Functional Aspects of Carob Flour

Abstract

Carob European tree belongs to Ceratonia siliqua L., while American crop belongs to Prosopis sp. The latter is a very ancient genus with almost 45 species distributed along America, Africa and Asia. Argentina constitutes the country with the greatest diversity, nearly 27 species, all over the world. Flours obtained from roasted pods of both species are commonly used as cacao and coffee substitutes with the advantage that they do not contain the excitant substance caffeine. They also contain high content of sucrose, minerals, fibre and lipids enriched in unsaturated fatty acids. They also contain polyphenols with antioxidant activity. Therefore, these high-nutritional flours are suitable for food applications. No information of functional properties of Prosopis sp. flours is available, although Ceratonia has been more studied. A protein isolate with 90% of protein content was able to obtain from carob flour. This isolate resulted a good protein emulsifier for oil-water emulsions and self-supporting gels with 30% protein were obtained.