Sustainable and contemporary approaches to explore the nutritional and processing perspectives of buckwheat: Current evidence and prospects

Buckwheat (BW) is widely cultivated across hilly region of China and other countries in Asia and Europe. Among various cultivars’ Common buckwheat (CB) and Tartary buckwheat (TB) are of great significance due to their excellent phytochemical profile. Whole BW is a potent source of high-quality protein with balanced amino acids, vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, polyphenols and bioactive peptide, making BW fractions a potential functional ingredient in food formulations. However, certain factors such as antinutrients (ANFs), allergenic proteins, dark color and bitter taste limits BW commercialization. To overcome some of these issues, BW is subjected to different treatments such as germination, soaking, hydrothermal treatments, thermal processing, and extrusion that improves nutrient bioavailability, mitigates ANFs and enhances organoleptic attributes. Furthermore, BW bran and hulls retain free and bound polyphenols, can be extracted using green technologies with high extraction output. BW supplementation and substitution in gluten free formulations confers anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, hypotensive, and hypolipidemic activities with improved techno-functional properties. Hence, BW can be suggested as a future of the gluten-free food product industry. This review highlights the phytochemical profile of BW cultivators, their stabilization and extraction methods. It also explores therapeutic potential of BW as functional food and influence of BW supplementation on organoleptic characteristics of food formulations.