Abstract:
This work was carried out to determine the nutrient composition of soaked/dehulled/fermented rice, soybean and groundnut, and the sensory attributes of their blends. Rice (Oryza sativa); soybean (Glycine max. Merr) and groundnut (Arachis hypogea) were purchased from Nsukka in Enugu State, Nigeria. Local rice was washed, soaked for 3h and sundried and toasted. Soybean was blanched, fermented for 24h and dehulled, sundried and toasted. These foods were separately milled into fine flour. Shelled raw groundnut was blanched, roasted, dehulled and milled to obtain its paste. The treated samples were separately analysed for proximate and mineral composition using standard assay techniques. Blends of these samples were produced to provide 16g Nitrogen (N)/ 1000g cookies. These composites were used to prepare cookies. Wheat flour based cookies served as the control. Data generated were statistically analysed with standard analytical methods to separate mean differences. The proximate values for soybeans and groundnut showed similarity in crude protein (22 vs 23%, respectively) and crude fibre (3.73 vs 3.22%, respectively).They differed widely in fat (19.3 vs 49.8% respectively) and carbohydrate (45.5 vs 19.3% respectively). The rice flour showed the least values in protein and fat but higher value (72.9%) in carbohydrate than soybean and groundnut. In mineral analysis, the values for phosphorus, zinc and copper were comparable in the samples. Soybean and groundnut showed superior values in calcium (65 and 56mg/100g, respectively) to rice (22.4mg/100g). However, rice contain appreciably more iron (7.23mg/100g) than both soybean and groundnut (1.25 and 0.16mg/100g). Sensory evaluation showed that control had better acceptability when compared with the other cookies. However, the test cookies had good acceptability (rice/groundnut – 7.18 and rice/soybean – 6.43). their differences were not significant (P>0.05).
