Nutritional and sensory properties of a maize-based snack food (kokoro) supplemented with treated Distillers’ spent grain (DSG)

Valorisation of brewer's spent grain flour (BSGF) through wheat-maize-BSGF composite flour bread: optimization using D-optimal mixture design

Inclusion of brewer's spent grain flour (BSGF) in food formulations has been reported to have nutritional and health benefits due to the contents like, protein, fibre and phenolic compounds. Bread has been used as common vehicle for functional and nutritive ingredients due to its wide consumption. Several studies attempted to incorporate BSGF flour in baked products. Studies also have reported on the application of maize flour in bread and baked products. However, there is limited information on the possibility of producing bread from composite flour using BSGF with other widely consumed cereals like maize together with wheat flour. The study investigated the optimization of bread recipe made from wheat flour, maize flour and BSGF in order to attain optimal physicochemical and sensory attributes using D-optimal mixture design. A total of 16 runs were formulated using design expert software. The blend proportions of wheat, maize and BSGF had a significant (p < 0.05) influence on bread specific volume, volume and density. Increase in BSGF proportion decreased the specific volume and volume whereas the loaf density increased. The specific volume increased with increase in wheat flour proportion. The combination of high levels of BSGF and maize, however, brought about a slight increase in specific volume compared to combinations of low levels of BSGF and maize flour. The fibre, protein and ash content of bread significantly (p < 0.05) increased with increase in BSGF and maize proportion whereas the effect of maize flour was less pronounced compared to BSGF. The sensory attributes including colour, taste, flavour, texture and overall acceptability were significantly (p < 0.05) reduced with increase in BSGF and maize flour content. Using the optimization criteria where all sensory attributes have to be at least “like slightly” intensity, maximized, specific volume, fiber and protein, that the best results were found between 73 to 87% of wheat, 9–20% maize, and 0–11% BSGF based on graphical optimization. Numerical optimization indicated that best results were using combination of 65% wheat, 20% maize flour, and 15% BSGF with a desirability value of 0.524. According to the results of the study, BSGF can be incorporated up 10% and maize flour up to 20% obtain an acceptable product.

Development of binary models for prediction and optimization of nutritional values of enriched kokoro: a case of response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural network (ANN)

Kokoro as a broadly acknowledge maize snack is being consumed every day by both the children and grown-ups, but it is characterized by the low protein content required for survival. The blending of maize flour (MF), sesame flour (SF) and moringa flour (mF) to enhance the nutritional values of kokoro was optimize with response surface technique (RSM) and artificial neural network (ANN). MF, SF and mF were mixed at diverse proportion and the optimal blending ratio was gotten using D-optimal design method. The protein and carbohydrate actual contents were compared with their predicted values using RSM and ANN models. The performance of the developed RSM and ANN models were validated with coefficient of determination (R2) and mean square error (MSE). The optimal blending ratio of MF: SF: mF was 54.11: 37.06: 8.83. The optimal blending ratio gave 25.53% of protein content and 45.99% of carbohydrate content. The statistical analysis of the experimental data obtained using different statistical techniques shows that regression models by RSM gave R2 of 0.999 for protein yield and 0.983 for carbohydrate yield while ANN gave R2 of 0.999 with MSE 9.24,184 × 10−1. Therefore, it can be concluded from the results that both the RSM and ANN gave good prediction of the model.

Production of crispy bread snacks containing chicken meat and chicken meat powder

Chicken meat in two different forms (chicken meat and chicken meat powder) were added into white flour and whole wheat blend baguette bread formulations for protein enrichment and finally developing new and healthy snacks. The chicken meat and powder levels were 10% for white flour baguette, and 15% for whole wheat blend. The dried baguette samples were packaged under 100% N2, and physical, chemical, microbiological and sensorial properties were evaluated during 3 months of storage. Protein content of chicken meat powder added samples were found statistically higher than chicken meat added samples. Hardness of the snacks was significantly affected from type of chicken meat, such as values were higher for chicken meat added samples than chicken meat powder added samples. Lipid oxidation of the snacks was determined by TBA analysis, and TBA value for whole wheat mixture snack with 15% of chicken meat was the highest among all during storage. The highest overall acceptance score was obtained from white flour snack with 10% chicken meat. There was no coliform bacteria detected during storage and the results of yeast-mold count and aerobic plate count of snacks remained between the quantitative ranges.

Optimization of some processing parameters and quality attributes of fried snacks from blends of wheat flour and brewers' spent cassava flour

The effect of some processing parameters (frying temperature [140-160°C], frying time [2-4 min], level of brewers' spent cassava flour (BSCF) [20-40%], and thickness [2-4 mm]) on some quality attributes of wheat-BSCF fried snack was investigated. Response surface methodology based on Box-Behnken design was used to optimize the effect of process parameters on product quality. Sensory evaluation of the optimized sample to determine its level of acceptability was carried out as well as the comparison with fried snack from 100% wheat flour. Increasing temperature had significant (P < 0.05) negative effect on the texture. Based on the desirability (0.771) concept, a frying temperature of 140 °C, frying time of 4 min, 32% level of BSCF, and 2 mm thickness was obtained as the optimized conditions. Sensory analyses showed that the optimized sample was preferred in terms of texture and its oiliness to fried snack prepared from 100% wheat flour, but, the aroma, taste and appearance of the wheat snack were preferred.