Nutrient Analysis of Chia Seeds, Product Development and Sensory Evaluation of Chia Seeds Incorporated Recipes

The prevalence of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) is dramatically rising around the globe. Diet is considered as an important modifiable risk factor in the management of NCDs. Over the past few decades, functional foods are being increasingly employed as complementary therapy for the prevention and management of diseases. Chia seed is one such functional food which is said to possess hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic properties. Due to their nutrient and bioactive component profile, chia seeds offer a great potential in food industries, medical, pharmaceuticals etc. To date, however available evidence supporting their inclusion into the diet is scarce and inconsistent. The objective of the present study was to analyze the nutrient, phytochemical and antioxidant profile of chia seeds, develop 10 equicarbohydrate recipes incorporating chia seeds at three different levels and to carry out sensory evaluation of the developed recipes. Nutrient analysis of chia seeds revealed that they contain good amounts of protein (20.7 g), fat (28.2 g), PUFA (24.9 g) and iron (12.4 mg). Phytochemical profile analysis indicated that alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins and various glycosides were present. Ten equicarbohydrate recipes namely, poha, methi thepla, muthiya, vegetable cutlet, handvo, upma, sindhi koki roti, besan chilla, peas kebab and khichri were developed and incorporated with chia seeds at three different levels i.e. 4, 8 and 12g. Thirty semi trained panelists carried out sensory evaluation of these recipes. To analyze the acceptability of traditional Indian recipes incorporated with chia seeds, a 9-point hedonic rating scale was used to evaluate sensory attributes like appearance, texture, mouth feel etc. Sensory evaluation revealed that chia seeds could be incorporated effectively in traditional Indian recipes with good acceptability with all levels of incorporation. At the middle level of incorporation, i.e. 8 g of chia seeds, handvo (19.4 ± 9.31), poha (20.6 ± 9.54) and muthiya (21.96 ± 9.08) were found to be most acceptable among all the recipes based on total scores. It may thus be concluded that incorporation of omega-3 fatty acid and phytochemical rich chia seeds in traditional Indian recipes is feasible and acceptable and this could have important implications in the prevention and management of NCDs.