Effect of soaking, germination and cooking on phytic acid and hydrochloricacid extractability of a pigeonpea cultivar

Early maturing and high yielding cultivar of pigeonpea 'ICPL-151' released by ICRISAT (international Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics) Ce ntre, Hisar contained significant amount of phytic acid i.e., 869 mg per 10 0 g. When this cultivar was subjected to various domestic processing and co oking methods viz., soaking (6, 12, 18 h), soaking (12 h) and dehulling, or dinary as well as pressure cooking and germination (24, 36, 48 h), a consid erable decrease in the level of phytic acid and remarkable increases in HCl -extractability of calcium, iron and phosphorus were noticed. Maximum decre ase in phytate content with subsequent increase in non-phytate phosphorus w as brought about by germination, followed by pressure cooking of soaked and dehulled seeds and ordinary cooking of soaked and dehulled seeds. The tota l calcium, phosphorus and iron contents of pigeonpea were 210.6, 437.2 and 10.88 mg/100 g, respectively, which were lowered to varying extents upon so aking and dehulling. HCl-extractability of calcium and phosphorus was the h ighest in sprouted (48 h) seeds, whereas that of iron was maximum in soaked and dehulled seeds, subjected to pressure cooking. The improvement in HCl- extractability may be due to reduction in phytate level. A significant (P<0 .05) correlation found between phytic acid and HCl-extractability of minera ls strengthened the present findings.