Phytic acid content of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) and black gram (Vigna mungo): varietal differences and effect of domestic processing and cooking methods

Phytic acid content of various cultivars showed a narrow variation: 7.48‐8.00 g kg −1 and 6.47‐6.68 g kg −1 for chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L) and black gram ( Vigna mungo L), respectively. Phytic acid was lowered significantly by the common methods of domestic processing and cooking including soaking, cooking, autoclaving and sprouting of the legume grains. Sprouting had the most marked phytic acid lowering effect followed by autoclaving and soaking. Cooking of soaked seeds lowered phytic acid by 20‐26% in chickpea and 35‐40% in black gram grains whereas the loss was 7‐11% and 6‐9% in these pulses, respectively, when unsoaked seeds were cooked.