Author(s)

Maribel Ovando-Martinez¹, Orhan Daglioglu², Kadir G. Guner², Umit Gecgel², Senay Simsek^1*

¹Department of Plant Sciences, North Dakota State University, Fargo, USA.
²Department of Food Engineering, College of Agriculture, Namik Kemal University, Tekirdag, Turkey.

Tarhana is a Turkish home-made fermented food product. The mixture of wheat flour, yoghurt, yeast, cooked vegetables, salt, and spices is fermented for 1 - 7 days. Tarhana is sun dried and ground for preparation of instant Tarhana powder. Color, phenolic compounds and fatty acid composition were determined for home-made Tarhana, collected from 4 cities in the Thrace Region of Turkey. Color and phenolic content were significantly different (P < 0.05). These differences were due to the variation of ingredients used at different locations. The major unsaturated fatty acids were oleic (C18:1, 16.41% - 57.69%), and linoleic acids (C18:2, 9.74% - 56.31%). Palmitic (C16:0, 16.90% - 37.66%) and stearic acids (C18:0, 0.65% - 11.34%) were the main saturated fatty acids. This study suggested that Tarhana soup is a good source of unsaturated fatty acids. Antioxidant properties of phenolic compounds and their effect on peroxidation of lipids in Tarhana should be tested in future studies.

Tarhana, Phenolic Compounds, Fatty Acid Composition

Ovando-Martinez, M. , Daglioglu, O. , Guner, K. , Gecgel, U. and Simsek, S. (2014) Analysis of the Fatty Acids and Phenolic Compounds in a Cereal-Based Fermented Food (Tarhana). Food and Nutrition Sciences, 5, 1177-1184. doi: 10.4236/fns.2014.513128.