Comparative study on nutritional quality of milled rice and khichdi of traditional aromatic rice of Eastern India

Over the years the traditional short and medium grained non-Basmati aromatic rice landraces happened to be consistently important due to their remarkable aroma and low to medium amylose contents. In an effort to explore the unveiled systematic information on the traditional aromatic landraces of the eastern India, six of them viz., 'Tulshibhog (TB)', 'Kalonunia (KN)', 'Kalojira (KJ)' and 'NC 365 (NC)' belonging to West Bengal, 'Chakhao (CH)' to Manipur, and 'Kola Joha (KH)' to Assam, all harvested during both 2021 and 2022, were analysed for their physical, nutritional, and antioxidative properties in their milled kernels, whereas khichdi, a processed food prepared from the kernels obtained from the 2022 harvest samples only, were also analysed. 'Chakhao' although found to be inferior in respect to nutritional properties like starch (57.47% in kernel, 23.91% in khichdi), amylose (7.06% in kernel, 4.23% in khichdi), TSS (0.30% in kernel), was however superior with respect to total free phenol content (0.75 mg TE/g in kernel, 10.59 mg TE/g in khichdi), DPPH activity (0.57 mg TE/g in kernel), FRAP activity (0.60 mg TE/g in kernel), ABTS activity (0.88 mg TE/g in kernel) from free phenol extracts. Values obtained for other nutritional parameters like protein, total lipid, minerals viz., Fe, Zn, Cu and Mn, and the antinutritional factor phytate, were also significant. Based on the average values and the results of Principal Component Analysis, 'Chakhao' was considered to be the most promising with respect to the values obtained from milled kernel, and khichdi, followed by 'Kola Joha'.