Nutritional optimization through linear programming of climate-smart and gluten free pasta

Designing food formulations is an important approach to meet a set of nutritional needs and to address malnutrition issues. Linear programming is an appropriate tool for designing novel nutritionally optimized formulations based on a combination of gluten-free climate-smart crops. Four nutritionally optimized cowpea-based pasta formulations in association or not with teff and/or amaranth leaves (AL) were designed to meet a woman's protein requirements in terms of quantity and quality, fibers, ω6/ω3, iron, zinc and B9 vitamin, while limiting antinutritional factors such as phytates. To predict the processability of the flours into pasta and the visual acceptance of future pasta by consumers, the antioxidant and oxidant capacities of flours were measured and their color compared with the color of durum wheat semolina (DWS). The formulation combining cowpea and AL had the highest nutritional composition and lowest impact of phytates. The formulation with cowpea, teff and AL seems to be the easiest to process thanks to its lower lipoxygenase activity and the higher antioxidant capacity, followed by the teff-cowpea formulation. The color of the formulation that only contained cowpea was closest to DWS. •Linear programming can be used to improve the nutritional quality of pasta.•Four cowpea-based pasta reach FAO nutrition recommendations for one meal for adults.•Cowpea/amaranth leaf pasta is the most nutritionally interesting formulation.•Adding teff and amaranth leaves to cowpea pasta could facilitate its processing.•Theoretical zinc bioavailability is 30% in cooked cowpea-based pasta.