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Effects of Brans from Specialty Sorghum Varieties on In Vitro Starch Digestibility of Soft and Hard Sorghum Endosperm Porridges

¹Research associate, Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695. ²Corresponding author. Phone: (919) 513-2097. Fax: (919) 515-4694. E-mail: dilekaustin2011@gmail.com ³Associate professor, Department Nutrition and Food Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. ⁴Research scientist, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. ⁵Regents professor and faculty fellow, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843.

Brans of specialty sorghum varieties (high tannin, black, and black with tannin) were used to investigate the effects of sorghum phenolic compounds on starch digestibility of soft and hard sorghum endosperm porridges. Endosperms of varieties with the highest and lowest grain hardness index were mixed with brans of specialty sorghum varieties in the ratio of 85:15 and cooked into porridges with distilled water using a Rapid Visco Analyzer. Brans of condensed tannin containing sorghum varieties (high-tannin and black with tannin sorghums) significantly (P < 0.05) decreased starch digestibility and estimated glycemic index (EGI) and increased resistant starch (RS) content of endosperm porridges. However, the addition of phenolic-rich tannin-free (mostly anthocyanins) black sorghum bran significantly (P < 0.05) increased starch digestibility and EGI but did not affect RS content of endosperm porridges. The disparate effects with black bran may, in part, result from its larger particle size and different bran structure compared with other sorghum varieties evaluated. Thus, our study showed that not only presence of phenolic compounds in the brans but also structural differences of specialty sorghum brans can have significant effects on starch digestibility.