EVALUATION OF THE PASTING PROPERTIES AND TEXTURE ATTRIBUTES OF VEGETABLE FOOD INGREDIENTS

Investigations into plant-based food ingredients have focused on their nutritional attributes and techno-functional properties, serving a variety of applications, including the development of gelling systems. These ingredients encompass carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids, all of which can undergo rearrangement and interaction during heating and cooling processes. This work aimed to evaluate viscosity profiles and the parameters of firmness and consistency in gels formed from amaranth flour (15.0% protein; 51.0% carbohydrate; 7.0% lipid), faba bean protein flour (57.9% protein; 25.9% carbohydrate; 3.7% lipid), and almond protein flour (59.0% protein; 11.0% carbohydrate; 8.4% lipid). The Rapid Visco Analyzer was employed following the conditions of a 150 rpm rotation throughout the procedure, an initial temperature of 20°C, a heating ramp lasting 10 minutes to reach 90°C, a holding period of 5 minutes, and a cooling ramp of 10 minutes to return to 20°C. Firmness and consistency were determined using a TA.XT2i texturometer equipped with a cylindrical probe of 25 mm diameter, with the test conducted at a speed of 0.8 mm/s, 40% distance, and 50 kg load cell. The viscosity profile of amaranth flour (pasting temperature = 63.98 °C; maximum viscosity = 821.00 cP; breakdown viscosity = 315.67 cP) closely resembled that of native starch possibly due to its high carbohydrate content when compared to faba bean and almond protein flours, whose the phenomena of granule breakdown and retrogradation were inhibited, probably due to the interaction with protein and lipids, which limited the swelling of starch. The averages for firmness and consistency of amaranth, faba bean, and almond gels were 0.47 N and 3.54 N.s, 2.35 N and 15.85 N.s and 0.95 N and 8.6 N.s, respectively. Although gels formed by protein ingredients present greater firmness and consistency, we suppose that the interaction between the components during heating/cooling governs the behavior of these parameters.