Abstract
Over the years, snacking has become a regular habit for majority of the population with increasing need for food manufacturers to meet consumers’ demand through product development. In this study, snack bars were prepared using maize and Bambara nuts mixed in the following ratios: A, 100% maize; B, 100% Bambara nuts; C, 50% maize: 50% Bambara nuts; D, 75% maize: 25% Bambara nuts; E, 75% Bambara nuts: 25% maize. The total heterotrophic bacterial count of samples A to E was within the limit stipulated by International Commission on Microbiological Specification for Food. The frequency of occurrence of bacterial isolates from the samples include Bacillus species (24%), Staphylococcus species (24%), Lactobacillus species (24%), Escherichia coli (19%) and Serratia species (9%), while the fungal isolates include Aspergillus (33%), Penicillium (27%), Rhizopus (20%) and Saccharomyces species (20%). The moisture, ash, carbohydrate, crude protein, fat and fiber content of the samples were within the range of 11.47±0.99-17.45±1.01, 1.09±0.07-2.00±0.15, 56.05±0.65-70.37±0.71, 6.32±0.36-15.00±0.22, 4.60±0.50-7.00±0.30 and 2.60±0.25-3.10±0.31%, respectively. There was a significant difference (p<0.05) in the proximate composition among the samples except for crude fiber. The calorie value range between 347.20-367.69 kcal and acceptability of the samples compared favourably with a commercialized snack bar. Key words: Healthy snacking, natural sweetener, underutilized legumes, cereal bar, food product development.
Highlights
It has been the norm in different societies for people to eat three sizeable meals per day
Plates 1 and 2 show the samples of snack bar developed in this study using maize and Bambara groundnut in different proportions
The snack bars were considered to be microbiologically safe for human consumption because the total heterotrophic bacterial count (THBC) of the samples were lower than 6 log10 CFU/ml which is the limit stipulated by International Commission on Microbiological Specification for Food (ICMSF) (Maduka et al, 2021)
Summary
It has been the norm in different societies for people to eat three sizeable meals per day. In the past few decades, majority of the population have formed the habit of consuming smaller amounts of food and/or drink at short intervals between three standard meals (Chaplin and Smith, 2011). This feeding habit is referred to as snacking (Potter et al, 2018). According to EkeEjiofor and Okoye (2018), the habit of snacking irresponsibly could lead to weight gain and nutrition deficiency Despite these assertions, the relationship between snacking and human health is still debatable (Potter et al, 2018). Consumption of contaminated snacks could lead to microbial foodborne illness (Makinde et al, 2020)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
