Enrichment of fermented cassava meal 'mchuchume' with micronutrient ingredients from soya bean flour and Moringa oleifera leaves powder

BACKGROUND

'Mchuchume' is a ready to eat fermented cassava food used for breakfast, lunch, and/or snack purposes. Its diverse consumption modes attract many studies, including regarding its fortification with inexpensive food materials rich in beneficial nutritional qualities. This study is aimed at investigating the effect of soya bean flour and Moringa oleifera leaves powder on the micronutrient composition of mchuchume.

RESULTS

Enrichment significantly increased iron (0.001 g kg-1 in control to 0.03 g kg-1 in cassava-soya, 0.06 g kg-1 in cassava-moringa and 0.09 g kg-1 in cassava-soya-moringa) and potassium (1.01 g kg-1 in control to 5.14 g kg-1 in cassava-soya, 3.45 g kg-1 in cassava-moringa and 7.43 g kg-1 in cassava-soya-moringa). Compared with the control (0.10 g kg-1 sodium), sodium content either decreased significantly (to 0.09 g kg-1 in cassava-soya) or increased significantly (to 0.37 g k g-1 in cassava-moringa and 0.36 g kg-1 in cassava-soya-moringa). β-Carotene was below the instrument's limit of detection (<0.2 × 10-6  g mL-1 ) in the control and cassava-soya blends but was detected in cassava-moringa (0.01-0.02 g kg-1 ) and cassava-soya-moringa blends (0.01-0.02 g kg-1 ).

CONCLUSION

Mchuchume fortified with both M. oleifera leaves powder and soya bean flour has micronutrients at recommended dietary allowances. The food is recommended for use in management of iron and vitamin A deficiencies, which are endemic not only to inhabitants and refugees of the Kigoma region in Tanzania but also to people in most African countries and other cassava-consuming developing nations. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry.

Comparative study of the banana pulp browning process of 'Giant Dwarf' and FHIA-23 during fruit ripening based on image analysis and the polyphenol oxidase and peroxidase biochemical properties

This work presents a novel method to associate the polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and the peroxidase (POD) activities with the ripening-mediated color changes in banana peel and pulp by computational image analysis. The method was used to follow up the de-greening of peel and browning of homogenized pulp from 'Giant Dwarf' (GD: Musa AAA, subgroup Cavendish) and FHIA-23 (tetraploid hybrid, AAAA) banana cultivars. In both cultivars, the color changes of peel during the ripening process clearly showed four stages, which were used to group the fruit into ripening stages. The PPO and POD were extracted from pulp of fruit at these ripening stages, precipitated, and partially purified by gel filtration chromatography. Moreover, the pulp browning was digitally monitored after homogenization for a span time of up to 120 min. The browning level was higher for GD than FHIA-23 tissues. This fact correlated with an 11.7-fold higher PPO activity in the GD cultivar, as compared with that of FHIA-23. POD activity was 8.1 times higher for GD as compared that that of FHIA-23.

Characterization and Semiquantitative Analysis of Volatile Compounds in Six Varieties of Sugarcane Juice

The volatile composition of six Chinese sugarcane varieties has been analyzed by headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) method coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). A total of 40 volatile compounds were identified by the optimized HS-SPME procedure. It was found that the sugarcane juice from Daheixiong variety contained the highest amount of volatile compounds (108.48 mg/L), followed by Tai 22 (90.13 mg/L), 94128 (87.19 mg/L), Gui 00122 (80.16 mg/L), Yue 00236 (79.43 mg/L) and Taiyou (22.54 mg/L). Ethyl alcohol, limonene, hexanol, (s)-2-heptanol and acetic acid were the most abundant compounds present in sugarcane juice. Interestingly, these compounds were also selected by principal component analysis (PCA) to discriminate the sugarcane juices in terms of their varieties. Overall, the identification of aromatic compounds in sugarcane juice could provide useful information for determining sugarcane varieties and be used as a reference for choosing the suitable sugarcane variety as raw material for producing other product, like rums.