Effects of Fermentation on the Antioxidant and Antinutritional Compositions of Green Pea

Green peas are known to contain anti-nutritional factors like enzymes inhibitors, phytates, oxalates, saponins and polyphenolic compounds, all of which limit their utilization hence, the study evaluate the effect of fermentation on the antioxidant and antinutrients content of green pea. Fermentation of green pea was done using both submerged and solid state fermentation for 7days. Isolation and identification of microorganism from the fermented sample was done on daily basis using standard microbiological and molecular techniques. The type of organism isolated from the submerged fermentation of Green pea included the bacteria (Bacillus subtilis, Lactobacillus Plantarum, Micrococcus roseus, Lactobacillus lactis, and Lactobacillus fermentum) and the fungi Rhizopus oryzae, Penicillium chrysogenum and Rhizopus stolonifer. While the type of organism isolated from the solid state fermentation of Green pea included some bacteria (Bacillus subtilis, Lactobacillus Plantarum and Lactobacillus lactis) and fungi (Penicillium notatum, Rhizopus oryzae, Penicillium chrysogenum, Candida albicans, Alternaria alternate and Rhizopus stolonifer). Fermentation reduced the antinutritional content of the fermented sample with submerged fermentation resulting in the highest reduction from 32.18 mg/g, 4.14 mg/g, 1.62 mg/g, 51.08 mg/g and 36.37 mg/g in the raw sample to 26.27 mg/g, 0.48 mg/g, 0.27 mg/g, 7.82 mg/g and 24.07 mg/g in submerged fermented green pea for saponin, tannin, oxalate, phytate and alkaloid respectively. However, Fermentation significantly p ≤ 0.05 increased the phenol, flavonoid and FRAP content of the fermented green pea with the solid state fermentation resulting in the highest increase from 3.50, 0.03 and 1.41 in the raw sample to 9.32, 0.12 and 9.66 in the solid state fermented green pea for phenol, flavonoid and FRAP content respectively. This study revealed that fermentation had significant effect on the antioxidant and antinutritional compositions of Green pea thereby reducing the antinutrient composition of Green pea in which will improve the nutrient value of Green pea.