Abstract
Legumes are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, which make them susceptible to (non) enzymatic oxidations leading to undesirable odour formation. This study aimed to characterise the volatile and fatty acid profiles of eleven types of legumes using headspace solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS) and GC coupled with a flame ionisation detector (GC-FID), respectively. Volatile aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, esters, terpenes and hydrocarbons were the chemical groups identified across all the legumes. The lipids comprised palmitic, stearic, oleic, linoleic and α-linolenic acids, with unsaturated fatty acids comprising at least 66.1% to 85.3% of the total lipids for the legumes studied. Multivariate data analysis was used to compare volatile and fatty acid profiles between legumes, which allow discriminant compounds pertinent to specific legumes to be identified. Results showed that soybean, chickpea and lentil had distinct volatile and fatty acid profiles, with discriminating volatiles including lactone, ester and ketone, respectively. While all three Phaseolus cultivars shared similar volatile profiles, 3-methyl-1-butanol was found to be the only volatile differentiating them against the other eight legumes. Overall, this is the first time a multivariate data analysis has been used to characterise the volatile and fatty acid profiles across different legume seeds, while also identifying discriminating compounds specific for certain legume species. Such information can contribute to the creation of legume-based ingredients with specific volatile characteristics while reducing undesirable odours, or potentially inform relevant breeding programs.
Highlights
The seeds of legume plants are a nutritious source of proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins and minerals [1]
The moisture content of legume seeds was within the range of 7.4% to 14.9%
A commonality of the lipid profiles is that the level of saturated fatty acids such as palmitic and stearic acids is low, with the ratio of saturated to unsaturated fatty acids at 1:2 in cowpea and mung bean, and up to 1:5.4 and 1:6 in soybean and chickpea
Summary
The seeds of legume plants (usually referred to as ‘legumes’) are a nutritious source of proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins and minerals [1]. Previous studies [3,6,7,8,9] have reported volatile compounds and their formation mainly in soybean, and there is still a limited understanding on the volatile profile of other commercially relevant legumes such as cowpea, lentil, common bean and pea [10,11,12,13]. These studies used targeted analysis without providing a holistic picture of all
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