Effect of processing parameters on the proximate composition and sensory characteristics of breadfruit 'elubo'

Introduction. Breadfruit is an underutilized fruit and its utilization as food can be improved by converting it to indigenous foodstuff like elubo that has an established processing technology. Materials and methods. The breadfruit were washed in clean water to remove adhering latex and dirt, peeled manually and chopped. The chopped breadfruit was parboiled in water at 30, 50 and 60 degrees C for 90, 120 and 150 min. The parboiled breadfruit was steeped for 6, 12 and 18 hrs. The steeped breadfruit was drained, dried in the cabinet dryer at 60 degrees C for 2 days and milled into flour (elubo) while the breadfruit paste (Amala) produced from the breadfruit flour (elubo) was subjected to sensory analysis. Results and discussion. The moisture content of breadfruit elubo varied between 9.07 and 12.20%. The moisture content of a food sample reflects the amount of solid matter in the sample. The high ash content of breadfruit elubo (BE) is an indicative of being a good source of mineral for the flour. The values of the ash content varied between 2.00 and 2.90%. The fibre content of the breadfruit elubo varied between 2.86 to 3.60%. Parboiling temperature, parboiling time and steeping time does not significantly (p>0.05) affects the fibre content of the breadfruit elubo. The protein content of breadfruit elubo varied between 3.80 and 5.42%. The protein content of the breadfruit elubo decrease irrespectively of parboiling temperature, parboiling time and steeping time. The carbohydrate content for the breadfruit elubo varied from 73.67 to 78.33%. High carbohydrate content in food implies the food is a high in calorie. The carbohydrate content of the breadfruit elubo is not significantly (p>0.05) affected by the parboiling temperature, parboiling time and steeping time. The Sensory parameters of breadfruit paste prepared from breadfruit elubo were significantly (p<0.05) different from paste of yam elubo (t-value=2.523, degree of freedom=14, p-value=0.01, one tailed). Conclusion. The result revealed that breadfruit elubo has high fibre and carbohydrate content which implies that breadfruit elubo can serves as high energy food.