Colored grains: Chemistry, health benefits and processing

Grains are important part of our diet and among them colored grains are getting more research interest among scientist due to their enhanced nutritional, antioxidant and health promoting properties. According to different studies anthocyanins like cyanidin, malvidin, delphinidin, petunidin, peonidin and pelargonidin glycosides were identified and quantified in different colored grains like rice, maize, barley and wheat mainly by chromatographic and spectroscopic methods. Antioxidant activity of these pigmented grains cereals are measured using DPPH, FRAP, ORAC and ABTS assays and it was found to be related to the total anthocyanin content. Currently researches are being conducted on baked and extruded products from colored cereals like bread, biscuit, muffins, pasta, noodles etc. Application of colored grains are limited in to food colorants and in small scale as functional food products due to the thermal stability related issue of the bioactive compounds in colored grains and this area should be taken more in to consideration to stabilize these compounds and to introduce these pigmented grain based products to consumers in large scale after proper market analysis.