Abstract

Mahesh S, Pavithra GJ, Parvathi MS, Rajashekara Reddy and Shankar A G

Nutrient paucity due to unavailability of quality food sources is a major impediment to the progress in improvement in the field of human nutrition. Phytic acid is a major anti nutritional factor that binds with cationic nutrients like zinc and iron, and makes them unavailable for human intestinal absorption. Zinc and iron are among the important nutrients required for human growth and development. This study was aimed to know the effect of cooking on nutrient availability with respect to relative phytic acid contents. Seeds of five different economically important food crops namely peanut, sunflower, soybean, pigeon pea and rice were used. Reduced phytic acid content was observed in cooked seeds of peanut (47 %), soybean (52 %), sunflower (56.5 %), pigeon pea (49.5 %) and rice (47.9 %). However, soybean and rice zinc contents and peanut, pigeon pea and rice iron contents were increased in cooked seeds. The mean nutrient availability in cooked and non- cooked seeds was statistically non-significant (p < 0.05). The cooking treatment significantly (p < 0.05) reduced the inherent phytic acid content in seeds besides soaking and germination treatments, although the phytic acid break down did not show increased nutrients content as expected in all food crops.