Abstract
Nowadays, consumers demand healthy, safe, and ready-to-eat horticultural products because of their lifestyle. In this regard, new legume-based food product development with eco-innovative technologies seems to be an interesting market. The effect on quality of an innovative pesto sauce, made of fresh faba bean seeds, of an alternative continuous microwave treatment pasteurization (MW, 11 kW; 30 s) regarding a conventional pasteurization (85 °C; 5 min) throughout 20 days at 5 °C was studied. Non-heated blended samples were used as control. The microbial quality was satisfactory in all treatments. MW treatment improved the sensorial quality of pesto sauce and decreased condensed tannins. Additionally, MW-treated samples showed the best texture, consistency, and color, preserving its chlorophyll and carotenoid content. On the other hand, thermal treatments showed a decrease in total phenolic compounds (TPC) and antioxidant capacity (TEAC) after heating, regarding control samples; however, TPC and TEAC remained quite constant throughout the storage.
Highlights
There is an actual trend towards increasing the consumption of healthy foods due to that consumers are really concerned about the influence of diet on health and well-being
MW treatment preserved the pigments improving the appearance to that obtained with conventional pasteurization (CP) treatment
The increase of chromatic a* index and decrease of b* have been previously reported by Benlloch-Tinoco et al (2014), where a more luminous kiwifruit puree was obtained under MW treatment (1000 W/340 s), due to the preservation of pigments instead of the typical browning reactions in heating processes
Summary
There is an actual trend towards increasing the consumption of healthy foods due to that consumers are really concerned about the influence of diet on health and well-being. The food industry needs to produce healthy innovative ready-to-eat high-quality and safe products to satisfy the demand of consumers. Previous studies have described a positive association between plant-based diets with increased intake of legumes and health (Lima et al 2016). The development of new legume-based elaborates, like faba beans, could be an interesting market, i.e., faba bean seeds contain 22.4–36% protein, 57.8–61% carbohydrates, 12% fiber, and 1.2–4% lipids (Hedley 2001). Previous studies showed faba beans as an interesting food to develop innovative food products due to its beneficial health implications
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