Effect of Cooking Time on Starch and Cyanide Contents of Freshly Harvested Cassava Tubers Used for Tapioca Production

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of cooking time on starch and cyanide contents of freshly harvested cassava tubers used for tapioca production. Tapioca is a cassava meal commonly consumed in most part of th e world and prepared from freshly harvested cassava tubers. The cassava tubers used for tapioca production are first boiled and sliced, before soaking in water overnight. The cassava tubers used for this study were harvested from the eastern farm of Nation al Root Crops Research Institute, Umudike in Abia State, Nigeria. Some freshly harvested cassava tubers were subjected to 90 minutes cooking in clean water and at intervals of 15 minutes, samples were collected for starch and cyanide analyses. The result s howed that increase in cooking time decreased the starch and cyanide contents of the cassava samples. Starch was reduced from 13.37% to 4.65% for every 2 g of star ch tuber given 65.22% reduction after 90 minutes. The cyanide content was reduced from 36.65 ± 0.16 to 2.49±0.08 mg/kg after 90 minutes of boiling, given a 93.2%