pa ge 1 pa ge 1 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) optimization of vacuum marination process, maximizing the flavor infusion of sole fish muhammad umar1*, qasim ali1, muhammad amir1, ram prasad bebartta2 volume 2 issue 1, year 2023 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i1.1229 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: january 21, 2023 accepted: february 08, 2023 published: february 11, 2023 the major problem facing the fish processing industry is reducing the marination process time and increasing the uptake of marinade. previously, a marination bath has been utilized for this purpose with different combinations of acid and salt, which causes physiochemical changes in fish texture. the vacuum marination method seems to be a good way to solve this problem. in this study, the effect of the vacuum marination process was studied on the marination of sole fish. two varieties of fish (fresh and frozen) and three levels of time (10, 20 and 30 minutes) were studied for their effect on marinade uptake. the marinade was used in the ratio of 1.2:10 spices to meat, respectively. fresh samples were weighted, vacuum packed, and stored at 4–7 0c, whereas frozen samples were stored at -20 0c for 24 hours prior to marination and thawed at room temperature. after marination, percentage uptake, retention, and cooking loss of the marinade were calculated. it was concluded from the yield of marinated products that about 80% of marination takes place in the first 10 minutes of the process. after 10–20 minutes, there was no significant difference (p>0.05), and only 1–2% of the marinade was consumed. the frozen samples show significantly (p≤ 0.05) higher yields and marinade uptake. after marination, the samples were stored at 0–4 0c and fried in vegetable oil until the center reached 70 0c. cooking loss for this process was non-significant for both varieties of fish as it depends on the water-holding capacity of the meat, which remains the same for both cases. the use of vacuum marination reduced the marination time significantly from 4-6 hours to 10 minutes, and marinade uptake was improved. this process can be used as an alternative to traditional marination techniques. keywords vacuum-marinator, fish, frozen, cooking loss, marinade uptake 1 department of food engineering university of agriculture, faisalabad 2 department of food, agriculture and bioresources, asian institute of technology, pathum thani, thailand * corresponding author’s e-mail: foodengineer30@gmail.com introduction most of the people in pakistan like to eat fish in its fresh and firm form after frying, grilling, salting and marination. the methods like salting, smoking, and fermenting are not much used for fish products in pakistan. a large quantity of fish is usually consumed in winter season all over pakistan. the products of fish marinades are obtained from different kind of whole fish, through different process like frozen products, salted products and fresh fish. the meat for these products is prepared through different acid and salt concentration to develop a better taste in the products (szymczak et al., 2012). at industrial level, it is important to reduce the marinating time to obtain the same final characteristics of ph, aw, and sensorial attributes. this can be done by increasing either the salt and acid contents of the marinating solution or the marinating solution fish ratio, or by agitation during the marinating process (hewage et al., 2022). thawing after freezing changes both the substance and the moisture of meat tissue. moisture content as a quality trademark in meat can be assessed in a few different ways, including trickle misfortune, defrost misfortune, cooking loss, water restricting limit and aggregate dampness content. in any case, since the techniques used to decide dampness misfortune and changes in meat are not set by a global standard, usually hard to straightforwardly look at and reach inferences from considers in the writing that have utilized diverse strategies for such purposes (sampels, 2015). marination plays a vital role in meat processing at different level of processing as marination helps in decreasing microbial and enzymes load. marination also provides a value addition in fish (jia et al., 2022.). marinated fish fillets are preserved by the concurrent action of natural acids, for example, acetic acidic and salt. the joined additive activity keeps the development of pathogenic microscopic organisms and most deterioration microorganisms. the aims of this research were to determine the effect of subfreezing and thawing conditions on the marination uptake and the salt and acid, immersion time, and sensorial characteristics during the marinating process of sole fish. fresh and frozen samples were investigated for uptake time of marinade within same conditions. material and methods sample and marinade preparation sole fish used with maximum acceptance was procured from local market of faisalabad after sensory evaluation by the team of experts. after washing and cutting the whole fish, its skin was removed for better marination. removed skin helps in up taking maximum marinade, reduce cooking time, good color, and sensory characteristics. after size reduction, the fish pieces were packed in polythene bags for both frozen and fresh samples. fresh samples were weighted and vacuumed packed until the marination starts and kept at 4-7 0c. samples were weighted before freezing and each sample was separately frozen (-20 0c) in vacuumed packaging https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i1.1229 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 1-4, 2023 (leygonie et al., 2012). all samples of fish both fresh and frozen were independently labeled before marination to so that their identification remains same throughout the process of marination. primary ingredients in marinade were salt, chili, phosphate, and water. the concentration of each ingredient in the marinade formulation can vary according to the product desired. the major concern of this study was to investigate the salt uptake that enriches the taste of product and sodium tri poly phosphate which increases the water holding capacity, marinade uptake and retention of marinade. the marinade used in this experiment was 1.2:10 water and meat respectively (nakazawa & okazaki et al., 2020). vacuum marination of samples the reverse process of freezing is called thawing. the process used in this experiment was still air thawing at ambient conditions. the samples were placed on the mesh so that the water released from the meat did not interact with the fish. marinating was performed for period of 10, 20, 30 minutes interval for both fresh and frozen sample at same ambient condition. the process of marination was performed each time at 8 rpm and 5 in hg. after each sample treatment, sample were weighted separately as tagged and the final weight of sample was recorded. analysis and calculations fresh and frozen samples were weighted after marination to find the percentage uptake of each sample % uptake = (final weight(y) – initial weight(x)/ initial weight x) ×100 the samples were stored after marination at 4 0c for 24 hours to calculate the marinade retention marinade retention (%) = (weight after marinationweight after 24 hours/weight after marination) ×100 after 24 hours the marinated fish was cooked until the center of the sample reached to 75 0c cooking loss (%) = ((wt. precook – wt. post cook)/ wt. precook)) ×100 to find the overall efficiency of the process was calculated as final yield yield (%) = (wt. post cook /wt. pre marination) ×100 results effect of fish variety and marination time on the marinade uptake (%) two varieties of fish (v, fresh and frozen) and three levels of time (t, 10, 20 and 30 minutes) were studied for their effect on marinade uptake. the results obtained by the data showed that the effect of t, v and interaction v*t was highly significant. the effect of t on marinade uptake was significant showing that in first 10 minutes table 1: effect of variety and marination time on the percentage marinade uptake marinade uptake source df ss mean square f value pr > f v 1 17.7488 17.748 112.37 0.0001** t 2 1.723 0.867 5.45 0.0207* v*t 2 37.369 18.687 118.29 0.0001** error 14 11.2619 0.8044 corrected total 17 51.8992 table 2: comparison of means of marinade uptake (%) under the effect of fish variety and time marinade uptake varity t (mean) 1 2 3 1 83.300±1.538 90.367±1.057 84.900±0.700 2 92.567±1.257 86.123±0.646 90.150±0.489 marinade uptake is maximum later, it is in very small amount (< 5%mu). effect of fish variety and marination time on marinade retention two varieties of fish (v, fresh and frozen) and three levels of time (t, 10, 20 and 30 minutes) were studied for their effect on marinade retention. the results obtained table 3: effect of v and t on marinade retention (%) marinade retention source df ss mean square f value pr > f v 1 52.776 52.779 65.81 0.0001** t 2 1.565 0.787 0.98 0.4050ns v*t 2 144.388 72.197 90.04 0.0001** https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 1-4, 2023 error 14 12.00 0.8571 corrected total 17 12.00 table 4: comparison of means (%) of marinade retention under the effect of interaction v and t marinade retention varity t 1 2 3 1 1.487±0.078 5.370±0.607 2.716±0.088 2 6.013±0.676 3.326±0.138 6.185±0.318 by the data showed that the effects of v and interaction v*t were highly significant. the effect of t on marinade retention was non-significant. effect of variety and time on the percentage yield of process two varieties of fish (v, fresh and frozen) and three levels of time (t, 10, 20 and 30 minutes) were studied for their effect on marinade yield. the results obtained by the data showed that the effect of v and t was nonsignificant. the effect of v*t on marinade yield was highly significant. table 5: effect of fish variety and time on the overall yield (%) of the process yield source df ss mean square f value pr > f v 1 0.379 0.3189 0.67 0.427ns t 2 1.563 0.787 1.66 0.239 ns v*t 2 22.275 11.117 23.60 0.0001** error 14 18.6211 1.3300 corrected total 17 20.16 table 6: comparison of mean percentage yield under the interactions of v and t yield varity t 1 2 3 1 95.167±0.919 93.200±0.487 94.867±0.377 2 93.267±0.997 96.077±0.389 93.033±0.836 effect of fish variety and marination time on the cooking loss the results obtained by the data showed that the effects of v and interaction v*t were highly significant. the effect of t on cooking loss was also highly significant showing that in first 10 minutes marinade uptake is maximum. table 7: effect of fish variety and time on the cooking loss (%) cooking loss source df ss mean square f value pr > f v 1 0.749 0.749 18.28 0.001** t 2 1.658 0.829 20.40 0.0001** v*t 2 15.428 7.729 190.43 0.0001** error 14 4.4657 0.3189 corrected total 17 7.099 table 8: comparison of mean percentage of cooking loss under the effect of variety and time cooking loss varity t 1 2 3 1 10.467±0.157 11.567±0.152 9.277±0.173 2 11.657±0.123 9.417±0.325 11.453±0.259 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 1-4, 2023 discussion it was concluded that about 80% of marination take place in first 10 minutes of marination at the condition that were provided in this experiment. time plays an important role in explain the uptake of marinade. time from 10-20 minutes plays very minute role in up taking time of marinade. as this experiment were conducted to minimize the process optimization of meat marination while considering next ten minutes are not beneficial for 1-2 % of marination process. rather than increasing time experiment should be conducted on marination ratio or vacuum control as this experiment were taken out at 5 inches of hg (moadab et al., 2018). increasing rpm during vacuum marination above 8 results in damaging the meat fillets as during these experiments 2 fillets were broken. the stirrer design was also very important meat can stick and marination of these samples were seems stopped about one and other which result in reduced uptake. agitation can increase the temperature of process temperature that can directly affect the marinade retention of meat. it was concluded increasing temperature above certain range resulted in decrease of marinade retention and meat started releasing the marinade. after marination of meat samples meat store at 0-4 0c retained the maximum marinade. cooking loss were seeming not different from each other as cooking loss depend upon the water holding capacity of the meat in both cases the thawing losses were same. the above result concluded that using vacuum marination reduced the time marination but after freezing and thawing the process time decreased significantly (jia et al., 2022b). the parameter of vacuum marinade ratio rpm and time plays a significant role. according to this study marinade uptake were improved in the marinating solution, the water contents were decreased after thawing and the average thawing loss during all these experiments were remain 2.22% and while comparing with the fresh sample these thawing loss help to gain more marinade uptake during vacuumed marination process and the texture and water content of the sole fillet were reliant on the levels of salt and acid that the fish tissue takes. conclusion the results reduced the time of marination to only 10 minutes as compared to traditional 3 hour with increased tenderness better and enriched taste. the core purpose of marination is to absorb the flavors of the marinade for the food like meat, to tenderize it. polyphosphates changes the microstructure of the meat by solubilizing salt soluble proteins. in addition, polyphosphates improve tenderness of chicken breast, reduce cooking and frying losses. the frozen samples showed significant improvement in marinade uptake and its retention due to broken structure of cell during freezing and thawing which helped the meat to gain more marinade. the vacuum marination process seems to be a future promising approach which can reduce the time of marination as well as provide the good quality meat due to no use of chemicals and additives to enhance the uptake and retention. references jia, h., roy, k., pan, j., & mraz, j. (2022). icy affairs: understanding recent advancements in the freezing and frozen storage of fish. in comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety, 21(2), 1383–1408. https:// doi.org/10.1111/1541-4337.12883 jia, h., roy, k., pan, j., & mraz, j. (2022). icy affairs: understanding recent advancements in the freezing and frozen storage of fish. comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety, 21(2), 1383–1408. https:// doi.org/10.1111/1541-4337.12883 koggala hewage, a. p. k., mutucumarana, r. k., & andrew, m. s. (2022). effect of marination method, holding temperature and time on physicochemical parameters, sensory attributes and microbial quality of broiler chicken breast meat. tropical agricultural research, 33(2), 151. https://doi.org/10.4038/tar. v33i2.8472 leygonie, c., britz, t. j., & hoffman, l. c. (2012). impact of freezing and thawing on the quality of meat: review. in meat science 91(2), 93–98. