3.3.4. Available carbohydrates
Unprocessed non-germinated barley based food mixture contained 3.02 g/100 g total soluble sugar, 0.95 g/100 g reducing sugar, 2.07 g/100 g non-reducing sugar and 42.92 g/100 g starch, respectively (Table 4). Autoclaving of the food mixture resulted in a significant increase in total soluble, reducing and non-reducing sugar contents and decrease in starch content up to the extent of 19%. Moist heat may cause rupturing of starch granules followed by hydrolysis of starch to oligosaccharides and then to monosaccharides, which caused significant increase in concentration of sugars (Grewal & Jood, 2009). When the autoclaved food mixture was fermented with L. acidophilus curd, a marked change in the profile of available carbohydrates was observed. Fermentation of food mixture reduced the contents of total soluble sugar, non-reducing sugar and starch by about 24%, 64% and 37%, respectively and these changes were significant when compared to the carbohydrate profile of the autoclaved unfermented food mixture. In contrast, reducing sugars of the autoclaved + fermented food mixture increased by about 4-fold over the unprocessed food mixture.