Unravelling the barrier role of cell walls, as affected by pulse type, post-harvest storage and thermal processing, on the in vitro digestion of bio-encapsulated macronutrients in pulses.

This post-doctoral research project has the main target of gaining insight on the barrier role of cell walls, as affected by pulse type, post-harvest storage, and/or thermal processing time, on the fate of individual cells isolated from thermally processed pulses during in vitro gastro-intestinal digestion. Two different, commercially relevant pulses with differences in cell wall composition will be used during the experimental work. For both pulse types, fresh and stored/aged samples will be generated, and each will be subjected to thermal treatments with processing time as variable before isolation of individual cells. Qualitative and quantitative characterisation of cell wall properties will be made in the first part of the project. A second part will include the in vitro simulated gastro-intestinal digestion of the produced pulse conditions, after which the kinetics of starch and protein digestion will be determined.

Keywords:Pulses, Post-harvest storage, Thermal processing, Cell wall properties, In vitro macronutrient digestion

Disciplines:Food sciences and (bio)technology not elsewhere classified