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.meatsci.2012.01.013 moadab n.h, hamdami n, isfahan m.d, & farahnaky a. (2018). effects of radiofrequency-assisted freezing on microstructure and quality of rainbow trout (oncorhynchus mykiss) fillet. innovative food science and emerging technologies, 41, 81–87. nakazawa, n., & okazaki, e. (2020). recent research on factors influencing the quality of frozen seafood. in fisheries science 86(2), 231–244. https://doi. org/10.1007/s12562-020-01402-8 sampels, s. (2015). the effects of storage and preservation technologies on the quality of fish products: a review. journal of food processing and preservation, 39(6), 1206–1215. https://doi.org/10.1111/jfpp.12337 szymczak, m., kolakowski, e., & felisiak, k. (2012). influence of salt concentration on properties of marinated meat from fresh and frozen herring (clupea harengus l.). international journal of food science and technology, 47(2), 282–289. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1365-2621.2011.02837.x https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 1 pa ge 21 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) adaptation and performance evaluation closed drum type carbonizer for waste biomass getachew hailu1* volume 2 issue 1, year 2023 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i1.1508 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: march 25, 2023 accepted: april 11, 2023 published: june 14, 2023 a nation’s development is frequently driven by its energy industry. it is alarming that firewood is still frequently utilized as the main source of energy for cooking in many nations, especially those that see a decline in forest cover. for the carbonization of biomass waste, a drum-type carbonizer adaptation was created. the potential for obtaining a biomass carbonization process is the subject of this research. various agricultural waste products (such as sawdust, coffee husks, peanut shells, and millet stalks) have been heated up in a device called a carbonizer. these two residues’ biomass carbonization yields were calculated and found to be 37.5% and 60.98%, respectively, for sawdust and coffee husk. keywords carbonization, waste biomass, coffee busk, sawdust, temperature 1 oromia agricultural research institute, p.o. box 06, assela agricultural engineering research center, oromia, ethiopia * corresponding author’s e-mail: hailufg94@gmail.com introduction for forestry enterprises, the development of bioenergy offers a singular chance to expand their steady revenue streams. by converting ores into metals through a process called carbonization, people were able to create charcoal, the first biofuel that helped them escape the stone age (basu, p.,2006). charcoal is utilized as a premium solid fuel worldwide for domestic cooking, metal refining, and chemical manufacture. additionally, the market is well defined, the technology is well known but still presents opportunities for advancements (in terms of efficiency, costs, and environmental impacts), the technology does not present a significant risk, the investment is well suited for small farmers, and the process and technology provide a great opportunity for the development of small-scale and local supply chains. making charcoal offers favorable preconditions for effective biomass-based systems in the forestry industry [basu, p. 2006, reithmuller, g., and collins, m., 2009). by converting ores into metals through a process called carbonization, people were able to create charcoal, the first biofuel that helped them escape the stone age. in addition to being utilized as a premium solid fuel for domestic cooking, metal refining, and chemical manufacturing, charcoal has evolved with industrialization to become the most valuable reducing agent for the metallurgic industry (borines et al., 2011). small-scale farmers, common in southern europe countries, are typically not set up to deal with problems like grid connection and authorizations, emission regulation and compliance, administration, and operation of biomass power generation systems, etc. additionally, due to their frequently limited financial resources, most of them find it difficult to invest in bioenergy plants or offer financial guarantees in order to obtain a loan, which poses a major obstacle to the widespread adoption of these systems. last but not least, the only way that bioenergy production can be financially viable is if the state or the region provides financial incentives. this fact breeds uncertainty among investors and increases the risk of financing because any change in the regulatory environment could have a negative impact on the entire enterprise. investments in stationary decentralized biomass-based systems face this pertinent challenge. the current study in this context concentrated on charcoal production as a potential substitute for biopower generation for forestry farms (borines et al., 2011a, borines et al., 2011b). there are numerous kinds of carbonization equipment that have been created, but the majority of them were made for large capacities, and some of them also had poor performance. particularly portable metal kilns or carbonization, which is more efficient, environmentally friendly, and can be used to feed various types of biomasses or agricultural refuse (rather than just one type of biomass exclusively). a portable venture drum-type kiln with a maximum capacity of 12.45 kg of coconut shells has been developed to enhance kiln performance (virgilio et al., 2015, nakorn et al., 2018). with the heat generated during combustion available as an additional source of energy to partly replace the currently used kerosene and firewood, the carbonizer allows waste heat extraction using exchangers or micro boilers. while population growth and current practices (such as using kerosene and firewood from unmanaged forests) are the main causes of illegal deforestation, this additional energy source from using agricultural waste in carbonizer can play a critical role in protecting the forests in rural areas. by reducing the need for firewood and preventing deforestation, the adaptation of carbonizer can increase https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i1.1508 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst mailto:hailufg94@gmail.com pa ge 22 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 21-25, 2023 carbon sequestration. using biochar for fertilizer further reduces net emissions in the area by storing carbon in the soil (virgilio et al, 2015, gutu birhanu and duresa tesfaye, 2021).the current utilization strategy of burning agricultural byproducts to recover heat is considered inefficient and bad due to the low heating value and issue with air emissions. agricultural residues are typically made of low-density materials and have poor heating values. apart from these, their combustion cannot be readily maintained or controlled effectively for the intended use. therefore, turning it into a more valuable energy supply is a recurring problem. materials and methods materials the materials used in the test included stopwatch, spring balance, sack, waste biomass of sawdust and coffee husk, anemometer, thermometer, digital moisture, hygrometer, infrared thermometer, and digital multi-meter. assessment of existing carbonizer after different carbonizer were gathered from various locations and fully analyzed regarding their technical and financial limitations. the following carbonizer designs and kinds were evaluated in order to choose the best figure 1: a) baecr corncob-type carbonizer, b) jaerc closed drum-type carbonizer carbonizer for waste sawdust and coffee husks: pyrolysis of wood jaerc’s drum-style carbonizer and baecr’s corncob-style carbonizer. manufacturing of carbonizer based on a prepared design standard, the residual carbonizer for waste biomass was manufactured first. the part was improved, and the process proceeded as follows. as a result, a 620 mm diameter drum body was made from sheet metal that was pressed to a thickness of 1.5 mm. the exhaust chimney and coal tar box were made from sheet metal and assembled individually. the carbonizer is a cylindrically shaped reactor that was created to provide efficient carbonization in an atmosphere with little oxygen. it was constructed using the aforementioned materials, with a drum that was 620 mm in circumference and 2100 mm tall. the upper opening of the drum was covered by a suitable metal plate, which was used to fire feedstocks. finally, the entire unit was put together to create the full waste biomass carbonization apparatus and was ready for experimental testing. only 42 kg of raw waste biomass per lot could fit in the waste biomass carbonizing drum. biomass preparation we gathered the necessary raw coffee husk and sawdust from our center, which is considered to waste, from the fields of private investors and well-known farmers. the collected feedstocks were sorted out to guarantee a successful carbonization process and placed over the sun to reduce the moisture content of waste biomass. to provide more surfaces or contact areas for the carbonization activity, sawdust residues, in particular, were classified based on their different sizes. performance evaluation of the carbonizer whether a system is used for conversion or transportation, its efficiency determines how well it can carry out its duties. additionally, it contrasts a system’s real performance with the best or most ideal performance it is capable of. calculating combustion helps determine how effective a carbonization procedure is. before and after the procedure, various parameters were collected. the values of these parameters were then used to measure the performance of the carbonizer. some parameters that will be obtained or measured before and after the operation are moisture content, the material’s initial weight, the charcoal recovered, and weight of the container. other values, like the weight of the volatile matter, will be obtained from computations. these data are needed in order to compute the actual and maximum recovery of the system. percent actual recovery, ractual represents the actual weight of charcoal produced over the initial weight of the sample expressed in percentage, while percent maximum recovery, rmax shows the maximum weight of carbonized that can be recovered over the initial weight of the sample expressed in percentage. the weight of fixed carbon and https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 23 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 21-25, 2023 ash present in the sample, which can be calculated by deducting the weight of water and volatile matter from the original weight of the sample, together make up the maximum weight of carbonized material that can be recovered (virgilio et al., 2015). eqs (1), (2), and (3) show the equations for actual recovery, maximum recovery, and efficiency, respectively. ractual= (wcarbonized/winitial ) × 100% (1 ) where: ractual is the actual recovery of the system (%), wcarbonized is the weight of charcoal recovered (kg) and winitial is the initial weight of samples (kg) rmaximum= ((winitial-wm-wvm ))/winitial 100% (2 ) where: rmax is the maximum recovery of the system (%), winitial is the initial weight of wet samples (kg), wvm is the weight of the volatile matter (kg) and wm is the weight of water in the sample (kg) esystem= (ractual/rmax) * 1000 (3) where: esystem is the system efficiency (%), ractual is the actual recovery of the system (%) and rmax is the maximum recovery of the