Investigation of gamma irradiation and storage period effects on the nutritional and sensory quality of chickpeas, kidney beans and green lentils

•The radiotolerance of chickpea, kidney bean and green lentil was studied.•The samples were treated with 0.25, 0.50 and 1.0 kGy of gamma irradiation.•The nutritional and sensory parameters were analyzed during 12 months.•The gamma irradiation treatment causes tolerable losses even in the nutritional and sensory parameters.

The objectives of this study were to determine the effects of gamma irradiation and storage period on the content of the total carotenoids, the oligosaccharides raffinose and stachyose, and the vitamins thiamine (B1) and riboflavin (B2) in pulses. Chickpea, kidney bean and green lentil samples were subjected to gamma irradiation doses of 0.25, 0.50 and 1.0 kGy followed by storage at room temperature for 12 months. The total carotenoids content was measured by spectrophotometer. Raffinose and stachyose were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with refraction index detection and thiamine and riboflavin concentrations by HPLC with fluorescence detection. The impact of the irradiation dose can be seen in the result of the total carotene tests for lentils. The three different irradiation doses applied did not have significant effects on the levels of riboflavin and thiamine. The effect of the storage period was found to be significant on the raffinose and stachyose content but there were no significant changes following the applied irradiation doses. In the sensory evaluation the testers were not be able to differentiate between the 0.25, 0.50 and 1.0 kGy applied irradiation doses and the unirradiated samples. The results of these studies suggest that irradiation with 1.0 kGy gamma rays cause tolerable losses in the nutrients studied in chickpeas, kidney beans and green lentils.