Nutritional, Culinary, and Sensory Characteristics of Noodles Made from Composite Flours of Wheat (Triticum aestivum), African Yam Bean (Sphenostylis stenocarpa), and Jackfruit Seed (Artocarpus heterophyllus)

Noodles are quick–cooking foods that have become popular across the globe due to their convenience, ready-to-cook, fast yielding income, low cost, status symbol, job demands among urban dwellers, sensory appeal, versatility, storageability, satiety, good eating and nutritional qualities. This present study was conducted to determine the nutritional, culinary and sensory properties of noodles produced from wheat, African yam bean and jackfruit seed composite flours. The data generated were subjected to one- wayone-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) using the statistical package for service solution sciences (SPSS, version 23) software. Significant means were separated using Tukey’s test at p<0.05. The flour samples were mixed together in varied proportions (90:5:5, 80:15:5, 70:20:10, 60:25:15 and 50:30:20) and used for the production of noodles, with the noodle produced from 100 % wheat flour as a control. The noodle samples produced were evaluated for proximate, mineral, vitamin, culinary and sensory properties using standard methods. The results of the proximate composition revealed that the moisture content of the noodles ranged from 7.11 to 9.02, fat 5.10 to 6.53, crude protein 11.38 to 24.42, crude fibre 0.87 to 1.93, ash 1.40 to 1.87, carbohydrate 56.25 to 74.15 %, while energy varied from 381.42 to 387.92 kJ/100g. The results showed that the moisture, ash, fat, crude protein and crude fibre contents of the noodles increased significantly (p<0.05) with increased substitution of African yam bean and Jackfruit seed flours. The results of the mineral composition also showed that the calcium content of the noodles ranged from 70.34 to 114.52, magnesium 38.84 to 83.08, phosphorus 61.85 to 126.43, potassium 46.10 to 94.80, iron 7.14 to 8.85 and zinc 3.42 to 5.15 mg/100g. These minerals increased with the increase in the addition of African yam bean and jackfruit seed flours. The niacin, thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin D, ascorbic acid and vitamin A contents of the noodles ranged from 3.24 to 4.92, 3.53 to 5.33, 3.5 to 4.27, 3.10 to 4.16, 1.74 to 2.77 and 2.47 to 4.61 mg/100g, respectively. Results showed that these vitamins also increased with increased substitution of African yam bean and Jackfruit seed flours. The culinary properties of the noodles showed that the cooking time and volume decreased, while the cooking loss and weight increased significantly (p<0.05) with increased substitution of African yam bean and jackfruit seed flours. The sensory properties of the noodles also revealed that the noodles produced from 100 % wheat flour were the most preferred by the panellists and also differed significantly (p<0.05) in taste, colour, aroma and texture from the composite flour noodle samples. In addition, the composite flour noodle samples were also acceptable by the judges because they were equally rated high in all the sensory attributes evaluated in this study. The study, therefore, showed that the use of locally available and novel African yam bean and jack fruit seed flours to complement wheat flour in the production of instant noodles has the potential to increase the nutrient intake of the consumers of the formulated noodle samples.