system (% according to schenkel (2006), the mass yield was calculated by the ratio of the mass of carbonized product to the mass of the raw product initially introduced. where: wt = total weight of material loaded into the carbonizer and t= total time of operation total time of operation this spans the period from when the carbonizer was first fired up until it was completely emptied of carbonized substance. the following practical tasks are included in this, and their time requirements are also tracked separately: (a) loading/reloading of hopper, (b) collecting the charcoal, and (c) agitating/stirring the hopper contents. temperature the temperatures of the ignition compartment would be measured using thermocouple probes and a multithermometer data recorder with thermocouple wires. the tips of the probes, which were placed at the top and bottom of the ignition chamber, were roughly at where: cy: mass yield (%) mc: mass of carbonized product (kg) and mb: mass of raw product (kg) carbonizer capacity the amount of material that was carbonized by the prototype carbonizer per unit time (ricardo f. orge, 2012), is computed as follows, figure 2: carbonizer prototype during performance testing the chamber’s longitudinal line. at ten-minute intervals, temperatures were measured at each location, and the data were recorded. results and discussion carbonizer selection based on an evaluation of the various carbonizer designs already in existence, the best design of carbonizer for the carbonization of refuse sawdust and coffee husk was chosen. the carburizer’s ability to contain and manage sawdust and coffee husk during operation, as well as the expense of fabrication, was the primary design consideration. the baerc-type corncob carbonizer, which uses biomass pyrolysis, was not chosen because it can only be used for raw materials with large particulate sizes. this was considered because the jaerc drum-type carbonizer can handle refuse materials the size of sawdust and coffee husks. the jaerc drum-type carbonizer was adjusted as a result. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 24 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 21-25, 2023 performance testing of the drum-type carbonizer the primary components of biomass materials were thermally degraded once a pyrolysis gas flame was created by heat transfer from the central tube burner, which raised the reactor chamber temperature to a high of 250–400 o c (nakorn et al., 2018). the charring procedure was seen to be finished in two to three hours. the range of charcoal yields for sawdust and coffee husk, respectively, was determined to be 36.137.5 and 58.07-60.98% by dry weight. (table1). we can determine the bulk yields using the information from sawdust and coffee husk carbonization. (table 1 and table 2). (cocosnucifera) wastes yielded the highest test for 8 openings in the drumtype carbonizer for young coconut quantity of charcoal, 8.15 kg, or 33.13% actual charcoal recovery (virgilio et al., 2015). the efficiency of a corn cob carbonizer table 1: carbonization of the two residues of sawdust and coffee husk of 100% loaded wastes of biomass time of treatment (min) mass of biomass (kg) mass of char (kg) loss in other forms (kg) mass yield (%) carbonizer capacity sawdust 130 32 12 20 37.5 15kg/hr coffee husk 180 41 25 16 60.98 14kg/hr measured on a volume basis was 86.36%, and one batch charring took 90 to 110 minutes for better carbonization as opposed to 3 to 4 hours for the former (gutu birhanu, duresa tesfaye, 2021). temperature variation inside the carbonizer the yield of charcoal produced, the characteristics of the charcoal produced, and the reactor temperature profile have all been used to describe the performance of the carbonizer system. the graph below illustrates how the sawdust and coffee husk temperature profiles changed inside the carbonization container. we have also made an effort to monitor the homogeneity of the temperature in the carbonizer during carbonization. for this, the temperature inside the carbonizer is measured using a computerized multi-meter every ten minutes. examples of temperature fluctuation during the carbonization of sawdust and coffee husk are shown in the figure below. these graphs demonstrate that during the carbonization procedure, the temperature inside the carbonizer is not uniform.because the carbonization is accompanied by partial combustion processes. it is observed that there is a loss of matter at the beginning of the carbonization of the charred matter), the temperature variability can affect the mass yield. we also observed that for 130 minutes, sawdust is carbonized at a high temperature (roughly 445 °c), before cooling to temps below 209 °c. in a carbonizer, the temperature inside a corn cob quickly reached 200 °c, and heat transmission from the surrounding flue gas significantly raised that temperature to about 400°c, where the majority of the biomass residues were thermally degraded (nakorn et al., 2018). the major components of the cassava rhizome were thermally decomposed at temperatures between 250 and 300°c once a stable flame table 2: carbonization of the two residues of sawdust and coffee husk of 75% loaded wastes of biomass time of treatment (min) mass of biomass (kg) mass of char (kg) loss in other forms (kg) mass yield (%) carbonizer capacity sawdust 100 24 9 15 37.5 14.4kg/hr coffee husk 160 31 18 13 58.07 11kg/hr figure 3: a) sawdust temperature distribution around pyrolysis chamber https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 25 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 21-25, 2023 from the pyrolysis gas was realized (nakorn et al., 2017). where bp is bottom of pyrolysis chamber, mp is middle of pyrolysis chamber and tp is top of pyrolysis chamber. conclusion the efficacy of the sawdust and coffee husk pyrolysising carbonizer was measured by the reaction temperatures reached, the total processing time, and the yields of carbonized material. reactor temperature profile, charcoal yield, and charcoal quality all affected how well the carbonizer device worked. because partial combustion occurs alongside carbonization, which is why there is a loss of matter at the outset of the carbonization of the charred matter, temperature variability had an impact on the mass yield. less educated rural and per urban populations will benefit from this design and process because it will enable them to create smallor medium-sized businesses with minimal resources and training. additionally, it will benefit rural women who rely on inexpensive fuel sources, such as charcoal made from trees, to cook and who apply regular manure to farms to increase crop yields. other than coffee husk and sawdust, other waste biomass and agricultural residues can also be carbonized using this technique. for farming residue and waste biomass to be used effectively, ultimate and proximate analyses of that biomass must be conducted. reference basu, p. (2006). combustion and gasification in fluidized beds.(1st edition), crc press, https://doi. org/10.1201/9781420005158 borines, m. g., de leon, r. l., and mchenry, m. p. (2011a). bioethanol production from farming nonfood macroalgae in pacific island nations chemical constituents, bioethanol yields, and prospective species in the philippines. murdoch research repository, 15(9), 4432-4435. borines, m. g.; mchenry, m. p., and de leon, r. l. (2011b).integrated macroalgae production for sustainable bioethanol, aquaculture and agriculture in pacific island nations. murdoch research repository 5(6), 599-608. gutu birhanu oli, duresa tesfaye muleta, (2021) .fabrication and performance evaluation of improved corn cob residual carbonizer to produce bio-charr for energy. ijsrms, 7(5), 27-33 nakorn t., prasert r., pruk a., adisak p. (2018). characterization of biochar from pyrolysis of corn residues in a semi-continuous carbonize, crt, 70. https://doi.org/10.3303/cet1870232 nakorn t., prasert r., pruk a., adisak p. (2017). biochar production from cassava rhizome in a semicontinuous carbonization system. energy procedia, 141. 109–113. reithmuller, g., and collins, m. (2009). biochar application to soil, for environmental management,(1st edition) routledge, 207-226. virgilio s. morale, jessie c. elauria and marilyn m. elauria (2015) carbonization of young coconut (cocosnucifera) wastes. j. jpn. inst. energy, 94(10). figure 3: b) coffee husk temperature distribution around pyrolysis chamber https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 1 pa ge 16 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) phytochemical analysis on aqueous leaf extract of justicia carnea (acanthaceae) and its antibacterial activity on some isolated bacterial o. imohiosen1* volume 2 issue 1, year 2023 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i1.1564 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: april 13, 2023 accepted: may 02, 2023 published: may 07, 2023 the present study was aimed to investigate the bioactive constituents and antibacterial efficacy of justicia carnea leaf aqueous extracts on some pathogenic organisms involved in causing infections in humans. the antimicrobial and medicinal properties was examined through phytochemical screening of the plants constituents using standard qualitative methods and conducting bioassay on target bacteria of medical importance such as escherichia coli, salmonella typhi, staphylococcus aureus, klebsiella pneumonia and pseudomonas aeruginosa using the agar well diffusion method. the screening revealed that tannins, saponins and alkaloids is highly detected followed by flavonoids that is moderately detected whereas phlobatannins, phenol and volatile oils are present in low amount. the result shows that the leaf extract was active against s. aureus, k. pneumonia, s. typhi, e. coli and p. aeruginosa measuring clear zones of inhibition 26.0mm, 22.0mm, 20.0mm, 18.0mm and 18.0mm respectively. hence, the extracts exhibit strong antibacterial activity and could be used as a preventive and curative measures to common diseases related to the test organisms. keywords analysis, antimicrobial, j. carnea, medicinal properties, phytochemical. 1 department of science laboratory technology, federal polytechnic bali, taraba state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: ojeaga2003@yahoo.com introduction the use of traditional medicine for healing purposes and to treat infections has been practiced since the origin of mankind. it is getting ever more popular in africa including nigeria and has been part of african culture in the recent years (okonkwo, 2012). serious clinical problems in the treatment of infectious diseases has been created, since microorganisms have developed resistance to many antibiotics. thus, plethora of studies has emerged towards using natural products as an alternative therapy (kumari, et al., 2010). medicinal plants have been the oldest traditional medicine considered important in treating several human ailments, including bacterial infections (shyamapada & manisha, 2011). justicia carnea plant the genus justicia, named after the 18th-century scottish botanist james justice, belongs to the large family of acanthaceae consisting of about 600 species of herbs and shrubs native to the tropics and subtropics. j. carnea is a flowering plant, widely distributed in various parts of africa. in nigeria, the shrubs of j. carnea are grown around homesteads and act as fences, which are easy to grow and propagate from stem cuttings by pushing the stems 1 to 2 inches into the soil (corrêa & alcântara,2012). figure 1: picture of justicia carnea source: fieldwork 2023. taxonomy/classification of justicia carnea kingdom plantae phylum tracheophyta class magnoliopsida oder lamiales family acanthaceae genus justicia l. species justicia carnea lindl. binomial name justicia carnea(gbif secretariat, 2021; usda plants, 2007-2010). chemical composition of aqueous leaf extract of justicia carnea some of the phytochemicals investigated in the leaves include phenols, terpenoids, tannins, alkaloids, carbohydrates, flavonoids, saponins, phenols, reduced sugar and glycosides using standard procedures (harborne,1998). also present in the aqueous leaf extract are vitamin a, b1, b12, b6, b9, b2, c and e containing the highest concentration of vitamin c, and high concentration of iron and calcium while magnesium, zinc and copper were present in low concentrations (orjiakor et al., 2019). hence, the aqueous leaf extract of justicia carnea contains pharmacologically useful active principles elements. thus https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i1.1564 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst mailto:ojeaga2003@yahoo.com pa ge 17 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 16-20, 2023 the aqueous leaf extract of the plant could play vital roles in health and disease. importance and uses of justicia carnea several species of justicia is one of the many medicinal plants used in nigeria and it has numerous ethno botanical uses. traditionally, justicia carnea is used in the management of inflammation, gastrointestinal disorders, respiratory tract infection, fever, pain, diabetes, diarrhea, liver diseases, rheumatism and arthritis (badami et al., 2003; corrêa & alcântara, 2012). they also possess antiinflammatory, anti-allergic, anti-tumoral, anti-viral and