Influence of Thermal Processing of Wheat and Barley on in Vitro Cellulose Digestibility

Authors:
Adrian Căpriţă, Rodica Căpriţă, Monica Hărmănescu

Volume 18, Issue 4;
Pages: 307-310;
ISSN: 2069-0053 (print) (former ISSN: 1453-1399), Agroprint;
ISSN (online): 2068-9551

The study was conducted to evaluate the effect of thermal processing on cellulose digestibility of wheat and barley submitted to in vitro simulated digestion. The samples were heated in a forced air oven, or by exposing to microwave radiations. The in vitro digestion consisted of a two step enzymatic procedure: an initial simulation of the gastric digestion by pepsin, followed by a pancreatin digestion which simulated small intestine digestion. The wheat cellulose digestibility improves with the heating time; when heating 15 minutes at 150ºC, digestibility is 8.39% higher than the digestibility of raw wheat. The microwave treatment of wheat has a negative effect, the cellulose digestibility being reduced with 67.83% at 90 seconds treatment. When heating barley at 150ºC, the cellulose digestibility is higher than that of the unprocessed sample, and decreases with the heating time, suggesting formation of non soluble polysaccharide aggregates. The microwave treatment improves the cellulose digestibility in barley with up to 38.30% at 30 seconds treatment; microwave treatment for 90 seconds has a negative effect, the digestibility being reduced with 4.65%.