By Alice McFarlane

Improving pulse flours for consumer use

Nov 7, 2024 | 10:29 AM

Chickpeas, lentils, beans and peas could be found in brownies, vegan meats and salad dressings which is beyond the usual bean salads and hummus.

Chitra Sivakumar, who conducted her doctoral research on pulse flours, wants a specific flour for a specific product. Her work explored how particle size, protein and starch, and other micro-properties of milled pulse flour influence the quality of the end product.

Processing rice and wheat flours is standardized because of well-established research on these crops, however, pulse flours have not received the same attention.

Sivakumar said consumers and food producers are interested in pulse-based food products because beans and lentils are great sources of fibre and protein. They’re also good for the environment. Pulse Canada estimates that growing 10 million acres of pulses can capture 4.1 million tonnes of CO2 emission per year which is the output of approximately 1.2 million passenger vehicles.

“Many consumers want to switch to the pulse-based proteins rather than animal-based proteins. But when they are looking in the grocery store, they do not have many options,” Sivakumar said.

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She is using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan to conduct specialized research aimed at changing that. The work is sponsored by the Canadian Pulse Science Research Cluster.

Sivakumar and her colleagues studied more than 60 flours from four pulse crops to understand how milling affects them. The ultrabright synchrotron light enabled them to see how starch and proteins were mixed together, how much was damaged by milling, as well as texture, getting a molecular-level picture of the size and distribution of the milled particles – not just at the surface, but within the flour.

Her research into starch and protein will help determine what varieties to plant for different purposes, while the insights into particle size can help refine milling techniques.

“All these results can be applied, on both the agricultural producer side and in pulse milling processes,” she said.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @farmnewsNOW