The manuscript entitled “Influence of non-traditional ingredient raw and processed fenugreek on functional snacks” is not relevant for publication in the International Journal of Food Science & Technology at the present form. It needs a major improving.

The subject of the article concerns the possibility of using fenugreek seeds known for their beneficial effects on the human body in the production of extruded snacks based on rice flour. Research using fenugreek as a nutritional and functional supplement has already been carried out. The authors of the article undertook to determine the effect of fenugreek seeds pre-treatment on the creation of a snack with optimal organoleptic and functional properties as an innovative technological solution to increase consumer acceptance, reduce the content of anti-nutrients, and increase the digestibility of novel snacks. The article is comprehensible, but requires major changes and linguistic corrections. Also the title of the article is poorly worded and therefore unclear.

Materials and methods

The authors should complete the information on the type of extruder used, the conditions of the extrusion process (e.g. temperature distribution inside the extruder?) and the preparation of the final product. The description of the sensory evaluation of snacks lacks a description of the conditions for conducting the evaluation, including, for example, the number of evaluators, environmental conditions, preparation of samples for evaluation. All methods of analyses of the features of the obtained extrudates come down only to giving the name of the method and the source of the literature, and most features lack information in which units the results are expressed. This makes it difficult to relate to the research results obtained by the authors, as well as to discuss them.

Results and discussion

There is a lack statistical data in Tables 3-5 and Figures 1-3, which contain the discussed results. Also the units of the features of the snacks presented in Tables 3 and 4 and Figure 1 are not provide .

In the sub-section "Sensory analysis" the authors write about significant differences between the samples of extruded snacks (page 8, line 56), but in Table 3 and Figure 1, which present the discussed results, the statistical data is missing.

The addition of fenugreek seeds in the form of flour was 1-5%, and the sentence on lines 40-45 (page 9) suggests that the snacks were made only from raw, germinated, soaked and roasted fenugreek seed flour. It should be noted in the overview that these are rice snacks with fenugreek seed flour added.

Sentence on line 5-6 on page 10: Should it be "not greater" or "not big"?
It is impossible to refer to the results presented in Table 4, and discussed on pages 10 and 11, as it lacks statistical data. Table 4 also lacks the units in which the following were expressed: crispness, bulk density, and the units of antioxidant activity (%) should be explained in the methodological part of the article. Table 4 lists the results for the crispness feature, while the discussion on page 10 lists the terms "texture" or "hardness". So what was the feature studied and in what units was it expressed?
Page 11 (lines 22-31): The discussion requires a deeper explanation. The results of the determination of the antioxidant activity presented in Figure 2 and the total phenolic content in Figure 3, and discussed on pages 11-12, are not supported by the data of statistical calculations. The test results quoted in Results and discussion section should be reported with the same accuracy and not as, for example, in line 49-50 (page 11): "from 1.272 to 3.16 mg GAE / g".

The authors did not comment on the significantly lower phytic acid content in snacks containing fenugreek seed flour compared to the extruded control snacks (rice flour only). There is also no mention in the discussion that regardless of the amount of fenugreek seed flour added and the way it is processed, extruded snacks with fenugreek flour added contained more tannins than the control sample. The results of the determination of the anti-nutritional content of snacks, presented in Table 5 and discussed on pages 12-13, are not supported by statistical data, so it is difficult to refer to them in an unequivocal manner.

Abbreviations not previously explained, such as the abbreviations on page 14 (line 15), should not be used.

Also in Table 6, the research results are not supported by the data of statistical calculations, and therefore cannot be explicitly referred to in the discussion (pages 13-14).

The Conclusion section should be rewritten. This chapter does not explain the positive or negative effect of the method of preparation (initial treatment) of fenugreek seeds and the use of 1-5% of flour from such seeds in the production of extruded rice snacks on their organoleptic and functional properties, and also on the content of phytic acid and tannin as well as on the digestibility of the snacks obtained.

The construction of some sentences raises doubts, e.g. sentences:
Page 3, lines 17-22;
Page 7, lines 40-45;
Page 7, lines 45-49
Page 9, line 5-6 (full stop is missing at the end of the previous sentence)

References

Citations: Wani and Kumar, (2016) (page 6, line 33; page 9, line 52; page 10, line 17), Wani and Kumar, (2019) (page 6, line 40) and Wani and Kumar, (2016b ) (page 10, line 45) are not listed in the References section.

The manuscript IJFST-2021-32532.R1, entitled “Sensory, functional characteristics and in vitro digestibility of functional snacks supplemented with non-traditional ingredient raw and processed fenugreek” is relevant for publication in the International Journal of Food Science & Technology after the minor improving.

The authors referred to the reviewer's comments and made the necessary corrections to the manuscript. However, the Reviewer proposes a slight modification of the current title of the article, which would have the following form: "Sensory, functional characteristics and in vitro digestibility of snacks supplemented with non-traditional ingredient raw and processed fenugreek".