analgesic activities (radhika et al., 2013). justicia carnea is a medicinal plant that is used conventionally as blood tonic from time immemorial in nigeria. the resultant liquid after boiling is usually crimson red. local consumers of the leaves are mostly anaemic patients, women who want their blood replenished after the menstrual cycle and pregnant women. it is generally considered as an ornamental plant and it is widely distributed in various parts of africa. in nigeria, it is grown around homesteads and acts as fences (olufunke, 2021). literature review the preliminary phytochemical analysis of aqueous leaf extract of j. carnea revealed that terpenoids, tannins, alkaloids, carbohydrates, flavonoids, saponins, phenols, reduced sugar and glycosides. phenols and flavonoids were found in high concentrations which could be responsible for the anticancer and antioxidant activities exhibited by the plant (orjiakor, uroko, njoku & ezeanyika, 2019). the presence of terpenoids and carbohydrates in the aqueous leaf extract of the plant was against the findings of anigboro, avwioroko, ohwokevwo, pessu & tonukari (2019), who reported their absence in aqueous leaf extract of the same plant. similarly, onyeabo, achi, ekeleme-egedigwe, ebere & okoro (2017) in their work also reported that phenols, alkaloids, tannins, flavonoids, terpenoids, saponins and steroids were present in the ethanol leaf extract of j. carnea, with high percentage of terpenoids, alkaloids and saponins. according to igbinaduwa, kabari & chikwue (2019) alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, phenols and saponins were present in the methanol leaf extract of j. carnea. in another research, flavonoids, alkaloids, phenols, tannins, carbohydrates, glycosides, gum, protein, fixed oils and fat were reported to be present in methanol leaf extract of j. carnea. while alkaloids, fixed oils were absent in the root extract of j. carnea, sterols, gum was reported in both stem and root extracts (sini, prashy & george, 2018). the absence of saponins in the methanol leaf extract of j. carnea was against the report of igbinaduwa et. al. (2019) who in their work reported the presence of saponins. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in federal polytechnic bali, bali local government area (lga) of taraba state, nigeria (see fig.2). the local government area lies between latitude 7046 n and 7054 n of the equator and longitude 10 030 e and 110 00 e of the prime meridian (topographic sheet, 1968). this falls within the dry guinea savannah with an estimated land area of 11,540 km2. it has some mountains like gazabu, dakka, maihula, bagoni, among others. based on the 2006 national population census, bali had a population of about 211,024 persons (npc, 2006). figure 2: map of bali local government area showing the study area source: bureau for land and survey jalingo, taraba state. materials thermostated water bath, electronic balance (model: 3003h), hot plate (model: orl 2080), oven (thermcool), desiccators, cotton wool, filter paper, pestle and mortar, glass wares (volumetric/conical flask, beakers, funnel), justicia carnea leaves reagents/ chemicals methanol, diethyl ether, ammonia solution, mayer’s regent, wagner’s regent, iron (iii) chloride, hydrochloric acid, ethanol, acetic acid, tetraoxosulphate (vi) (h2so4) acid, sodium hydroxide (naoh) preparation of laboratory reagents for phytochemical analysis wagner’s reagent 2g iodine crystals and of 3g potassium of iodide were dissolved in 100cm3 of distilled water and properly stirred to homogenize into a solution. ferric chloride solution 5g of ferric chloride (iron iii chloride) was dissolved in 50cm3 of distilled water to form a homogenous solution of ferric chloride. dilute solution of hydrochloric acid 2cm3 of hydrochloric acid was measured out using https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 18 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 16-20, 2023 measuring cylinder and poured into a 250cm3 beaker containing distilled water and stirred to form a homogenous dilute solution of hcl. collection and identification of justicia carnea leaves fresh samples of the leaves of justicia carnea were collected in the month of march, 2023 from daniya house residence, bali, taraba state, nigeria. the plants was identified using pertinent taxonomic literature (gbif secretariat, 2021; usda plants, 2007-2010). the plant sample (leaves) were dried on the laboratory table of science laboratory technology department, federal polytechnic bali, after drying at room temperature the plant was then milled using pestle and mortar and the powder obtained were used for extraction. aqueous extraction preparation of justicia carnea leaves 100 gm of fine powdered sample of justicia carnea was weighed and mixed with 500 ml of distilled water in a round bottom flask. a reflux condenser was attached to the flask and inserted with a heating mantle. the mixture was reflux for one hour and filtered with watman filter paper no. 1. the reflux was done twice again using new distilled water at each stage. the filtrate was heated to dryness by evaporation. part of the dry filtrate (extract) was used for phytochemical and antimicrobial screening. procedures for phytochemical analysis the phytochemical screening of the plants constituents were assessed by using qualitative methods described by trease and evans, 2009. alkaloid test equal volumes of the solvent extract (5cm3) and the wagner’s reagent clean test tube and observed for some minutes. the presence of alkaloid was indicated by a brown precipitate. phenol 2ml of extract was added to 2ml of ferric chloride solution (fecl3), a deep bluish green solution is formed with presence of phenols. phlobatannins 1cm3 of hydrochloride acid and 1cm3 of solvent extract were placed into a clean test tube and the tube was heated for about 10 minutes. reddish green coloration indicates the presence of phlobatannins. flavonoids 5cm3 of the solvent extracts was placed into a test tube and few pieces of magnesium chips were added, followed by concentrated hydrochloric acid in drops and then in excess. reddish colouration indicates the presence of flavonoids. saponins (froth test) 1g of the sample was weighed into a conical flask in 10ml of sterile distilled water was added and boiled for 5 min. the mixture was filtered and 2.5ml of the filtrate was added to 10ml of sterile distilled water in a test tube. the test tube was stopped and shaken vigorously for about 30 second. it was then allowed to stand for half an hour. honeycomb froth indicated the presence of saponins. volatile oils 2.0 ml of extract solution was shaken with 0.1 ml dilute sodium hydroxide and a small quantity of dilute hcl. a white precipitate was formed with volatile oils. tannin 3g of the powdered sample was boiled in 50 ml distilled water for 3 minutes on a hot plate. the mixture was filtered and a portion of the filtrate diluted with sterile distilled water in a ratio of 1:4 and 3 drop of 10% ferric chloride solution added. a blue or green colour indicates the presence of tannins. microorganisms the microorganisms used are known to be potentially pathogenic to humans. they include escherichia coli, salmonella spp., staphylococcus aureus, klebsiella spp. and pseudomonas aeruginosa. all the organisms’ strains were obtained as clinical isolates from sancta maria clinic, bali, taraba state and optimum laboratory, jimeta-yola, adamawa state, nigeria. antimicrobial susceptibility testing the antibacterial activity of justicia carnea leaf aqueous extracts (100mg/ml) in vitro on the isolates was determined by the ager well diffusion method as described by (olakunle et al., 2013 : osho & bello, 2010). this was done using pour plate method in which small colonies from each clinical isolates of the test organisms were made into suspension with 1ml of sterile distilled water in test tubes. 0.1ml of each suspension was dispensed into sterile petri dishes after which melted and sterilized nutrient agar maintained at 450c was poured (15 aliquot) into the respective plates. the plates were allowed to set, four equidistant wells of 6mm in diameter were punched in each plate using a sterile cork borer. 0.2ml of extract was introduced into each of the wells,. a well filled with sterile water served as control and the plates were allowed to stay for15 minutes for pre-diffusion to take place followed by incubation for 24-48 hrs at 370c . the zones of inhibition were measured with the use of a metric rule and were recorded in millimeters. results and discussion table 1 revealed the presence of some chemical/bioactive components in aqueous leaf extract of justicia carnea. tannins, saponins and alkaloids were highly detected followed by flavonoids that is moderately detected https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 16-20, 2023 table 1: the result of chemical components of aqueous leaf extract of justicia carnea phytochemicals test aqueous extract alkaloids wagner’s +++ tannins ferric chloride +++ phlobatannins hydrochloric acid + phenol ferric chloride + flavonoids magnesium chips ++ saponins frothing +++ volatile oils sodium hydroxide + +++= highly detected, ++= moderately detected, += lowly detected -= not detected table 2: antibacterial activity of aqueous leaf extract of justicia carnea against some bacteria isolates organisms (bacteria) dose (ml) zone of inhibition (mm) staphylococcus aureus 0.2 26 salmonella typhi 0.2 20 escherichia coli 0.2 18 klebsiella pneumonia 0.2 22 pseudomonas aeruginosa 0.2 18 whereas phlobatannins, phenol and volatile oils are present in low amount. these bioactive compounds have some therapeutic properties against several pathogens supporting its traditional use for curing disease. the presence of these active agents confirms similar research conducted by (orjiakor et al., 2019). flavonoids have been acknowledged to posses potent antioxidant and free radical scavenging effect (ganapth, et al., 2011) and have strong anticancer activity (del-rio, et al., 1997: salah, et al., 1995). they are also documented to have anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral properties and help heal of wounds and treat skin infections due to their ability to neutralize the acidity of wounds and inflammation (okwu, 2004). j.carnea extract also revealed to contain saponins. saponin has the property of precipitating and coagulating red blood cells. other characteristics of saponins include hemolytic activity, formation of foams in aqueous solutions, cholesterol binding properties and bitterness (okwu, 2004: del-rio, et al., 1997). more so, saponins have also been found to be an antibacterial substance on the cell wall of most organisms (harbron, 1998). it cause a reduction of blood cholesterol by preventing its re-absorption. the presence of alkaloid indicates that j. carnea extract can be used as basic medicinal agents for their antispasmodic, analgesic and bactericidal effects (okwu & okwu, 2004: stray, 1998). the efficacy of aqueous leaf extract of j. carnea against different bacteria is shown in table 2. the sample showed effective antibacterial activity against both grampositive and gram-negative bacteria as indicated by their inhibition zones. staphylococcus aureus showed greater level of susceptibility (26mm) than other tested bacteria. followed by klebsiella pneumonia and salmonella typhi with level of susceptibility (22mm and 20mm respectively). escherichia coli and pseudomonas aeruginosa showed the least zone of inhibition (18mm). hence, e. coli and p. aeruginosa were the most resistant isolates tested in this study as they both showed the least zones of inhibition of 18mm. conclusion this present study showed that j. carnea leaf is a good source of important phytochemical or bioactive components which include tannins, saponins, alkaloids and flavonoids that are involved in both pharmacodynamics, bactericidal and bacteriostatic activity and these compounds are known to have some therapeutic properties against several pathogens which supports its traditional use for curing disease. they are vital sources of supplementary diets of several bioproducts essential for the biochemical functions in human, provide health benefits and are important for prevention illnesses. therefore, justifies its usefulness in clinical and folklore practices against diseases caused by bacteria. though, dosage remains a challenge. acknowledgements this study was funded by the tetfund which is gratefully acknowledged. conflict of interest there is no conflict of interest references anigboro, a. a., avwioroko, o. j., ohwokevwo, o. a., pessu, b. & tonukari, n. j. (2021). phytochemical profile, antioxidant, α-amylase inhibition, binding interaction and docking studies of justicia carnea bioactive compounds with α-amylase. biophys chem. 269(1), 106529. