Physical, Nutritional, Textural and Sensory Properties of Wheat Bread Supplemented with Soybean: Finger Millet and Flax Seeds flour

Two-third population of the world is under-nourished, and lack in required quantity of minerals and proteins. United Nations launched 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of which SDG-3 is “health and well-being” to improve the position of malnutrition worldwide. Proteins are essential to human health and in post-covid-19 era, plant proteins production industry is booming to meet the demand of enhanced requirement of vegetative proteins by consumers. Proteins Digestibility-Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS) of soy protein is 1.00 which is closer to some of the proteins from animal sources. Soy proteins contain balanced amounts of essential amino acids except sulfuric-amino acids like methionine. The blended flour contained equal quantities of soybeans, finger millet, and flax seeds and was added at varying proportions (10%, 15%, 20%, and 25%) with refined wheat flour for fortification purpose. The comprehensive evaluation encompassed nutritional, sensory, and physical attributes of the resulting multigrain bread when compared with a control loaf made exclusively from wheat flour. The bread fortified with a 10% composite flour mixture exhibited properties equivalent to the control bread across parameters such as expansion, specific volume, color, and crumb hardness but with enhanced nutritional value. The data revealed that supplementation of bread with 10% composite flour blend led to a discernible increase in levels of dietary fiber and proteins. We may safely conclude that the incorporation of a well-balanced composite flour blend, comprising soybeans, finger millet, and flax seeds, at 10% level offers a promising avenue to fortify wheat flour bread with enhanced nutritional content that may be helpful in improving the nutritional status of people as a part of Sustainable Development Goals of UN as the bread is a common food item of the poor also.

Objective: Bread is the common food of all people throughout the world and wheat flour the most abundant component that contain high quantity of gluten and is deficient in balanced nutrients. The purpose of this study was to develop highly nutritious multi-grain bread to fight with malnutrition as a part of Sustainable Development Goal-3 of UN.

Methodology: Composite flour containing equal amounts of soybean, finger millet and flax seed was prepared. The bread was prepared using different combinations of wheat flour with 10, 15, 20 and 25% composite flour. Physio-chemical and sensory properties of wheat flour (control) and different combinations with composite flour were measured using standard parameters and protocol.

Results: The nutritional, sensory, and physical attributes of the multigrain bread when compared with a control wheat flour loaf, revealed that the bread fortified with a 10% composite flour mixture possessed similar expansion, specific volume, color, and crumb hardness with that of control wheat flour bread but showed enhanced nutritional value. The data further revealed that the supplementation of bread with 10% composite flour blend led to a discernible increase in levels of dietary fiber and proteins. These augmented nutritional components may contribute to the overall health benefits of multigrain bread.