Chemical and functional properties of snacks produced from wheat flour fortified with Moringa oleifera leaf powder

Abstract

Healthy snacks are widely accepted and can be part of a daily diet since they can be eaten in different areas such as homes, offices, conferences, workshops, and most especially in schools. Snacks have become an essential commodity in every home for both young and old. There are several reasons why snacks are consumed. It could result from hunger, convenience, cravings, socializing, and emotional comfort. Various individual, societal, and environmental elements influence snacking behaviour. Furthermore, awareness of healthy snacks and self-esteem in selecting the "right" snacks are major predictors of snacking behaviour. Most snack foods are commonly referred to as "junk food" or "empty foods" because they include a large amount of calories from sugar or fat with minimal protein, vitamin, or mineral content. However, despite their role in the daily diet, these snacks are mostly energy dense and low in nutrients. Some research studies have been done on functional snacks, but more is yet to be explored. Moringa oleifera leaf powder (MoLP) has been helpful as a food fortificant in various products. This study has utilized it to fortify two varieties of snacks, namely Magwinya and Chinchin (wheat flour). The chemical and functional properties of these snack food products after fortification with MoLP at 0% (Control), 1% and 5% of the variants were determined. Moringa oleifera leaf powder (MoLP) (1% and 5%) had a significant (p < 0.05) effect on the moisture (4.63 – 3.97%), ash (0.52 -1.09%), protein (11.36 – 13.40%), and total fat of both the dough (0.17 – 0.81%) and fried product (10.17 – 15.39%) of Magwinya samples. Chinchin fortified with MoLP had a significantly (p < 0.05) higher phenolic content (1.08 – 2.17 mg GAE/g), antioxidant activity (13.41 – 53.81 µmol TE/g), protein content (6.27 - 6.74%), oil uptake (1.89 - 7.12%), and ash (0.99 - 1.39%) consistently at 5% MoLP. These results show that these snacks fortified by MoLP can be advantageous to children and adults in Western and Southern Africa. Key words: Moringa oleifera Leaf Powder (MoLP), Wheat flour, Fortification, Chemical, Functional

Physicochemical and Functional Properties of Citrullus mucosospermus, Citroides, and Moringa oleifera Seeds’ Hydrocolloids

“…It is well documented that protein plays an essential role in the emulsifying activities of naturally occurring emulsifiers, such as gum arabic. Proteins emulsify a polysaccharide covalently attached with a glycosidic linkage [36][37][38]. In the case of gum arabic, the covalently attached proteins provide additional functionality to the polysaccharide.…”

Nutritional Profiling of Underutilised Citrullus lanatus mucosospermus Seed Flour

“…The acid-extractable elemental content of the defatted egusi flour was digested at elevated temperature and pressure, and this was performed on a MARS microwave digester using ultra-pure HNO 3 (Cas 101645). The extractant was made up to 50 mL after cooling with distilled water, subsequently identified by ICP-AES and ICP-MS for the selected analytes [19].…”

“…The MSD was operated in a full scan mode, and the source and quad temperatures were kept at 230 • C and 150 • C, respectively. The transfer line temperature was maintained at 280 • C. The mass spectrometer was operated under electron impact mode at an ionisation energy of 70 eV, scanning from 35 to 500 m/z [19].…”