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. bpc.2020.106529 badami, s., aneesh, r., sankar, s., sathishkumar, m. n.,suresh, b. & rajan s. (2003). antifertility activity of https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 20 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 16-20, 2023 derris brevipes variety coriacea. j. ethnopharmacology., 84, 99–104. corrêa, g. m., de c. & alcântara, a. f. (2012) chemical constituents and biological activities of species of justicia – a review. revista brasileira de farmacognosia, 22, 220-238. del-rio, a., obdululio, b. g., casfillo, j., marin, f. g. & ortuno, a. (1997). uses and properties of citrus flavonoids. j. agric. journal of agricultural and food chemistry, 45(12), 4505-4515. ganapth, s. r., kumar, d. s., harami, a., pathiban, m. p. & venkateshwarlu, g. (2011). comparison studies of phytochemical screening. asian journal of pharmaceutical and health sciences, 1(3). gbif secretariat (2021). gbif backbone taxonomy justicia carnea lindl. checklist dataset. https://doi. org/10.15468/39omei harbron, j. b. (1998). phytochemical methods: a guide to modern techniques of plant analysis (3rd). london: chapman and hall publication. igbinaduwa, p. o., kabari, k. m., & chikwue, t. c. (2019). phytochemical and anti-anaemic properties of ethanol leaf extract of justicia carnea vahl (acantheceae). nigerian journal of pharmaceutical and applied science research, 8(2), 55-61. kumari, s., harjai, k., & chibber, s. (2010). tropical treatment of klebsiella pneumonia mice using natural products in developing countries.the journal of infection in developing countries, 4(6), 367-377. national population census (2006). national population commission office magami road, jalingo, taraba state. okonkwo, e. e. (2012). traditional healing systems among nsukka igbo. journal of tourism and heritage studies, 1(1), 69-81. okwu, d. e. & okwu, m. e. (2004).chemical composition of spondiasmombin linn plant parts. journal sustain agric. environ. 6(1), 140-147. okwu, d. e. (2004). phytochemicals and vitamin content of indigenous spices of southeastern nigeria. journal sustain. agric. environ., 6(1), 30-37. olakunle, t. p., akinro, e. b., agolade, j. o., yoyinoye, a. s., ghazal, m. a. & oladeji, s. s. (2013). inhibitory effect of pure honey on microorganisms isolated from wound. journal of environmental science, toxicology and food technology, 3(3), 80-84. olufunke, f. (2021). nigeria’s medicinal plant: justicia carne (ewe eje). nigeria punch, healthy living. onyeabo, ch., achi, n. k., ekeleme-egedigwe, ch. a., ebere, ch. u., & okoro, ch. k. (2017). haematological and biochemical studies on justicia carnea leaves extract in phenylhydrazine inducedanemia in albino rats. acta scientiarum polonorum technologia alimentaria 16(2), 217-230. https://doi. org/10.17306/j.afs.2017.0492 orjiakor, c. a., uroko, r. i., njoku, o. u., ezeanyika, l. u. s., & uchenna, s. (2019). nutritive properties of aqueous extract justicia carnea leaves and its effects on haematological and some biochemical indices of anaemia induced male wistar albino rats. biomedical research, 30(4), 645-654. https://doi.org/10.35841/ biomedicalresearch.30-18-666 osho, a. o., & bello, o. o. (2010). antimicrobial effect of honey produced by apis mellifera on some common human pathogens. aisan j. exp. biol. sci.,1(4), 875880. radhika, j., sathya, s., jothi, g., & japasheba, j. l. (2013). cardioprotective role of justicia traquebareinsis linn. leaf extract in isoproterenol induced myocardial infarction in albino rats. journal of applied pharmaceutical science, 3(4), 124–128. salah, n., miller, n. j., pagange, g., tijburg, l., bolwell, g. p., rice, e., & evans, c. (1995). polphenolic flavonoids as scavenger of aqueous phase radicals as chain breaking antioxidant. arch. biochem. broph., 2, 339-346. shyamapada, m., & manisha deb m. (2011). honey: its medicinal property and antibacterial activity, asian pac. j. biomed., 1(2), 154-160. sini, s., prashy, p., & george, s. (2018). preliminary phytochemical investigation and estimation of polyphenolics in different parts of selected species of justicia. european journal of biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences, 5(4), 460-464 stray, f. (1998). the natural guide to medicinal herbs and plants. london; tiger books international. topographic sheet (1968). by federal surveyors nigeria. topographic sheet, no. 255, edition 1, with scale of 1, 100,000. trease, g. e. and evans, w. c. (2009). pharmacognsy. 11th ed. brailliar tiridel can. macmillian publishers. usda plants (2007-2010). justicia carnea. updated for itis by the flora of north america expertise network. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 1 pa ge 13 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) identification of bioactive compounds in chrysobalanus icaco seed kernel using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry oganezi n. c.1*, agbaeze t.1, kalu s. o.1 volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i1.2365 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: february 12, 2024 accepted: march 17, 2024 published: march 21, 2024 chrysobalanus icaco seed kernel (i.e cocoplum) is good source of oil and is utilized as spice in soups or stews in some african cuisines. the work aimed to identify compounds in methanol and dichloromethane/methanol (1:1, v/v) flour extract from its seed kernels using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. eleven compounds were identified from the methanol extract while thirteen compounds were identified from the dichloromethane/methanol extract. the most abundant compounds from the methanol extract were cis-13-octadecenoic acid methyl ester, cis vaccenic acid and n-hexadecanoic acid. they had relative abundance of 28.83, 17.14 and 15.40% respectively. 2,6-octadienal-3,7-dimethyl (e) (ie α-citral), citral, cis3-hexenyl cis-3-hexenoate and trans-2,7-dimethyl-4,6-octadiene-2-ol were the most abundant in the dichloromethane/methanol extract. these had relative abundance of 12.86, 18.92, 10.56 and 20.59% respectively. compounds which were common to both methanol and dichloromethane/methanol extracts of c. icaco seed kernel were 2,6-octadienal-3,7-dimethyl (e), hexadecanoic acid methyl ester, n-hexadecanoic acid, heptadecanoic acid, 16 methyl, methyl ester, cis-vaccenic acid and oleic acid. both solvents extracted varied concentrations of compounds which fall in different classes of either being an unsaturated long chain aldehyde, fatty acids, fatty acid methyl esters, indene derivatives, monoterpenoid alchohol. the compounds identified in both extracts of chrysobalamus icaco seed kernels have various beneficial bioactivities and sensory attributessuch as being flavor compounds which confers c.icaco seed kernel a peculiar aroma. as such, chrysobalamus icaco seed kernel is a functional food and can serve as a good raw material for edible oil from which bioactive compounds can be isolated and utilized in relevant food systems and in the preparation of neutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. therefore, its use in cuisines is greatly encouraged. keywords chrysobalanusicaco, seed kernel, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, bioactive compounds, extracts 1 department of food science and technology, abia state university, uturu, abia state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: chinonyeremwog@yahoo.com introduction a spice is dried seed, fruit, root, bark or flower of a plant or a herb used in small quantities for flavor, color or as a preservative (kunnumakkara et al., 2009). herbs and spices have been utilized as additives globally not only to enhance the sensory attributes of food, but also to increase shelf life of foods by reducing or eliminating food borne pathogens (lai and roy, 2004). spices can perform functions as nutrient sources, antioxidants, preservatives, insecticides and as medicinal plants for human use (fasoyiro, 2015). besides adding flavor and taste to dishes, they help prevent and alleviate various health problems due to the presence of various bioactive compounds which have different physiological and biochemical functions. spices have shown many health benefits in preventing and curing a number of diseases such as cancer, aging, metabolic, neurological, cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases (gottardi et al., 2016). the active phytochemicals derived from these spices have provided the molecular basis for these actions (kunnumakkara et al., 2009). chrysobalanus icaco (cocoplum) belongs to the family chrysobalanaceae (burkill, 1985). it is a low shrub or bushy tree which grows near sea beaches and inland throughout tropical africa, tropical america, the caribbean, southern florida and the bahamas (kwcsp,2023). it grows fruit for which its pulp and seed are consumed as food. the seed’s kernel is utilized as soup spice either as pepper soup spice or ‘ofeakwu’ (ie palm fruit) soup spice in some parts of west africa. the seed kernel is ground into a fine flour/powder and used as spice. c. icaco, commonly called ‘gbafilo’ seeds are economically and medicinally important as they are utilized for the preparation of special soup, control blood pressure, malaria fever and treatment of stomach disorder (davies and zibokere, 2011).in some climes, where it is common c. icaco plays a role in traditional medicine (presta et al., 2007). de aguiar et al.(2017) reported that the seeds can produce an edible oil and they identified the types of fats using gas chromatography. vargas et al. (2010) identified essential oil from the leaves of c. icaco after supercritical fluid extraction using gas chromatography. many bioactive compounds have been extracted from spices, providing a scientific basis for the use of such spices in our diet (kunnumakkara et al., 2009). the development of equipment and methods for identifying and evaluating natural products bioactive compounds to ensure their quality and discover new drugs is very necessary (fu et al., 2019). so many naturally synthesized compounds have bioactive functions and are being explored for different applications, particularly in the food and pharmaceutical industry (do’ nascimento et al., 2021). gas chromatography – mass spectrometry analysis is a convenient method to test the quantitative amount pa ge 14 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 13-18, 2024 of bioactive compounds in plant extracts (gomathi et al., 2015). there is death of information on c. icaco seeds but a good number of research work has been done on leaf extracts and fatty acids of oil extract from the leaves and seeds. it is in view of this that gas chromatography mass spectrometry analysis was carried out on methanol and dichloromethane/methanol (1:1,v/v) extracts of whole seed flour of chroysobalanus icaco. materials and methods sourcing of materials and extraction of bioactive compounds chrysobalanus icaco seeds were sourced from afor oru market, oru ahiara in ahiazu mbaise in imo state, nigeria. they were cracked to remove the husk and free the seed kernel. after which, the seed kernels were washed in clean water, drained off water, air dried before milling to get fine flour. the resultant chrysobalanus icaco seed kernel flour was used for the extraction of bioactive compounds using methanol and dichloromethane/ methanol (1:1, v/v). to extract the bioactive compounds, twenty (20) grams of the pulverized flour was dispensed into two different labelled conical flasks. two hundred (200) ml absolute methanol and dichloromethane/ methanol (1:1, v/v) were dispensed into the two different conical flasks respectively. the sample mixtures were shaked vigorously on a vortex mixer for 30mins and covered using aluminium foil. they were allowed to stand for 24h at room temperature and subsequently filtered through no1 whatman filter paper respectively. each sample extract was concentrated by heating over a boiling water bath to remove excess solvent. hence, two extracts from whole seed flour of chrysobalanus icaco were obtained. these extracts were subjected to gas chromatography/ mass spectrometry (gc-ms) analysis for the separation and identification of compounds. gas chromatography mass spectrometry analysis (gc–ms) the gc–ms analysis of bioactive compounds from the two extracts were done using agilent technologies gc systems with gc-7890a/ms-5975c model (agilent technologies, santa clara, ca, usa) equipped with hp5ms column (30 m in length × 250 μm in diameter × 0.25 μm in thickness of film). helium gas (99.995%) was used as carrier gas with flow rate of 1 ml/min. the initial column temperature was set at 50 –150 °c with increasing rate of 3 °c/min and hold time of 10 min. finally, the temperature was increased to 300 °c at 10 °c/min. one microliter (1μl) of each extract was diluted with respective solvents and injected in a splitless mode into the gas chromatogram using hamilton syringe. the injector temperature was 250ºc while the mass spectrometer ion source temperature was 200ºc with an interface temperature of 280ºc but with electron impact ionization energy of 70 ev. total run time of the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis for the methanol extract was 20mins for both extracts. the relative abundance of the chemical compounds present in each extract was expressed as percentage based on peak area normalization produced in the chromatogram. compounds were identified by mass spectroscopy. bioactive compounds in the different extracts were identified based on gc retention time on hp-5ms column and matching of the spectra with computer software data of standards by comparing retention indices and mass fragmentation patterns of the compounds with those stored in the computer library software of the national institute of standard technology (nist/epa/ nih, mass spectral library, version 