Fermentation and heat-moisture treatment induced changes on the physicochemical properties of foxtail millet (Setaria italica) flour

• Foxtail millet is gluten free cereal popular in East Asia and consume as porridge in northern China.
• Fermented foxtail millet meal is a good way to add the nutritional values.
• Fermented and heat moisture treatment are effective means to improve physicochemical properties of foxtail millet flour.

This research intends to verify the effect of Lactobacillus paracasei Fn032 fermentation and heat-moisture treatment (HMT) on the physicochemical properties of foxtail millet (Setaria italica) flour. The results obtained showed a significant (P < 0.05) increase in protein content (12.02–20.54%), total starch (15.78–51.01%) and starch fractions after fermentation and HMT. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis showed high decomposition temperature (Td) trend of 180.59 and 189.82 °C after HMT. However, there was significant (P < 0.05) enthalpy (ΔH) decrease. Flour digestion resulted in variation of slow digestible starch (SDS) and resistant starch (RS) count from 6.83 to 18.42% and 7.61 to 22.68% respectively, after fermentation and HTM. Following this observation, it was ascertained that in X-ray diffraction; pasting viscosity and fluorescence spectrophotometry show greater HMT influenced on the flour components. Findings from the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis showed microstructure differences of the flours samples. Fermentation and heat moisture treatment methods present a possible way of changing or improving the physicochemical properties and add nutritional value to foxtail millet meal.