Nutritional, microbial and sensory attributes of bread fortified with defatted watermelon seed flour

Abstract

SummaryThe utilisation of natural food supplements to fortify staples is considered as one of the effective means of dealing with global food nutrient deficiency. Herein, we report the nutritional, microbial and sensorial characteristics of defatted watermelon seed fortified bread. The protein content and level of micronutrients such as phosphorus, potassium, iron and calcium increased with increasing proportion of watermelon seed flour in the bread. Notably, calcium resulted as the highest micronutrient in the bread samples, whereas the content of iron in the fortified samples improved significantly. The defatted watermelon seed flour had a high iron content of about 12.1 mg/100 g as compared to the normal (unfortified) bread of 0.01 mg/100 g. The total microbial count results for all the fortification levels complied with the acceptable microbial quality requirement. Lastly, the consumer acceptability test did not show any significant difference between all levels of fortification with watermelon seed flour.