Germinated high‐resistant starch rice: A potential novel functional food

Summary High‐resistant starch rice has been showing great potent in preventing diabetes but with inferior eating quality. Germinated brown rice (GBR) shows improved eating quality, GBR intake can reduce the risk of some chronic diseases and is beneficial for human health. Germination treatment might be a good solution to the dilemma between nutrition and sensory qualities. To deepen the understanding on the physiochemical properties of high RS rice during germination and widen the applications of high RS rice in functional food industry. The rice ( Oryza sativa L. ) mutant RS4 (RS ca. 10.3%), GZ93 (RS ca. 0.1%) and the wild‐type R7954 (RS ca. 1.6%) were used to investigate the primary physicochemical properties, antioxidant and functional substances after germination. After germination, though the contents of RS were decreased in R7954, GZ93 and RS4, the RS content in RS4 was still as high as 4.09%. Meantime, RS4 exhibited pronouncedly enhanced lipids, free glucose, polyphenolic compositions, flavonoid, GABA and β‐glucan contents after germination. Germination treatment decreased the gelatinisation temperature of RS4, made RS4 cooked easier but maintained lower digestibility and higher nutrients. Germinated RS4 with high RS content might be potent in food industry as antioxidant, hypolipidaemic and immune‐enhancing ingredients.