Optimization and Evaluation of Finger Millet-common Bean Flour Blending for Better Nutritional and Sensory Acceptability of Porridge

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the nutritional quality and sensory acceptability of porridge formulated from different proportions of finger millet (F. M.) and common bean (C. B.) composite flours. The objective of the study was to enhance nutritional quality of porridge by incorporating common bean flour in finger millet, and thus to enhance beans utilization in Ethiopia. The art of food formulation is currently the best way to complement the nutritional contents of cereals and legumes, and widely applied in developing countries. Functional properties and proximate compositions of the composite flours were characterized following AOAC method and Abiodun and Kusumayanti methods respectively. Five different porridges were prepared from different proportions of the flours using mixture design (50%F. M: 50%C. B, 62.5%F. M: 37.5%C. B, 100%F. M, 87.5F. M%: 12.5C. B and 75%F. M: 25%C. B), and sensory properties like colour, mouth-feel, aroma taste and overall acceptability of porridges were evaluated using a 5-point Hedonic scales. Proximate compositions result was ranged from 7.90-9.091% (moisture), 10.21-14.486% (protein), 1.52-7.48% (crude fiber), 2.208-3.449% (ash), 65.271-76.38% (carbohydrate) and 330.95-356.610 Kcal/100g (calorie/energy value). The result of functional properties was ranged from 0.725-0.921g/mg, 117.50-155.10g/g, 120.36-145.83g/g, 6.038-14.530% and 65.167-77.33% for bulk density, water absorption capacity, swelling power, water solubility index and despersibility respectively. The composite flours were also found to have mineral contents of (2136.5-3118.1, 2904.5-6926.8, 1822.2-5548.6, 112.57-156.18, 250.1-449.099 and 21.31-24.54) mg/kg for Ca, K, P, S, Fe and Zn respectively. The result of sensory showed that the porridges were evaluated for appearance or colour, aroma, taste, mouth-feel and overall acceptability were found to have 3.57-3.38, 3.29-3.97, 3.12-3.48, 3.49-3.80 and 3.38-4.17 for respective attributes. It was observed that the difference between the treatments (formulations) was not significant (P>0.05) for other sensory attributes except, aroma and overall acceptability of the porridge. However, the nutritional and functional properties of the composite flours showed significant differences among the treatments. In general, it was concluded that 50%FM to 50%CB ratios resulted in the highest protein content of the composite flour whereas the porridge with acceptable quality could be prepared from composite flours of 87.5% F. M and 12.5% C. B.