2.0). quantitative determinations were made by relating respective peak areas to tic areas of the gcms. results and discussion table 1 shows results on methanol extract of chrysobarlanus icaco seed kernel. results indicated the presence of eleven compounds. the most abundant compounds were cis-13-octadecenoic acid methyl ester, cisvaccenic acid, hexadecanoic acid methyl ester, and n-hexadecanoic acid. they had relative abundance of 28.83, 17.14, 16.40 and 15.40% respectively. these compounds have been reported to have various biological activities and nutritional values. cis-13-octadecenoic acid methyl ester is a fatty acid methyl ester with therapeutic uses in medicine and surgery (awonyemi et al., 2020). cisvaccenic acid is a monounsaturated n -7 fatty acid and is reported to have antibacterial and hypolipidemic effects in rats (hamazakiet al., 2016). cis-vaccenic acid may have multiple modes of activity such as antioxidant activity which involves the neutralization of free radicals hence reducing oxidative stress, it may serve as an antiinflammatory agent by decreasing the production of cytokines that promote inflammation; it may also act as a transcription factor regulating the expression of genes that are involved in metabolic processes (aimola et al, 2016., rontani et al, 2003). hexadecanoic acid methyl ester was reported to have bactericidal effect against multi drug resistant bacteria (shaaban et al., 2021). it has other biological activities such as anti-inflammatory, hypocholesterolemic, cancer preventive, hepatoprotective, nenaticid, insectifuge, antihistaminic, anticorona, and anti antiarthritic properties (jegadeeswariet al., 2012). n-hexadeanoic acid has been reported to posses antioxidant, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory activities (siswadi and saragih, 2021). other bioactive compounds found in significant quantities in the methanol extract of c. icaco seed with well documented biological, physiological and pharmacological activities are oleic acid (6.02%) heptadecanoic acids, 16-methyl methylester (6.43%) and 2,6-octadienal-3,7-dimethy (e) (i.eα-citral). oleic acid has been reported to induce apoptosis in carcinoma cells via the activation of different intracellular pathways involved in carcinoma cell development which could be the main mechanism of its antitumoreffects reported in clinical studies (carrilo et al., 2012) heptadecanoic acid, pa ge 15 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 13-18, 2024 16-methyl, methyl ester is a branched fatty acid methyl ester . it was reported to have the best activity against skin cancer protein and is considered for further in vitro studies towards development of anti skin cancer drug (saravanakumar et al., 2012). 2,6octadienal – 3,7-dimethy (e) is reported to be a major component of lemon grass, volatile oil of cymbopogon, atratus or of c. flexuosus. it has a role as a flavoring agent, a fragrance, an insecticide and aldehyde oxidase inhibitor (aiemsaard et al., 2011). it was reported to be suitable acaricidal and mite indicator ingredient and can be used for the control of dust mites (park and lee, 2018). table 1: results on gas chromatography -mass spectrometry analysis of methanol extract of chrysobalamusicaco (cocoplum)seed kernel peak number retention time (mins) compound name relative abundance (%) molecular formular molecular weight 1 7.081 10-undecen-4-one-2,2,6,6, tetramethyl 2.43 c15h28o 224.38 2 7.691 2,6-octadienal 3.7-dimethyl ester (e) 4.35 c10h16o2 152.23 3 16.993 hexadecanoic acid methyl ester 16.40 c17h34o2 270.45 4 17.641 n-hexadecanoic acid 15.40 c16h32o2 256.42 5 18.808 cis-13-octadecanoic acid, methyl ester 28.83 c19h36o2 296.49 6 18.974 furamic acid, pent-4-en-2-yl tridecyl ester 0.89 c22h38o4 366.53 7 19.050 heptadecanoic acid, 16-methyl, methyl ester 6.43 c19h38o2 298.50 8 19.448 cis-vaccenic acid 17.14 c18h34o2 282.46 9 19.647 oleic acid 6.02 c18h34o2 282.47 10 19.697 12-methyl-e,e-2,13-octadecadien-1-ol 0.44 c19h36o 280.41 11 19.799 1h-indene,2-butyl-5-hexyloctahydro0.52 c19h36 264.49 table 2 shows results on the compounds present in dichloromethane/methanol extract of chrysobalamusi caco seed kernel. the most abundant compounds were 2,6-octadienal – 3,7-dimethyl (i.e α-citral),citral, cis3hexehyl-cis-3-hexenoate and trans-2,7-dimethyl-4,6 octadiene-2-ol. they had relative abundance of 12.86, 18.92, 10.56 and 20.59% respectively. these compounds have been reported to have beneficial biological activities. in addition to already mentioned biological activities2, 6-octadienal-3,7-dimethyl and citral are similar compounds. citral is anacyclic monoterpene aldehyde which consists of a racemic mixture of two isomers namely geranial and neral (ganjewala et al., 2012). it has biological activities such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, anticancer, antidiuretic and anti-inflammatory (shama et al., 2021). cis-3-hexeny, cis -3-hexenoate is a flavor compound which has a fruity aroma and flavor and is widely used in the food industry as a flavor and fragrance ingredient (jecfa fao/ who, 1997). trans-2,7dimethyl-4,6-octadiene-2-ol is a monoterpeniod alchohol. it has anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, anticonvulsant, antiviral, antioxidant, anti-diabetic activity and also improves the functions of the endocrine system (uju et al, 2022).9,7-octadecadienal, (z) is an unsaturated long chain aldehyde which is reported to have antioxidant, antiinflamatory activities (geraci et al., 2017, adeoye-isijola., et al., 2018) as well as antimicrobial property(karthika and paulsamy, 2014). figure 1: chromatograph of methanol extract of chrysobalanusicaco (cocoplum) seed kernel pa ge 16 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 13-18, 2024 minor components were found in chysobalanus icaco seed kernel for both extracts and they have important biological activities because of their synergistic effects based on several studies that have identified them from other sources. compounds common to both extracts were 2,6-octadienal – 3,7-dimethyl(i.e α-citral), hexadecanoic acid methyl ester, n-hexadecanoic acid, heptadecanoic acid-16methyl, methyl ester, cis -vaccenic acid and oleic acid. oleic acid is the most commonly occurring fatty acid in nature and its high content in olive oil is responsible for the hypotensive effect observed in olive oil (ayed et al., 2018). this suggests that the presence oleic acid in chysobalanus icaco seed kernel will proffer hypotensive activity in human biological system. table 2: gas chromatography and mass spectrometry analysis of bioactive compounds from dichloromethane/ methanol extract of chrysobalanus icaco (cocoplum) seed kernel peak number retention time (mins) compound name relative abundance (%) molecular formular molecular weight 1 7.067 2.6-octadienal,3,7-dimethyl 12.86 c10h16o 152.23 2 7.691 citral 18.92 c10h16o 152.23 3 9.103 cis-3-hexenyl-cis-3-hexenoate 10.56 c12h20o2 196.29 4 9.767 trans-2,7-dimethyl 4,6-octadien-2-ol 20.59 c10h18o 154.25 5 11.693 3.8.11-trioxotetracyclo [4.4.1.0 (2,4). 0(7.9)] undecane (1 α, 2 α, 4 α, 6 α, 7β, 9β) 3.08 c8h10o3 154.16 6 12.544 3-hexene, 2-methyl-(2) 3.48 c7h14 98.19 7 16.982 hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester 3.75 c17h34o2 270.45 8 17.631 n-hexadecanoic acid 5.39 c16h32o2 256.42 9 18.809 cis-vaccenic acid 4.93 c18h34o2 282.46 10 18.972 6,11dimethyl-2,6,10-dodecatrien-1-ol 2.77 c14h24o2 208.34 11 19.041 heptadecanoic acid,16-methyl-methyl ester 2.49 c19h38o2 298.50 12 19.431 9,7 octadecadienal 7.75 c18h32o 264.45 13 19.605 oleic acid 2.33 c18h34o2 282.47 14 20.087 oleic acid 1.09 c18h34o2 282.47 figure 2: chromatograph of dichloromethane/methanol extract of chrysobalanus icaco (cocoplum) seed kernel conclusion the seed kernel of chysobalanus icaco fruit which is used as seed spice in some african cuisines contains beneficial bioactive phytochemicals with documented beneficial activities. these compounds have activities which serve as flavor compounds that proffer the seed spice its peculiar aroma, while some of the compounds found in substantial quantities are reported to promote good health via having antioxidant activities, anti-inflammatory, bactericidal effect, anticancer, antidiuretic effects to mention but a few. hence, chrysobalanus icaco (ie cocoplum) seeds used as spice for culinary is a functional ingredient that can be beneficial in promoting good health by preventing degenerative diseases. references adeoye-isijola, o. m., olajuyigbe, o. o., johnathan, g. s & coopoosany, m.r. 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(2010). extraction of the essential oil abajeru (chrysobalanus icaco) using supercritical co2. the journal of supercritical fluids, 54(2), 171-177. pa ge 1 pa ge 25 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) evaluation of ogolcho and kingbird bread wheat (triticum aestivum) varieties for wheatgrass juice content abe tullo1* volume 1 issue 1, year 2022 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v1i1.533 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: august 16, 2022 accepted: august 28, 2022 published: august 31, 2022 wheatgrass juice is the young grass of the common wheat plant that is freshly pressed for human consumption. the main aim of this research work is to evaluate bread wheat varieties for wheatgrass juice content of two selected wheat varieties (ogolcho and kingbird) grown in ethiopia. the experiments were carried out in a completely randomized design with wheat varieties as the factor of two levels (ogolcho and kingbird). the results showed that the total chlorophyll (71.47 mg/100 g and 62.68 mg/100 g), protein (3.30% and 3.59%), and total ash (1.40% and 1.03%) of the wheatgrass juices were for ogolcho and kingbird varieties, respectively. minerals (ca, fe, k, mg, na, p and zn) contents of wheatgrass juice variety were 36.2, 0.5, 503.4, 23.18, 8.6, 72.94 and 0.32 mg/100 g for ogolcho variety and 35.8, 0.4, 395, 23.51, 7.8, 64.18 and 0.42 mg/100 g for kingbird variety. the vitamins (a, c, d3, and e) were 0.15, 36.35, 0.018, and 0.244 mg/100 g in the juice of the ogolcho variety while for the kingbird variety were 0.15, 31.65, 0.018, and 0.236 mg/100g, respectively. the experimental analysis indicated that the number of majority parameters showed a significant difference (p≤0.05) in the mean value of parameters. the result indicated that wheatgrass juice was high in nutrient composition than wheat grain (). hence, the consumption of wheatgrass in the form of juice is beneficial in keeping away several health problems. keywords chlorophyll, health benefits, nutrient composition, wheatgrass juice 1 asella agricultural engineering research center, asella; oromia agricultural research institute, addis ababa, ethiopia. * corresponding author’s e-mail: abesokore@gmail.com introduction wheatgrass juice is a young grass of a common wheat plant (triticum aestivum) freshly squeezed for human consumption (anwar et al., 2015). wheatgrass is grown on trays or mats to maintain its quality when supplied to food facilities (treadwell et al., 2013). the ideal conditions for growing wheatgrass are high light exposure, low humidity, and good air circulation. it is necessary and important to form chlorophyll and control mold growth (dégraff, 2011). wheatgrass sown in winter and harvested at the time of joining contains the highest concentration of the active ingredient. at this stage, the plant reaches its highest nutritional value. after binding, the levels of chlorophyll, protein, and vitamins decrease sharply. therefore, wheatgrass is harvested shortly before this stage of division, where soft shoots are at the peak of vegetative power. wheatgrass grown outdoors is harvested, dehydrated at low temperatures, and sold in the form of tablets and powder concentrates. to grow wheatgrass indoors, it is usually necessary to bring wheat grains close together and grow them in small trays to produce high yields (singh et al., 2012). growth changes were observed with changing conditions, and environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, airflow, and the time it took to reach the target height were considered important for wheatgrass growth (ashish et al., 2012). wheatgrass juice (triticum aestivum l.) is recognized as a healthy beverage due to its high antioxidant activity and phenolic compound content (akbas et al., 2017). wheatgrass, the young grass of the common wheat plant, is pressed fresh or dried into a powder for use in animals and humans both forms provide chlorophyll, the minerals k, ca, fe, mg, na, and s, vitamins such as a, b, c and e, enzymes and 17 amino acids (singh et al., 2012). two ounces (56.7 grams) of wheatgrass juice has a nutritionally equivalent amount called five pounds (2.27 kg) of the finest raw natural vegetables. for example, wheatgrass has twice as much vitamin a as carrots and higher vitamin c content than oranges. it contains all the b-complex vitamins, as well as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, and potassium in adjusted ratios. wheatgrass is a finite source of protein, providing most of the important amino acids and more. it contains about 20% of the total calories from protein. this protein is in the form of polypeptides, shorter and simpler chains of amino acids that the body uses more efficiently within the framework of the circulatory system and tissues (thammana et al., 2016). wheatgrass is becoming a very popular green plant today due to its many useful roles in human diseases such as cancer, thalassemia, and cardiovascular disease. wheatgrass juice is an impressive source of important nutrients; antioxidants can neutralize the harmful effects of free radicals (agrawal et al., 2015). wheatgrass is an important cereal grass in the world, a rich source of nutrients with remarkable nutritional and medicinal value. wheatgrass is grown in indoor tanks and then used in powder and beverage form (pasha et al., 2018). wheatgrass is a whole food that contains bioflavonoids, proteins, and other important nutrients and helps maintain bodily functions (mogra and rathi, 2013). the wheatgrass extract from the soft wheat plant (triticum aestivum) is also known as “green blood” because it is immediately absorbed into the bloodstream and provides energy for about 20 minutes that lasts all day (singhal et al., 2012). wheatgrass juice gives you more https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v1i1.533 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst mailto:abesokore%40gmail.com?subject= pa ge 26 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 25-30, 2022 energy by filling nutritional deficiencies and removing waste products that clog your cells, blood, tissues, and organs. 