Relationship between Wheat Flour Color, Noodle Color and Protein Components

Noodle color is an important noodle quality index, Chinese wheat cultivars has lower color value nowadays. To improve noodle products color, the most common method is to treat with brightener. Understanding the relationship between noodle color and wheat protein components would benefit the genetic improvement of noodle quality and wheat quality breeding. 21 wheat cultivars were used to investigate the flour color, noodle color and their relationship with protein component content. The results showed that the noodle whiteness was reduced with longer noodle storage time, but improved after cooked (Table 1). The flour particle size was negatively related to the flour and noodle color, but no relationship with cooked noodle L value (Table 2). Among protein components, monomeric protein was the highest, followed by insoluble glutenin and soluble glutenin (Table 3). The monomeric protein content was significantly related to b value of the flour and noodle; the soluble glutenin content was significantly positively correlated with a value of the flour and noodle, but negatively to b value of the flour and cooked noodle color; the insoluble glutenin content was positively related to the flour L value, but negatively to b value. The higher the flour color, the higher the noodle and cooked noodle lightness (Table 4). The monomeric protein and soluble glutenin play an important role for the flour and noodle color. The insoluble glutenin content is only correlated with flour color but no relationship with noodle color.