Nutritional Composition and Organoleptic Properties of Composite Maize Porridge

摘要

Porridge is one of the most popular staple food eaten by many people in some developed countries, most especially African countries. This study was aimed at exploring the potentials of compositing maize with wheat to produce porridge. Composite flours in ratios of 10:90%, 20:80%, 30:70% and 40:60% (maize:wheat) were formulated to produce composite porridge while 100% wheat flour was used as the control sample. The nutritional compositions of the composite flour produced were evaluated. Organoleptic evaluation of the composite porridge produced was also conducted using a 7-point hedonic scale; results obtained were subjected to inferential and descriptive statistics. Results from this study revealed that the protein content of composite flour ranged between 6.14% to 15.10%, with the control sample having the highest protein content 15.10% and composite flour, which contains 40% maize had the lowest protein content of 6.14%. However, the composite flour had a higher percentage of fat, ash, crude fiber, moisture and carbohydrates content than the control sample. Furthermore, organoleptic results showed that there existed no significant difference between the 100% wheat porridge and porridge with 10% and 20% maize flour. Findings from this study established that compositing 10% to 20% maize with wheat flour to produce porridge concealed its nutritional as well as organoleptic qualities, which competed favorably with 100% wheat porridge. Therefore, commercial production of 10% to 20% composite porridge flour can be encouraged globally.