Nutrient Composition And Sensory Evaluation Of African Breadfruit (Treculia Africana) Supplemented With Sun-Dried Unripe Plantain Peel

ABSTRACT

Treculia Africana (African breadfruit) is a member of the Moracea family. It is widely grown in southern Nigeria for its seed. It is a common forest tree known by various tribal names in Nigeria. Such names include "afon" (Yoruba), "barafuta' (Hausa), "Ize" (Bini), "eye" (Igala), "edikang" (Eik) and "ukwa" (Igbo) (Iruine, 1961). Treculia Africana is commonly called African bread fruit. It is spongy in texture when ripe and contains numerous seeds like orange. Ripe mature seeds consist an outer covering or seed coat and an inner edible mesocarp similar to the coffee bean mucilage. African bread fruit seed husk is brown in color but the color changes to black due to oxidation after a fermentation period that varies t)etween 6 to 12 days. The fermentation is done to degrade the fruit pulp and seed muci1a3e in other to facilitate the extraction of seeds. The traditional fermentation process as a method of seed extraction and the demucilagination imparts a characteristic offensive odor to the seeds. Beside subsequent cleaning of the seeds after fermentation is slow, dirty and tedious requiring very large volumes of water. African bread fruit is an important food item that contributes earnestly to the diets of Nigerians (Okafor, 1995). Iwe and Ngoddy (2001) reported that the development of a mechanical dehulling process for African bread fruit. However, the seeds need to be extracted from the fruit heads and demucilaginated before it can be dehulled.