British Food Journal

Purpose – The present study aims to understand the effect of baking, frying and storage conditions on resistant starch (RS) content of commonly used poor man's foods like potato, sweet potato and bread.

Design/methodology/approach – The effect of frying (shallow and deep frying) on RS was studied in pressure-cooked potato and sweet potato. The baking conditions used for white wheat bread were 200°C-35?min, 150°C-12?h, and 120°C-20?h. To study the effect of baking time at a specific temperature (200°C), the bread was baked for 15, 25, 35 and 45?min. The bread baked for 25?min at 200°C was stored at ambient conditions for 24, 48, 72 and 96?h. Tubers were stored at 4 and 25°C for 12?h and 24?h at each temperature.

Findings – Frying resulted in a reduction of 28.0 and 32.0 percent in RS content of potato and sweet potato respectively, with deep-frying showing a more pronounced effect. The RS content of bread baked for 24?h at 120°C was found to be higher (4.20 percent) than that of bread baked at a higher temperature of 200°C and 150°C for 35?min and 12?h respectively. Increase in baking time from 15 to 45?min at 200° C also increased the RS content of bread from 2.13 percent to 3.18 percent. Storage resulted in an increase in the RS content of bread and tubers. Refrigeration storage had a more pronounced effect on the RS content of pressure-cooked tubers.

Originality/value – This information on poor man's foods can be exploited to process and store the foods targeted to be used by the special category of persons, as varied processing conditions for these foods can be employed producing lower or higher RS content desirable for undernourished or diabetic persons respectively.