Chemical Components, Antioxidant Activity, and Glycemic Response Values of Purple Sweet Potato Products

Purple sweet potato is a source of starch with high potential to be developed as a functional food. It can be boiled and consumed as a snack or processed into intermediate goods such as flour. The flour can then be modified through partial gelatinization and followed by a retrogradation process to produce resistant starch-rich purple sweet potato flour. The study was aimed at obtaining the glycemic response values of purple sweet potato products, namely, boiled purple sweet potatoes (BSP), purple sweet potato noodles (SPN), and resistant starch-rich purple sweet potato noodles (RSPN). SPN was prepared from conventional purple sweet potato flour, whereas RSPN was made from resistant starch-rich purple sweet potato flour. Moreover, water, ash, protein, fat, and carbohydrate; total phenolic, anthocyanin, and resistant starch contents; and the rate of hydrolysis of starch were evaluated. Ten subjects were involved in the estimation of glycemic response determined by the area under the curve (AUC) of the blood glucose after consuming products. Glucose syrup was used as a reference. The glycemic response data were processed using ANOVA and further tested using LSD at p < 0.05. The results showed RSPN had the lowest glycemic index value if compared to BSP and SPN (58.7, 63.5, and 83.7) and fell under food with medium GI, but the differences were not statistically significant. RSPN and SPN were classified as medium GI; however, the process of partial gelatinization followed by retrogradation during the preparation of flour used for raw material in making RSPN has successfully maintained the total phenol and anthocyanin and increased resistant starch content of the noodle Processing of purple sweet potato flour into noodle lowered the GI category, and when the flour was partially gelatinized and retrograded, the noodle had more potentiality as a functional food due to their high total phenolic and anthocyanin content.