Effect of traditional food processing on phytate degradation in wheat and millets

For cereal-based vegetarian meals, processing such as soaking cereal flour prior to heating can activate native phytases. This activation will result in improving the zinc bioavailability since degraded products of phytate have a lower affinity for zinc. The effect of increasing the time for soaking wheat batter at 10 degrees C for 0-48 h and the effect of roti making with millet and sorghum flour batters was investigated. Phytate (IP6) degradation was studied using ion-exchange chromatography on a column of Dowex 1X8 resin (200-400 mesh). A soaking time of 12 h for wheat batter resulted in a 40% decrease in IP6. The decreasing trend for wheat with increased soaking time was significant (p < 0.01). Soaking also resulted in an increase of zinc solubility by 38.5%. Degradation of IP6 due to roti making without soaking of batter for all three cereals was 14-19% with a marginal decrease in zinc solubility.