ISSN 2320-5407 International Journal of Advanced Research (2016), Volume 4, Issue 1, 606- 613 606 Journal homepage: http://www.journalijar.com INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED RESEARCH RESEARCH ARTICLE Effect of infrared processing on functional, nutritional, antinutritional and rheological properties of mung bean (Phaseolus aereus) seeds Padmashree, A; Semwal, A. D; Khan, M. A; Govindaraj, T; Sharma,G.K.* Department of Cereals and Pulses Technology, Defence Food Research Laboratory, Siddartha nagar, Mysore-570 011. India. Manuscript Info Abstract Manuscript History: Received: 14 November 2015 Final Accepted: 22 December 2015 Published Online: January 2016 Key words: IR processing, Mung bean seeds, Functional properties, Antinutritional factors, Rheology. *Corresponding Author Sharma G.K. The effect of infrared (IR) processing on functional, nutritional, antinutritional and rheological properties of mung bean seeds were studied and the results were compared with the conventionally processed mung bean seeds. Water absorption capacity and sedimentation values were significantly increased (p≤0.05) due to IR processing. Results indicated significant decrease (p≤0.05) in bulk density with better reconstitution characteristics when compared to conventional processing methods. IR processing caused significant (p≤0.05) reduction in anti nutritional factors, higher retention (p≤0.05) of vitamin B 1 and B 2 contents as well as comparatively lesser degradation of different fatty acids. Treatment resulted in greater reduction in cooking time of mung bean seeds (3 min) as compared to conventionally processed mung bean (35 min). Copy Right, IJAR, 2016,. All rights reserved INTRODUCTION Mung bean (Phaseolus aereus) is an important legume crop consumed in India and its protein quality is considered almost similar to the protein quality of chick pea, black gram and pigeon pea (Kataria et al., 1989; Jood et al., 1998). Although legumes are rich in nutritive value, their utilization is limited due to their longer cooking time (Buckle and Sambudi, 1990). Traditional soaking and treatment of legumes in salt and bicarbonate solutions to reduce the cooking time has been broadly studied (Buckle and Sambudi, 1990; Singh and Rao, 1995). Reduction in cooking time of pulses and legumes have been reported earlier using freeze thaw dehydration method (Umadevi et al., 2008). Besides this, legumes contain several antinutritional compounds such as trypsin inhibitors, phytates, polyphenols, flatulence factors and so on and their presence and absence depends on the type of legumes (Sathe and Salunkhe, 1984). Studies reported that, processing treatments such as IR heating, extrusion, irradiation, germination and cooking eliminated antinutritional factors significantly. (Deshpande et al., 1984; Salunkhe and Kadam, 1989; Vanderpoel, 1990; Liener, 1994). The processing methods greatly influences the nutritive value of foods w.r.t micro and macronutrients. The food processing covers wide area starting from simple boiling to irradiation and the stability of various nutrients depends upon severity and duration of processing (Henry and Massey, 2001). Micronization / IR processing is an intense heat process, wherein the exposure of an absorbent material to electromagnetic radiation takes place for a shorter time in the infrared region and used widely during recent years as one of the efficient methods to shorten the cooking time of legumes. The application of IR radiation to food processing is gaining importance due to its inherent advantages over conventional heating w.r.t its short process time, uniform heating, reduced quality loss, uniform product temperature and better quality of finished products (Krishnamurthy et al., 2008). Effect of infra red treatments on the properties of soy bean, lentils, cow peas, kidney beans, green peas, black beans and pinto beans have been studied (Cenkowski and Sosulski, 1997; Fasina et al., 2001; Mwangwela et al., 2007). Studies have also been carried out to investigate the effect of soaking, germination,