Changes in phytates and HCl extractability of calcium,phosphorus, and iron of soaked,dehulled, cooked,and sprouted pigeon pea cultivar (UPAS-120)

UPAS-120, a high yielding and early maturing variety of pigeon peas releasedby the Department of Plant Breeding, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar contained a significant amount of phytic acid, i.e. 886 mg/100 g. When it was subjected to various domestic processing and cooking methods viz. soaking (6, 12, 18 h), dehulling, ordinary as well as pressure cooking and germination (24, 36 and 48 h), a drastic decrease in level of phytic acid with a remarkable increase in the HCl-extractability of mono, divalent, andtrivalent ions, like calcium, phosphorus, and iron occurred. Germination (48 h) was found to be the best method for decreasing the phytic acid content, i.e.35 to 39 percent less than the control and significantly (p<0.05) increasingthe non-phytate phosphorus and HCl-extractable phosphorus. Pressure cooking of soaked-dehulled pigeon pea also rendered equally good results. The calcium, phosphorus and iron contents of pigeon pea seeds were 197.3, 473.1, and 9.91 mg/100 g, respectively; some losses varying from 3 to 9 percent were noticed when the legume was subjected to soaking, cooking, and germination but the maximum losses, i.e. 23 percent, occurred when the seeds were dehulled. However, HCl-extractability of Ca, P and Fe improved to a significant extent when the pigeon pea seeds were soaked, soaked-dehulled, cooked and sprouted which may have been due to decrease in the phytate content followed by processing and cooking. The significant negative correlations between the phytic acid and HCl-extractability of minerals of processed pigeon pea strengthens these findings.