Vivek Sharma and C Nirmala
Panjab University, India
Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Food Process Technol
Bamboo plant, apart from its significant contribution towards social, cultural and economical upliftment of the rural communities worldwide is also known for its tremendous food value. Bamboo shoot, the young, soft and edible part of this gigantic grass along with being highly nutritious is also known to exert several positive effects on human health, possibly due to the presence of bioactive compounds. Present work highlights the amount of bioactive compounds namely phenolic compounds and phytosterols in the shoots of Dendrocalamus membranaceous. Also, effect of different processing methods on these bioactive compounds was also accessed. Results showed that in fresh, unprocessed shoots, the amount of total phenols was 1571 mg/100 g; the amount of total phytosterol was 201.34 mg/100 g. The processing methods which were employed in the present investigation include boiling (20 minutes and 30 minutes) and water soaking (12 hours and 24 hours). The result showed that maximum retention of total phenol was in case of 12 hours soaked shoots (65.24%) while the least was in 20 minutes boiled shoots (20.26%). The retention of phenolic compounds was found to decrease with increase in processing duration in case of soaking (65.24% after 12 hours and 38.89% after 24 hours) but it increased upon boiling (20.26% after 20 minutes and 38.51% after 30 minutes). The phytosterol content increased with processing and maximum content was found in case of 30 minutes boiled shoots (333.04 mg/100 g). Further validation of these processing methods is required so as to popularize the bamboo shoots as a viable option for the extraction of bioactive compounds.
Vivek Sharma is a Research Scholar at the Department of Botany of Panjab University, India. He was the recipient of CSIR Fellowship.
Email: viveksharma_pu@yahoo.co.in