid content. The findings of this study provide useful insights into GF flours and may contribute to the development of novel gluten-free products like bread, cookies, or pasta.

Effects of Dry Heat Treatment and Milling on Sorghum Chemical Composition, Functional and Molecular Characteristics

“…The emulsion activity and stability values were in line with those reported by Siroha et al [63] for millet flours and decreased with particle size reduction which may be related to the variations of the interfacial tension and surface hydrophobicity. Flour foaming capacity is determined by protein molecules structures and carbohydrates content [64], a fact confirmed also by the significant correlation (p < 0.05) obtained in this study. Particle size reduction led to the increase of foaming capacity and stability (Figure 1 and Table 3) probably due to the increase in proteins ability to form an elastic, flexible, and cohesive interfacial film that can catch and maintain air for enough time to slow down the coalescence rate [54].…”

Gluten-Free Bread and Bakery Products Technology

“…The nutritional values strong depend on the raw material composition of these products and are not uniform. In addition to basic gluten-free ingredients such as gluten-free flours and starches, technologically and nutritionally functional ingredients such as hydrocolloids of cereal and non-cereal origin [8], fruit or vegetable fiber [9,10], flax and chia seeds [11,12], psyllium [13], modified starches (e.g., [14]) and proteins [15] from many sources need to be added to achieve sufficient bread volume, crumb softness and shelf life. The addition of fiber, through its hydration, affects the quality of the bread.…”

“…Besides the beneficial health effects, fiber improves texture, specific volume, apparent viscosity, consistency, texture, sensory quality and shelf life. This is due to the ability to bind water, form a gel and thicken [8]. The key parameters are fiber length, polymerization degree, soluble/insoluble fiber ratio and fiber interactions with other ingredients [16][17][18][19].…”

Recent Advances in Cereals, Legumes and Oilseeds Grain Products Rheology and Quality

“…The only therapy to counteract glutenrelated disorders, which are on the rise nowadays, is a gluten-free diet. This requires the production of bakery products from gluten-free raw materials, in which wheat flour is replaced by gluten-free flours, as Culetu et al [10] reported in this Special Issue. In their article, they presented an overall view of different gluten-free flours: rice, brown rice, millet, maize, amaranth, teff, buckwheat, chickpea, quinoa, gram, plantain, tiger nut, e.g., which they compared from the functional properties and nutritional point of view.…”

“…The works published in this Special Issue presented recent advances in cereals, legumes and oilseeds grain products rheology and quality in different directions of research, such as obtaining special food products such as gluten-free ones [10,11], with a lower sodium content [12], novel ones by partial replacement of wheat flour with other flour types [2,8,9], or by combining different ingredients [1,10] which are high nutritional quality by improving the quality of raw materials to be used [3,7] or of the bakery products, by using ingredients with a high nutritional value [4,5,9] and using different technological methods [6], etc. In addition, novel methods to evaluate bread quality [13] and by-products valorization through circular economy approaches [14][15][16] have been developed in an extensive way in this Special Issue.…”