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White flour is a common ingredient in bread and pastries that you can find in almost any household. While it can be hard to say no to buttered toast or a slice of pizza, foods that contain white flour aren’t good for your health. In fact, white flour is linked to weight gain and even a higher risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Baked goods made with white flour contain little to no nutritional value. Fortunately, you can find healthier alternatives — and flour made from an unusual food source can soon join the ranks.
Plantains or “cooking bananas” are often used to create different dishes. But according to research published in CyTA – Journal of Food, flour made from plantain peel can be used as a healthier substitute for white flour.
Unripe plantain pulp is rich in dietary fiber (DF), polyphenols, and resistant starch (RS). Producing unripe plantain flour to starch isolation results in unused peel, which makes up about 35% of the fruit’s weight.
To ensure that the plantain peel don’t go to waste, it is often used as compost or fed to cattle. In other cases, flour made from mature plantain peels was used as a source of antioxidant DF to make cookies.
Other studies have attempted to determine the chemical composition of the DF in unripe plantain peels. However, the antioxidant capacity and its functional properties remain unknown. Determining these factors are crucial to confirming the nutritional benefits of unripe plantain peel.
The researchers set out to study the chemical and functional characteristics of unripe plantain peel along with the components of the DF and its antioxidant capacity.
The researchers obtained the flour from commercial green plantains (Musa paradisiaca L.) and after the plantain peel flour was produced, they set out to confirm certain factors:
The findings revealed that plantain peel flour had very high levels of ash, protein, total dietary fiber (TDF) and total starch.
For the study, it was discovered that the dietary fiber’s main component was the insoluble fraction that had a higher level of cellulose compared to hemicellulose and lignin. Meanwhile, extractable polyphenols were found in the lowest amount, yet it had the highest antioxidant capacity.
When the researchers increased the temperature of the test, the water- and oil-holding capacity values of the flour also increased.
The plantain was separated into pulp and peel and the researchers calculated its weight percentage. Using the American Association of Cereal Chemists (AACC) 44–15 method, peel moisture content was determined.
The peel was then dried at 40 C for 48 hours in a convection oven. After being processed using a mill, the flour had a particle size of 0.15 mm, which was small enough that each granule could pass through a US 100 sieve. The flour was then stored at 27 C in a sealed polypropylene plastic bag until testing.
Data from the study confirmed that:
The researchers concluded that PPF is rich in total dietary fiber (TDF) with a higher level of insoluble than soluble fraction. The DF composition also revealed that since pectin is the primary component of the PPF, the flour also has both fermentable and non-fermentable carbohydrates.
PPF contained fewer polyphenols than tannins, but it had a high antioxidant capacity. The flour also had suitable water- and oil-retention capacities.
The researchers believe that plantain peel flour is a healthier alternative to white flour and that it can be used to make various “functional foods” rich in dietary fiber.
Plantains are not as sweet as the “dessert bananas” popular in the US, and they have a higher starch content. Here are other facts about these cooking bananas:
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