Broad Bean (Faba Bean)

Broad bean or faba bean (Vicia faba) is one of the oldest domesticated pulses. This grain legume from the Fabaceae family is nowadays cultivated in almost all regions of the world. Faba bean attracts a growing attention due to nutritional, agronomic and economical advantages. This legume distinguishes itself by a high protein content and a balanced amino acids profile, except for a low level of methionine and cysteine. It is also a rich source of other beneficial nutrients including dietary fibres, minerals and phenolic compounds. It is less prone to develop off-flavours and has low-fat content and light cotyledon colour, which makes it suitable to incorporate in several food matrices to increase protein content and nutritional value. Faba bean use has been, however, restricted due to the presence of antinutrients, such as enzyme inhibitors, phytates, condensed tannins, oligosaccharides, and the pyrimidine glycosides vicine and convicine. The reduction of faba bean antinutrients through breeding or processing techniques such as cooking, fermentation, soaking, germination or use of degrading enzymes has been the task for many studies. This chapter describes current post-harvest processing technologies and their incidence on faba bean nutritional, physicochemical, sensorial properties and product shelf life. It also provides an overview of faba bean utilization and discusses future trends and prospects that can open up new application scenarios and promote fast adaptation, and stable positioning of faba bean in the plant-based food market as one of the most valuable protein resources for both human food and animal feed industries.