Assessment of Microbial and Physicochemical Properties of Pasta Prepared Using Buckwheat, Chickpea Flour

Pasta is a sustainable product that improves the nutritional quality of food pyramids. The present study focused on innovative approaches for pasta preparation, with a particular emphasis on the utilization of alternative ingredients and different packaging materials. The pasta using buckwheat and chickpea flour was prepared and analyzed with respect to storage and packaging conditions for optimal targeting cold pasta extrudates. Therefore, the developed pasta extrudates from buckwheat, chickpea and xanthan gum were packed in two different packaging materials viz; low density polypropylene (LDPE) and Aluminium laminate (AL) and kept under ambient and accelerated conditions for a storage period of 90 days. All the samples were evaluated for moisture content, free fatty acids, water activity (aw), sensory analysis and total plate count (TPC) in both the packaging materials. The results indicated the significant (p<0.05) increase in moisture content from 5.71 % to 7.31 % in LDPE and 5.71 % to 6.35 % in Aluminium laminate (AL). Water activity also showed significant (p<0.05) increase from 0.33 to 0.49 in LDPE and 0.33 to 0.47 in AL. The free fatty acids in prepared pasta resulted in increase during storage period of 90 days from 0.12-0.30 (%). However, total plate count of developed product did not show any microbial growth during storage period of 60 days, and there was slight increase in TPC on 90th day of storage period of 0.81 (cfu/g ×102) in LDPE and 0.52 (cfu/g ×102) in AL, which is consumer acceptable as per BIS. Thus, the buckwheat and chickpea flour incorporated with xanthan gum as additive can be used significantly for the preparation of pasta.