African palmyra palm (Borassus aethiopum Mart.) fruits are underutilized in Sub-Saharan Africa. The objective of this study was to produce flour from the African palmyra palm (APP) fruit pulp and evaluate the effect of different drying methods on the quality characteristics of the flour. The fresh pulp was oven, solar, and freeze-dried. Proximate, physicochemical and functional properties of the flours were determined. The flours had high amount of crude fibre (14.04-19.52%), carbohydrates (64.56-73.60%), energy (281.92 -73.60 kCal/ 100g), relatively high water absorption capacity (307.18-517.66%), swelling power (433.0-556.92%), oil absorption capacity (83.48-164.38%) and good flowability (Hausner Ratios below 1.4 and Carr's Indices below 23%). The present findings show that APP flour could be used as a potential ingredient in various food products such as pasta, puddings, cakes, biscuits, bread, crackers and doughnuts.

No 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.

No abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of okra pectin as a stabilizer and a texturizer on the quality and consumer acceptability of tigernut milk and fried yam, respectively. Okra pectin concentrations 0% (control), 0.2%, 0.4% and 0.6% were used in the preparation of tigernut milk as well as to pretreat yam slices before deep frying. The viscosity and microbial quality of the tigernut milk samples were evaluated, whilst the moisture content, oil uptake and colour of fried yam were also determined. Consumer acceptability test was conducted on both the tigernut milk and fried yam using 50 semi-trained panelists. The viscosity of the tigernut milk samples which ranged from 4.67 cP to 10.50 cP increased with increasing concentrations of okra pectin. The microbial load of all tigernut milk samples were within the acceptable limits. With the exception of sample appearance, okra pectin also had no significant effect (p > 0.05) on the sensory quality of tigernut milk. On the other hand, okra pectin treatment in the fried yam samples resulted in significantly different moisture (54.33-56.71%), oil uptake/fat content (4.00-5.50%) and colour (L*a*b*) values. Results showed that okra pectin had no significant effect (p > 0.05) on all sensory quality parameters of fried yam samples though 0.2% okra pectin treated yam had the highest mean overall acceptability. The findings suggest that treatment with okra pectin can be exploited to make appreciable impact on the quality and consumer acceptability of fried yam.