Faba bean (Vicia faba L.) starch digestability

The chemical composition and starch digestibility of cooked faba beans (Vicia faba L.) and faba beans stored in vinaigrette was studied. The high protein content (32.1%) in faba beans corresponds to the values reported for legumes; lipid content (1.9%) was low. The available starch (AS) value of a recently cooked sample was 32.8% and increased during storage time. Resistant starch (RS) content in recently prepared faba beans was 4.06% and decreased slightly during storage time. This behavior coincides with the increase in AS content in the samples. In contrast, a slight increase in retrograded resistant starch (RRS) content observed during storage period was due to starch retrogradation. Percentage of starch hydrolysis increased during the experiment for samples stored at different time periods, coinciding with that observed for AS. Prediction of glycemic index (pGI) had values between 78.5 (recently prepared sample) and 54.4 (sample stored for 28 d) which was considered food mediums high in carbohydrates.