VAIDYA, DEVINAAMAN KUMAR2022-08-232022-08-232022-08https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810186589ABSTRACT The present study entitled “Development of functional food products from stinging nettle (Urtica dioica L.)” was conducted in the Department of Food Science and Technology, Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh. Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica L.) family Urticaceae is a wild, herbaceous, perennial flowering plant having stinging hair and commonly found in moist or damp soil, is native to Europe, Asia, North Africa and America. It is known since ancient times as a wild source of food and herbal medicine but the plant remained underutilized due to inherent trichomes present in the leaves and stems responsible for causing irritation to the skin. Drying of stinging nettle leaves not only allow their use when the plants are physiologically inactive but also extend the consumption period and utilization at the time of food shortage especially for addressing micronutrient malnutrition as it contains high quantity of crude protein (28.19%), crude fat (3.29%), crude fiber (9.34%), total chlorophyll (14.21mg/g), total phenols (106.91mg/100g GAE), antioxidant activity (63.68% DPPH) and energy value (296.84 Kcal/100g). The present study was conducted with the prime objective to develop stinging nettle powder for preparation of nutritionally rich pasta. Different concentration of stinging nettle powder was supplemented in semolina and wheat flour for pasta preparation and evaluated for various quality characteristics. On the basis of cooking, functional properties and sensory quality 67:33 semolina/ wheat flour and stinging nettle powder showed its acceptability higher among all the treatments. During the accelerated storage study of 21 days at 37ºC temperature and relative humidity 85.0 per cent, both in semolina and wheat flour pasta minimum changes were recorded. The study concluded that supplementation of stinging nettle for the development of functional food products enhanced the nutritional as well as organoleptic properties of the standardized products. Due to high nutritional and functional quality characteristics stinging nettle shall be a boon for the food industry and can be exploited for making high grade functional food productsEnglishThesis