Diets very rich in cereals have been associated with micronutrient malnutrition, and the biofortification of them, has been proposed as one of the best approaches to alleviate the problem. Durum wheat is one of the main sources of calories and protein in many developing countries. In this study, 46 durum varieties grown under full and reduced irrigation, were analyzed for micronutrients and phytate content to determine the potential bioavailability of the micronutrients. The variation was 25.7-40.5mg/kg for iron and of 24.8-48.8mg/kg for zinc. For phytate determination (0.462-0.952 %), a modified methodology was validated in order to reduce testing costs while speeding up testing time. Variation was detected for phytate:iron and zinc molar ratios (12.1-29.6 and 16.9-23.6, respectively). The results could be useful to generate varieties with appropriate levels of phytate and micronutrients, which can lead to the development of varieties rich in micronutrients to overcome malnutrition.

Background and objectives: Awareness toward the microbial quality of wheat has been raised due to the foodborne illness and outbreaks associated with contaminated wheat flour. The objective is to describe the studied strategies to control the potential hazardous pathogens in wheat grain and wheat flour.Findings: Before the dry milling process, adding antimicrobial agents to the tempering water has been considered. To preserve gluten integrity and functionality, nonthermal technologies have been explored. Traditional thermal food decontamination methods have also been tested.Conclusions: Bacterial and mold load reductions from >1 to >5 log CFU/g have been achieved with tempering agents, without compromising flour functionality. From the nonthermal technologies, pulsed light treatments reduced Salmonella load on flour, while cold plasma was effective versus fungal conidia on grain. Regarding thermal technologies, the vacuum steam treatment reduced Escherichia coli and Salmonella populations on grain without affecting flour properties. Radio frequency heating was also effective to reduce Salmonella load on flour, but its impact on functionality was not reported.Significance and novelty: Most of the decontamination methods have been tested on wheat grain. If a significant microbial load reduction is achieved, further flour contamination can be prevented. However, flour decontamination methods should continue to be explored, without compromising flour functionality.

Supercritical carbon dioxide + ethanol (SC-CO₂+EtOH) extraction, was employed as a deflavoring method to improve the sensory properties of pea flours. Furthermore, the impacts of particle size along with extraction on volatile profile and sensory attributes of pea flours were investigated using multiple approaches. These included headspace solid-phase microextraction-gas chromatography (HS-SPME-GC), GC-olfactometry (GC-O), and quantitative descriptive analysis (QDA) using a trained sensory panel. Total volatile contents of non-deflavored and deflavored whole pea flour and its fractions were in the range of 7.1 ± 0.3 to 18.1 ± 1.0 µg/g and 0.4 ± 0.1 to 2.7 ± 0.4 µg/g, respectively. The GC-O system showed that the total volatile intensity was in the range of 14.5 to 22.0 and 0 to 3.5, for non-deflavored and deflavored pea flours, respectively. Volatile analyses indicated that 1-hexanol, 1-octanol, 1-nonanol, nonanal, and 2-alkyl methoxypyrazines were major off-aroma compounds. Most off-aroma compounds were not detected in deflavored pea flours. QDA revealed less pea intensity and bitterness of deflavored pea flours. The larger particle size of flours resulted in less off-aroma compounds based on the GC data but more bitterness based on QDA. The SC-CO₂+EtOH extraction at optimum conditions and particle size modifications can be a potential technology to improve the organoleptic properties of pulse ingredients.