15 pounds (6.81 kg) of wheatgrass juice has a nutritional value equivalent to 350 pounds (158.9 kg) of leafy greens and vegetables (mujoriya and bodla, 2011). wheatgrass is known to reduce fatigue, improve sleep, increase strength, regulate blood pressure and blood sugar naturally, aid in weight loss, improve digestion and detox, support healthy skin, teeth, eyes, muscles, and joints, and improve heart function and lungs and reproductive organs heal sores and skin sores, slows down cell aging, improves mental function and are beneficial in arthritis and muscle cramps, thalassemia, hemolytic anemia, cancer, asthma, allergies, inflammatory bowel disease and detoxification (chauhan, 2014). despite the health benefits of wheatgrass consumption, its acceptance and use remain low throughout the world. this could be attributed to it being consumed only by people in poor health, having a short shelf life, having low organoleptic properties, and being difficult to obtain good quality wheatgrass (ashish et al., 2012). wheat is commonly consumed as wheat grain products, such as bread, scones, and other baked or steamed products, but with the recognition of wheatgrass’ value as a “functional juice,” and because of its quick maturity, ability to be grown in a variety of medium, and dense nutrition, there is a need to explore wheatgrass as an alternative venture or “functional juice” resource, particularly in developing countries where there is a dual nutritional void. more study is needed in this field, according to studies, to make wheatgrass broadly accepted as an economic activity that will not only contribute to the battle against malnutrition but also enhance the overall health of the population in areas where it is grown (ashish et al., 2012). it is not wellknown in egypt, and there is a lack of understanding about the best growing conditions for high-quality wheatgrass (anwar et al., 2015). wheatgrass cultivation and processing are carried out on a large scale in numerous nations; however, the origin of wheatgrass is unknown (rana et al., 2011). wheatgrass is available in the united states, east asia, and eastern europe in the form of healthy diets (powders, tablets) (anwar et al., 2015). wheat (triticum aestivum l.) is the most extensively grown staple food crop in the world, with the majority of the world’s population eating it. wheatgrass is the name given to the sprouts produced by the germination of wheat grains during 6–10 days (akbas et al., 2017). wheatgrass is very easy to grow and produces juice in both rural and urban homes. as a result, the information derived from this research is critical for the introduction of wheatgrass juice in ethiopia, as well as for wheatgrass producers to understand the steps involved in growing wheatgrass and producing juice, and especially for wheatgrass juice consumers to obtain fresh, healthy, highquality, and flavorful juice. however, no research has been conducted on ethiopian bread wheat varieties for the nutritional properties of wheatgrass juice from this crop for human consumption. as a result, the current study is intended to fill this void with the objective of evaluating the wheatgrass juice content of ogolcho and kingbird bread wheat varieties. materials and methods experimental location the experiment was conducted at oromia agricultural research institute in the food science laboratory, addis ababa; ethiopian public health institute, addis ababa; ethiopian conformity assessment enterprise, addis ababa and jije laboglass plc (analytical testing service laboratory), addis ababa. total chlorophyll was determined at jije analytical testing service laboratory. protein and vitamins (a, d3, and e) were determined at the ethiopian conformity assessment enterprise, vitamin c was conducted at the ethiopian public health institute and ash and minerals were determined at oromia agricultural research institute in the food science laboratory, respectively. experimental materials the samples for evaluation, 5 kg grains of each ogolcho and kingbird bread wheat variety were obtained from the ethiopian seed enterprise (ese), asella. wheat grains were cleaned manually to remove germination inhibitors like foreign materials, and immature and damaged grains and were packed in polyethylene plastic bags and stored at room temperature (25oc). experimental design the experiment was planned in a completely randomized design (crd) which has one factor i.e. wheat variety. the factor was wheat (triticum aestivum l.) varieties, which were ogolcho and kingbird. the raw wheat nutrient content standards of the two varieties were used as a control. treatment was done in triplicate. the total runs were 9. wheatgrass production methods and processing techniques the production method for wheat grain sprouting was the tray method, using about 250 gm of wheat grain for sprouting. the sheet metal rectangular trays with sizes (40 x 24 x 11 cm) were developed in asella agricultural engineering research center (aaerc) workshop. grains of wheat were cleaned, washed, and soaked in tap water, and placed in 0.7-liter capacity glass jars for each replicate for 15 hours. wheat seeds were rinsed with tap water 3-4 times before soaking. draining of seed was carried out for 15 hours after which the seeds were found to be sprouted. wheatgrass trays were prepared using soil and cow dung manure mixed in a ratio of 2:1. sprouted seeds were spread over the soil in which the trays prevented the overlapping and increasing proximity between the seeds. after a little growth in height, the trays were transferred to a relatively warmer place with indirect sunlight and proper air circulation conditions for the development of https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 27 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 25-30, 2022 green color. when the wheatgrass reached a height above 7 inches, they were cut half an inch above the surface of the soil and harvested for wheatgrass juice production after 8 days from grain sowing or 13 days from grain soaking. the wheatgrass juice was extracted by manual or electric juicer and filtered to remove the suspended matter. package used was r-software (version 3.4.3, 2017). statistical differences in samples were tested at p<0.05 and the differences between means were compared using the least significant difference (lsd). the result was expressed as the mean ± standard deviation. results and discussions a nutrient composition like total chlorophyll, protein, vitamins, and minerals of the two wheatgrass varieties juice (ogolcho and kingbird), was determined. the wheatgrass was produced in the same geographical region and harvested during the same season; this may lessen the influence of environmental factors in the analysis. the differences reflected in these properties between two wheatgrass varieties of juice can be attributed mainly to their genotypic characteristics. the results of all the determining parameters are discussed in the following sections. total chlorophyll and proximate contents of wheatgrass juice table 1 shows the total chlorophyll, protein, and ash content of wheatgrass juice types. the ogolcho variety wheatgrass juice contained 71.47 mg/100 g total chlorophyll content, 3.3% protein, and 1.4% ash. similarly, the kingbird variety wheatgrass juice had 62.68 mg/100g total chlorophyll content, 3.59% protein, and 1.03% ash. juice of ogolcho wheatgrass variety showed a significant difference (p<0.05) higher value of total chlorophyll and ash contents than the juice of kingbird wheatgrass variety, whereas kingbird variety wheatgrass juice had greater protein than ogolcho variety wheatgrass juice. the total chlorophyll content of two wheatgrass varieties of juice was significantly different (p<0.05) from each other. the average values of ogolcho and kingbird wheatgrass varieties juice were 71.47 and 62.68 mg/100 g, respectively. padalia et al. (2010) and devi sowjanya et al. (2015) reported 42.2 mg/100 g of total chlorophyll in the juice of wheatgrass which is lower than the present finding and skoczylas et al. (2017) reported the total chlorophyll content of wheatgrass varieties juice as 39.4 mg/100 g. ghumman et al. (2017) also reported in the range of 669 and 705 mg/100 g in wheatgrass juice powder, higher than the result obtained in this work. figure 1: flow diagram of wheatgrass growing and extracting (ashish et al., 2012) nutrient composition analysis collected wheatgrass juice from two wheatgrass varieties after being squeezed was placed in a container for cold storage (in a common refrigerator or freezer) prior to the analysis period. the major chemical constituents that make wheatgrass a valuable food such as protein according to aoac (2012), total chlorophyll according to arnon (1949), and ash and minerals according to aoac. (2012), and vitamins according to freed (1966), were analyzed. statistical analysis nutrient composition data were statistically analyzed using the analysis of variance (anova). the statistical table 1: total chlorophyll and proximate contents of wheatgrass juice variety total chlorophyll (mg/100g) protein % ash % ogolcho 71.47a ± 1.13 3.30b ± 0.01 1.40a ± 0.57 kingbird 62.68b ± 2.99 3.59a ± 0.01 1.03b ± 0.10 cv 3.37 0.16 6.71 lsd 5.12 0.01 0.18 where cv = coefficient of variation; values are mean ± sd and mean values followed by the same letter in a column are not significantly different at a 5% level of significance; lsd = least significance difference the protein content of two wheatgrass varieties’ juice was found to be significantly (p<0.05) different from each other with values of 3.30 and 3.59% for ogolcho and kingbird wheatgrass varieties, respectively. the protein content of the wheatgrass varieties juice evaluated in this work showed relatively similar to the values obtained by anwar et al. (2015) which ranged from 3.03 to 3.39% or 3.03g / 100 ml to 3.39 g/100 ml. pasha et al. (2018) https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 28 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 25-30, 2022 reported 21.6% protein content in wheatgrass powder and ghumman et al. (2017) found 22.01% to 25.77% of protein content in wheatgrass juice powder, higher than the result obtained in this work. ash content of two wheatgrass varieties of juice was significantly (p<0.05) different from each other. ogolcho and kingbird wheatgrass juice resulted in 1.40 and 1.03% ash, respectively. these values are higher than those of freshly squeezed wheatgrass juice reported by skoczylas et al. (2017) which ranged from 0.783 to 0.833% and lower than those of wheatgrass juice powder reported by ghumman et al., 2017, which ranged from 7.55% to 18.51% of ash content. 