Abstract
Borassus aethiopum (African palmyra palm (APP)) fruit is an underutilized tropical fruit but has potential food applications. In the present work, the suitability of APP fruit–wheat composite flour in the development of noodles was investigated. The fresh APP fruit pulp was separated, oven-dried at 60°C and milled into flour. The obtained flour was mixed with commercial wheat flour to obtain three composite flours with 5%, 10% and 15% of APP fruit flour. The functional properties and proximate composition of the composite flours were determined. The cooking properties and consumer preference of the noodles developed were also evaluated. The cooking yield, water uptake and gruel solid loss ranged from 259.81% to 300.97%, 159.81% to 200.97% and 11.52% to 17.11%, respectively. The water absorption capacities, swelling power and the solubility indices of the flours ranged from 197.10% to 492.66%, 621.99% to 734.91% and 4.53 to 26.48%, respectively. On the 7-point hedonic scale, the flavour, smell, colour and overall acceptability ranged between 4.2 and 5.3, 4.8 and 5.65, 4.05 and 5.3 and 4.10 and 5.03, respectively. The inclusion of APP fruit flour at 5% level yielded noodles with enhanced nutritional quality and highest overall consumer acceptability.
Highlights
The World Health Organization has estimated that the world’s population is to reach over 9 billion by 2050
All equipment and chemical reagents for African palmyra palm (APP) fruit flour processing, noodle production and laboratory analysis of samples were obtained from the Food Science Laboratories of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
The peak viscosity of the Wheat flour (WF) recorded the highest value and the APP fruit flour recorded the least, there was no significant difference between the control and the 5% composite flour
Summary
The World Health Organization has estimated that the world’s population is to reach over 9 billion by 2050. The works of global food organisations as well as scientists, especially agricultural scientists, postharvest technologists, food scientists and processors, are aimed at ensuring sufficient supply of healthy foods to match this expected world population. Among some of these works include genetic modification of crops to increase yield, drought and disease resistance as well as shorten maturity time and development of storage and processing methods to reduce postharvest losses of horticultural produce. Its fresh fruits are high in moisture and rich in fibre, minerals and vitamins (Ali et al, 2010a), whereas its fruit flour was reported to be rich in antioxidants, dietary fibre, minerals and bioactive compounds (Abe-Inge et al, 2018a, 2018b)
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