Consumer’s awareness towards the link between the diet and health increases the consumption of plant based products as they are packed with many bioactive phytochemicals. The increased demand for plant based products in turn increases the demand for various plant materials that are ecologically sustainable. Soy, oats, almond, coconut based beverages are the few popular raw materials used in the plant based beverage preparation. Oat beverage is the only well-known product under cereal based beverage category. None of the market samples available are prepared from any indigenous raw materials. Thus, there is an urge for the novel locally available raw materials for the sustainable production of plant beverages. In this context, this study aims to explore the utilization potential of traditional brown rice variety as a novel raw material to prepare plant based beverage by assessing its nutritional value. The brown rice extract was prepared and its phyisco-chemical composition was determined with standard analytical procedures. The moisture, total solids, ash, protein, fat, carbohydrate content, energy and pH of the brown rice based beverage was found to be 91.89 ± 0.04 %, 8.11 ± 0.04 %, 0.07 ± 0.03 %, 0.81 ± 0.03 %, 0.13 ± 0.06 %, 7.10 ± 0.08 %, 32.72 ± 0.63 Kcal and 6.83 ± 0.03 respectively. The developed product is compared with oat beverages in market for energy value and macronutrient content. It was found to have moderate calories with lower fat content and similar carbohydrate content. Thus, this native variety of brown rice can be used as an alternative and healthier cereal for the plant based beverage preparation in order to promote the utilization and consumption of indigenous raw materials in product formulation.

Plant based beverage, Vegan, Brown rice, Mapillai samba, nutritional composition

The carbohydrate content of the developed product is found to be similar to the control and the fat content is found to be significantly lower than control. This helps to promote the product as low fat with moderate calories of about 32.72 Kcal of energy (1.64 % RDA per 100 ml). None of the market samples available are prepared from any indigenous raw materials. Thus, this study utilizes the locally available as well as nutritionally rich cereal based raw material alternative to oats in order to develop a healthy plant based beverage. This will reduce its cost and also encourages the consumption of indigenous rice variety. This product can also be marketed as a ready to drink plant beverage after adopting proper processing and packaging methods. To produce a nutritionally balanced product, this beverage can also be combined with other plant beverages. Since brown rice varieties possess various bioactive phytochemicals, the future study may focus on the profiling of these compounds and assessing its activity which will further enhance the market potential of this beverage.

R. Radha Maheswari, Ayyavoo Preamnath Manoharan, B. Murugan, P.S.L. Sesh and V. Perasiriyan (2023). Exploring the Potential of Novel Plant based Beverage Developed using a Traditional Brown Rice variety by Nutritional Assessment. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 15(8): 557-560.