Author(s):

Himani Srivastava, Kirti Kumari and Dhanajaya A Kulkarni

Abstract: Bengal gram (Cicer arientimum L.) is considered to be a good source of protein, carbohydrates and has a very important role in human diet in our country. Green chick peas are generally consumed as fresh, drsied, boiled and soaked hara chana. The shelf life of green Bengal gram kernels need to be extended by retarding their physiological metabolism which slow down the undesirable changes by application of proper storage condition. Looking in to the increasing demand of green Bengal gram kernels and its products, the present study was undertaken to study physical characterstics and shelf life enhancement of green Bengal gram pods. The average moisture content (wb) of green Bengal gram pod was found 71.1 percent. The mean values of the length, width, thickness and unit mass of the Bengal gram pod were found to be 20.14 mm, 10.24 mm, 8.54 mm and 0.39 g. The geometric mean diameter of green Bengal gram pods was found to be 11.96. Similarly sphericity of green Bengal gram pods and kernels was calculated as 0.59 and 0.79, respectively. The bulk density of green Bengal gram pods was found to be 410.03 kg/m³, the true density 1127.70 kg/m^3. The angle of repose of green Bengal gram pods was found to be 40.67°. The hardness of the green Bengal gram pod was found to be 1712.9 gf when placed horizontally and vertically. Preservation study of green Bengal gram pods shows that the maximum shelf life of pods with best possible quality was obtained with LDPE packaging material, deep freeze storage condition and vacuum packaging method. Analysis of variance clearly shown that the packaging material, storage condition and storage period had a significant effect over PLW, decay, Chroma, bacterial count and fungal count at 99 percent confidence level. The maximum shelf life of pods in vacuum packed LDPE samples was found to be 6 days for ambient temperature, 54 days for both refrigerated and deep freeze storage conditions, respectively.

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