ABSTRACT
Parboiling is a technology used to cook cereal grains, especially rice, inside the husk without modifying size and shape. Parboiling consists of three steps: soaking, steaming, and drying. Parboiling makes cereals more nutritious as the nutrients, vitamins, micronutrients, and minerals present in husk penetrate inside the grain during soaking. Parboiling causes healing of cracks and air bubbles during gelatinization and produces harder grain, consequently giving better yield and fewer broken grains during milling. Parboiling the fat globule present in periphery of the aleurone layer coalesce and become bigger in size making oil extraction from bran easier and free flowing, making it possible to skip the step of heat stabilization of bran during pretreatment of bran before oil extraction. During parboiling vitamins like thiamine penetrate inside the grain. Parboiling causes formation of novel starch polymorphs such as modified starch by annealing, restructuring of amylose, amylopectin molecules, and lipid amylose complex I and II formation. In this chapter we discuss the basic principles and effects of parboiling on the nutritional, functional, and biological properties of grains.
