OCCURRENCE AND VARIABILITY OF B-VITAMINS IN SPRING WHEATS

Abstract

Wheat is a vital crop providing important nutrients for human diet along with certain B vitamins i.e. B 1 (thiamin), B 2 (riboflavin), B 3 (niacin) and B 6 (pyridoxine) which are very important for metabolic processes of body. These vitamins are concentrated in grain outer layer thus milling process affects these vitamins to a larger extent and may reduce their level. These losses can be maintained by making yeast leavened bread and a further increase in the level of these vitamins can be achieved by escalating bread fermentation time. The present study was designed to estimate the inconsistency in B vitamin concentrations in spring wheats, grains and milling fractions of wheat, and also to identify the storing up of these vitamins from the grain to the bread for identifying the wheat varieties of elevated nutritional quality. Vitamin B concentration of ten spring wheats was determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Different fermentation techniques (short, long and sourdough fermentation) were applied for bread preparation. Effect of these fermentation techniques on level of B vitamins (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin and pyridoxine) was also examined by HPLC and the products were evaluated for their sensory characteristics. The resultant data were subjected to statistical analysis to check the level of significance through software Statistics 8.1. Pearson’s correlation was also applied to evaluate the interdependence of different parameters studied.