Edible seeds pioneered in preparing modern age bakery food products: recent challenges and applications

Abstract

Over the past few years, there has been tremendous shift in consumption of edible seeds which contain a wide variety of nutrients and bioactive substances; hence contributing significantly in balanced intestinal homeostasis, enhancing short-chain fatty acid synthesis, and stimulating the growth of gut microorganisms. While numerous studies have explored edible seeds over the decades, a detailed and updated review on recent explorations is necessary. Therefore, the present review comprehensively discusses nutritional attributes of few important edible seeds namely flaxseeds, basil seeds, niger seeds, nigella seeds, sesame seeds, chironji seeds and fenugreek seeds. This review also discusses numerous in-vivo and in-vitro studies, delineating the positive effects of dietary fibers, proteins and bioactive compounds present in edible seeds upon re-modulation of probiotics. Moreover, it also explores the applications of edible seeds into development of several value-added bakery products. While these seeds offer immense potential, their chemical composition can pose challenges in the baking sector. Therefore, this review also addresses few recent challenges associated with utilizing seeds in baking applications. Besides many revelations, it is crucial to emphasize that further long-term, well-designed human intervention trials are necessary to fully validate the health-promoting properties of these edible seeds.

Keywords

• Edible seeds
• Dietary fibers
• Probiotics
• Nutrients
• Bakery
• Food