Characteristics of traditional snacks produced from citrullus vulgaris s, glycine max l, arachis hypogea l and sclerotium tuberygii

Project Abstract

<p> Melon snack was produced by the conventional method in which melon and ground yeast was<br>used as the main ingredients, in addition to other ingredients. The proportion of melon and<br>ground yeast were varied while the other ingredients were kept constant so as to determine the<br>best combination that would give a good quality snack. The combination of 70% melon, 8.81%<br>ground yeast and 21.19% other ingredients was used as the control sample, since this<br>combination formed the best dough needed for the production of the best quality snack. Melon<br>was then replaced with 10–70% concentrations of soybean and groundnut to determine their<br>effect on product quality. The snacks were processed with different quantity of processing water<br>(16 – 24ml), packaged with different packaging materials (plantain leaves, polyethylene and<br>aluminium foil) and cooked for different periods of time (1 – 9 hours). Analyses were carried out<br>on the snacks for proximate composition, antinutrient content, sensory properties, hardness and<br>compressive strength, vitamins B1 and B2 and amino acid content. The results showed that<br>snacks obtained from 10–20% and 10–30% substitution of melon with soybean and groundnut,<br>respectively, were of acceptable qualities, with 10% level of substitution having the best<br>acceptability.<br>The results also showed that the best melon snack (65.7g) was processed with<br>20ml of water, packaged with plantain leaves and cooked for 5 hours. Snacks in which melon<br>was substituted with 10% and 20% soybean had moisture content of 50.56% and 52.60%, protein<br>content of 19.01% and 20.00%, fat content of 5.01% and 4.22%, ash content of 5.05% and<br>4.85%, crude fibre content of 2.87% and 2.33% and carbohydrate content of 17.5% and 16.0%,<br>respectively. Snacks in which melon was substituted with 10–70% groundnut had ranges of<br>moisture content from 48.35–50.01%, protein content from 19.27– 21.09%, fat content from<br>8.13–8.81%, ash content from 3.37–4.93%, crude fibre content from 2.62–3.69% and<br>carbohydrate content from 14.10–15.63%. The vitamin B1 content of the snacks decreased as the<br>percentage of substitution with both soybean and groundnut increased. Snacks that contained<br>soybean lost their vitamin B2 while the vitamin B2 content of snacks that contained groundnut<br>increased as the percentage of substitution with groundnut was increased. The hardness and<br>compressive strength values of the snacks increased as the percentage of substitution with<br>soybean increased and decreased as the percentage of the substitution with groundnut increased<br>due to higher content of oil in groundnut. Snacks that contained 10% soybean and 10%<br>groundnut had higher content of amino acids than the control snack. <br></p>

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