Processing overwhelms biostimulant‐induced vitamin E improvement in lentils

Abstract

AbstractAlthough biostimulants are used in crop cultivation to improve productivity and/or quality of fruit and vegetables, their effect is rarely investigated up to processed food. Here, we investigated whether vitamin E content in lentils can be influenced by caffeine used as a biostimulant in a greenhouse‐controlled experiment, and how cooking influences its intake in our diet. Results showed that contents of γ‐tocopherol, the most abundant vitamin E homologue, increased by 27% upon biostimulant application during cultivation in raw lentils. However, these positive effects were completely abolished in the processed food, so cultivation differences had no effect on the cooked lentils. Cooking reduced by 43% and 50% of the contents of α‐ and γ‐tocopherols, respectively. A comparative study of vitamin E contents revealed that our lentil variety (variety ‘Pardina’ from ecological origin) contained more vitamin E than any other variety described thus far, with α‐ and γ‐tocopherol contents of 0.86 and 6.83 mg/100 g FW in raw lentils, and 0.49 and 3.42 mg/100 g FW in cooked lentils, respectively. A bowl of cooked ‘Pardina’ lentils, which are very typical in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern diets, can therefore represent a substantial proportion of the daily intake of vitamin E.