Profiling the varietal antioxidative contents and macrochemical composition in Australian faba beans (Vicia faba L.)

There is growing interest in pulses such as faba bean for the development of foodswith enhanced nutrition, functionality, and health benefits. In this study, seed mate-rial from 10 faba bean varieties, grown in replicated field trials in South Australia overconsecutive seasons (2016 and 2017), were analysed for ferric reducing antioxidantpotential, total phenolics, and total monomeric anthocyanins. Differences in the mac-rochemical composition of varieties was investigated using attenuated total reflec-tance mid-infrared spectroscopy. The mean ferric reducing antioxidant potential ofthe varieties ranged from 237 to 531 mg trolox equivalents 100 g−1; the total pheno-lics from 258 to 571 mg gallic acid equivalents 100 g−1; and the total monomericanthocyanins from 12.7 to 21.0 mg cyanidin-3-glucoside equivalents 100 g−1. Statis-tically significant variances in all three measures were found between varieties.Attenuated total reflectance Fourier transformed mid-infrared spectroscopy wasfound to provide a rapid assessment of the phytochemical composition of the sam-ples. Partial least squares discriminant analysis was able to classify samples by grow-ing year with reasonable accuracy (>87%). There is significant variation in theantioxidant, phenolic, and anthocyanin contents between Australian faba bean varie-ties. Mid-infrared spectroscopy may prove to be a valuable screening tool forbreeders and researchers in the future.