3.2. mineral contents of wheatgrass juice table 2 shows the concentration of calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, sodium, phosphorus, and zinc in wheatgrass types of juice (ogolcho and kingbird). in wheatgrass types juice (ogolcho and kingbird), calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, sodium, phosphorus, and zinc content were 36.2, 0.5, 503.4, 23.18, 8.6, 72.94, 0.32 mg/100 g and 35.8, 0.4, 395, 23.51, 7.8, 64.18, 0.42 mg/100 g, respectively. the juice of ogolcho wheatgrass varieties had significantly (p ≤ 0.05) higher iron, potassium, and phosphorus content than the juice of kingbird wheatgrass variety, but the calcium, magnesium, sodium, and zinc content of ogolcho and kingbird wheatgrass varieties were not significantly different (p ≥ 0.05). ogolcho and kingbird wheatgrass juice had calcium content of 36.2 and 35.8 mg/100 g, respectively. padalia et al. (2010) and roshan et al. (2021) recorded wheatgrass juice concentrations of 24.2 mg/100 g and 29 mg/100 g, respectively. wheatgrass is high in calcium, which helps to develop strong bones and teeth, as well as regulate heartbeat and function as a buffer to restore blood ph equilibrium (roshan et al., 2021). ca levels were observed to be greater in wheatgrass juice. on the other hand, cultivated wheatgrass in the open field, had a higher ca content than wheatgrass grown in the laboratory (anwar et al., 2015). the iron level was 0.5 mg/100 g in ogolcho wheatgrass juice and 0.4 mg/100 g in kingbird wheatgrass juice, respectively. the values were substantially different (p ≤ 0.05) from one another, and the iron level of both kinds corresponded with devi sowjanya et al. (2015) reported 0.61 mg/100 g of iron in wheatgrass juice. iron levels in wheatgrass juice were substantially lower in both kinds than the 77.2 mg/100 g wheatgrass powder reported by kaur et al. (2021). potassium levels in ogolcho and kingbird wheatgrass juice were 503.4 mg/100g and 395 mg/100g, respectively, and were substantially different (p ≤ 0.05). the potassium levels in both varieties of wheatgrass juice were higher than the 147 mg/100 g potassium content reported by padalia et al. (2010) and the 363 mg/100 g potassium content reported by roshan et al. (2021). ogolcho and kingbird wheatgrass juices have magnesium levels of 23.18 mg/100g and 23.51 mg/100g, respectively. the magnesium amount of both wheatgrass juice kinds is comparable to devi sowjanya et al. (2015) reported wheatgrass juice, which has a magnesium content of 24 mg/100g. wheatgrass contains the same amount of magnesium as broccoli, brussels sprouts, beets, carrots, or celery. in cases of fatty infiltration, this mineral is also important for pulling fat out of the liver (roshan et al., 2021). table 2: mineral contents (mg/100g) of wheatgrass juice variety calcium iron potassium magnesium sodium phosphorus zinc ogolcho 36.2a ± 3.6 0.5a ± 0.04 503.4a ± 31.8 23.18a ± 1.83 8.6a ± 0.84 72.94a ± 2.19 0.32a ± 0.02 kingbird 35.8a ± 2.9 0.4b ± 0.01 395b ± 21.8 23.51a ± 2.09 7.8a ± 0.37 64.18b ± 1.3 0.42a ± 0.01 cv 9.15 6.92 6.08 8.42 7.93 2.63 3.82 lsd 7.48 0.07 61.96 4.46 1.48 4.09 0.03 cv = coefficient of variation; values are mean ± sd and mean values followed by the same letter in a column are not significantly different at a 5% level of significance; lsd = least significance difference. the sodium content of ogolcho and kingbird wheatgrass juices was 8.6 and 7.8 mg/100g, respectively. these values were lower than the 10.3 mg/100g found in wheatgrass juice by padalia et al. (2010). both varieties’ values are also significantly lower than the 655.33 mg/100g wheatgrass juice powder reported by kaur et al. (2021). as a result, wheatgrass was a great source of sodium. the phosphorus content of ogolcho and kingbird wheatgrass juices was 72.94 and 64.18 mg/100g, respectively, and was significantly different (p ≤ 0.05) from each other, with ogolcho having more. the phosphorus content of both wheatgrass juice varieties is comparable to the wheatgrass juice at 75.2 mg/100g reported by padalia et al. (2010). the levels of phosphorus in both varieties of wheatgrass juice were much lower than the 260.86 mg/100 g of wheatgrass powder reported by kaur et al. (2021). zinc level was 0.32 mg/100g in ogolcho wheatgrass juice and 0.42 mg/100g in kingbird wheatgrass juice, respectively. the zinc content of both wheatgrass juice varieties is comparable to the 0.33 mg/100g zinc content reported by padalia et al. (2010). zinc levels in both varieties of wheatgrass juice were lower than the 4.41 mg/100 g of wheatgrass powder reported by kaur et al. (2021). vitamin contents of wheatgrass juice table 3 shows the vitamin a, c, d3, and e concentrations of wheatgrass varieties juice. wheatgrass juice from the ogolcho variety contained 0.15 mg/100 g of vitamin a, 36.35 mg/100 g of vitamin c, 0.018 mg/100 g of vitamin d3, and 0.244 mg/100 g of vitamin e. similarly, https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 29 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 25-30, 2022 wheatgrass juice from the kingbird variety contained 0.15 mg/100 g vitamin a, 31.65 mg/100 g vitamin c, 0.018 mg/100 g vitamin d3, and 0.236 mg/100 g vitamin e. the juice of the ogolcho wheatgrass variety contained significantly more vitamin c (p ≤ 0.05) than the juice of the kingbird wheatgrass variety. the vitamin a content of both wheatgrass juice varieties was 0.15 mg/100 g. the vitamin a content of both wheatgrass juice varieties is comparable to the 427 iu or 0.128 mg/100g reported by padalia et al. (2010). young barley grass (bg) is extremely valuable due to its high content of beta carotene and provitamin a, which act as powerful antioxidants and protect the body from the harmful effects of free radicals and sun rays both externally and internally (brezinová et al., 2010). cv = coefficient of variation; values are mean ± sd and mean values followed by the same letter in a column are not significantly different at a 5% level of significance; lsd = least significance difference. the vitamin c content of the two wheatgrass juice varieties was significantly different (p ≤ 0.05). vitamin c levels in ogolcho and kingbird wheatgrass juice were 36.35 mg/100g and 31.65 mg/100g, respectively. these values were significantly higher than the 3.64 mg/100g found in wheatgrass juice varieties reported by padalia et al. (2010), and chauhan (2014) reported 25.2 mg/100 ml vitamin c contents in wheatgrass juice. citrus fruits, such as lemons, limes, and oranges, are commonly associated with vitamin c in wheatgrass. on the other hand, wheatgrass juice contains more vitamin c than orange (roshan et al., 2021). ogolcho and kingbird wheatgrass juices contained 0.244 and 0.236 mg/100g of vitamin e, respectively. these values were lower than the 1.01 mg/100g observed in wheatgrass juice varieties reported by roshan et al. (2021), as well as the 15.2 iu vitamin e content in wheatgrass juice reported by padalia et al. (2010). vitamin e content (particularly durum cultivar) was found to be higher in the juices of triticum species when compared to other grasses (ozköse et al., 2016). at the same time, einkorn wheatgrass contains more total vitamin e than emmer, durum, and wheat bread (karakas et al., 2021). conclusions wheatgrass is the young grass of the common wheat plant (triticum aestivum), and it can be found growing in all types of environments. wheatgrass juice is good for your health since it contains more protein, bioflavonoids, chlorophyll, minerals like ca, fe, mg, zn, na, k, and p, vitamins like a, c, b, and e, and 17 different amino acids. juice of ogolcho and kingbird bread wheatgrass can be highly recommended as a remedy for different health problems due to its high medicinal potential and health benefits, antioxidant (chlorophyll) content, and therapeutic capabilities. juice of these two varieties could be the greatest alternative in poor nations like ethiopia for the treatment of many disorders such as high blood pressure, diabetes, malnutrition, and so on. extensive research work is needed to characterize and assess more varieties of ethiopian wheat grain for the production of wheatgrass powder and to assess the efficacy of wheatgrass juice in patients suffering from a covid-19 epidemic. references agrawal, a., gupta, e., & chaturvedi, r. (2015). determination of minerals and antioxidant activities at different levels of jointing stage in the juice of wheatgrass-the green wonder. int. j. pure app. biosci, 3(2), 311-316. akbas, e., kilercioglu, m., onder, o.n., koker, a., soyler, b., & oztop, m.h. (2017). wheatgrass juice to wheatgrass powder: encapsulation, physical and chemical characterization. journal of functional foods, 28, 19-27. anwar, d.a., mohammadi, t., & mmf, a. (2015). wheatgrass juice and its nutritional value as affected by sprouting conditions. arab universities journal of agricultural sciences, 23(1), 37-49. aoac. (2012). official methods of analysis of aoac international, 2012c.(19th ed.), aoac international, gaithersburg, md, usa (986.25). arnon, d. i. (1949). copper enzymes in isolated chloroplasts. polyphenoloxidase in beta vulgaris. plant physiology, 24(1), 1. ashish, s., shilpa, k., singh, r.r., sanjay, k., & rajendran, n. (2012). wheatgrass: an alternative household nutritional food security. international research journal of pharmacy, 3(7), 246-250. březinová belcredi, n., ehrenbergerova, j., fiedlerova, v., belakova, s., & vaculova, k. (2010). antioxidant vitamins in barley green biomass. journal of agricultural and food chemistry, 58(22), 11755-11761. chauhan, m. (2014). a pilot study on wheatgrass juice for its phytochemical, nutritional, and therapeutic potential on chronic diseases. international journal of chemical studies, 2(4), 27-34. degraff loraine, r. (2011). the complete guide to growing and using wheatgrass: everything you need to know explained simply-including easy to make recipes. atlantic publishing group inc, florida. table 3: vitamin contents (mg/100g) of wheatgrass juice variety vitamin a vitamin c vitamin d3 vitamin e ogolcho 0.15a ± 0.01 36.35a ± 0.90 0.018a ± 5.7 0.244a ± 0.01 kingbird 0.15a ± 0.01 31.65b ± 0.24 0.018a ± 1.0 0.236a ± 0.01 cv 3.60 1.95 0.45 4.81 lsd 0.01 1.51 0.00 0.02 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 30 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 25-30, 2022 devi sowjanya, k., hariprasath, k., nalini, g.r., veenaeesh, p., & ravichandra, s. (2015). wheatgrass juice (triticum aestivum) linn’a therapeutic tool in pharmaceutical research, an overview. international journal of pharmacy and pharmaceutical research, 3(3), 112-121. freed, m. (ed.). (1966). methods of vitamin assay. interscience publishers. ghumman, a., singh, n., & kaur, a. (2017). chemical, the nutritional and phenolic composition of wheatgrass, and pulse shoots. international journal of food science & technology, 52(10), 2191-2200. karakas, f. p., keskin, c. n., agil, f., & zencirci, n. (2021). profiles of vitamin b and e in wheat grass and grain of einkorn (triticum monococcum spp. monococcum), emmer (triticum dicoccum ssp. dicoccum schrank.), durum (triticum durum desf.), and bread wheat (triticum aestivum l.) cultivars by lc-esi-ms/ms analysis. journal of cereal science, 98, 103177. kaur, n., singh, b., kaur, a., yadav, m.p., singh, n., ahlawat, a.k., & singh, a.m. (2021). effect of growing conditions on proximate, mineral, amino acid, phenolic composition, and antioxidant properties of wheatgrass from different wheat (triticum aestivum l.) varieties. food chemistry, 341, 128201. mogra, r., and rathi, p. (2013). health benefits of wheatgrass–a wonder food. international journal of food and nutritional sciences, 2(4), 10. mujoriya, r., and bodla, r.b. (2011). a study on wheatgrass and its nutritional value. food science and quality management, 2, 1-8. özköse, a., arslan, d., & aysenur, a.c.a.r. (2016). the comparison of the chemical composition, sensory, phenolic, and antioxidant properties of juices from different wheatgrass and turfgrass species. notulae botanicae horti agrobotanici cluj-napoca, 44(2), 499-507. padalia, s., drabu, s., raheja, i., gupta, a., & dhamija, m. (2010). multitude potential of wheatgrass juice (green blood): an overview. chronicles of young scientists, 1(2), 23-28. pasha, i., huma, n., chughtai, m. f. j., jan, s., ahmad, s., manzoor, m. s., & ahmed, f. (2018). biochemical, nutritional and end use perspectives of wheat grass as potential dietary supplement. international journal of biochemistry research & review, 21(1), 1-13. rana, s., kamboj, j.k., & gandhi, v.,2(011). living life the natural way–wheatgrass and health. functional foods in health and disease, 1(11), 444-456. roshan, k., rathore, k.s., bharkatiya, m., goel, p.k., naruka, p.s., & saurabh, s.s. (2021). therapeutic potential of triticum aestivum linn. (wheatgrass or green blood therapy) in the treatment and prevention of chronic and acute diseases: an overview. pharma news. singh, n., verma, p., & pandey, b.r. (2012). therapeutic potential of organic triticum aestivum linn. (wheatgrass) in prevention and treatment of chronic diseases: an overview. international journal of pharmaceutical sciences and drug research, 4(1), 10-14. skoczylas, ł., korus, a., tabaszewska, m., gędoś, k., & szczepańska, e. (2018). evaluation of the quality of fresh and frozen wheatgrass juices depending on the time of grass harvest. journal of food processing and preservation, 42(1), 13401. treadwell, d., hochmuth, r., landrum, l., & laughlin, w. (2020). microgreens: a new specialty crop: hs1164, rev. 9/2020. edis, 2020(5). thammana, m., sreerangam, s., & nambaaru, s. (2016). a mini-review on wheatgrass. research & reviews: journal of pharmacognosy and phytochemistry, 4(3), 13-19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 1 pa ge 1 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) study on some engineering properties of holeta local variety garlic (allium sativum lallium sativum l.) .) grown in ethiopia abe tullo1* volume 1 issue 2, year 2023 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v1i2.1079 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: december 15, 2022 accepted: december 29, 2022 published: december 31, 2022 garlic (allium sativum l.) is an important root vegetable that can be used as a spice in meals and has historically been used as a remedy for various ailments in ethiopia. the physical properties of the garlic bulbs and cloves were determined for use in the prototype design. the result showed that the equatorial diameter, polar diameter, thickness, geometric mean diameter, arithmetic mean diameter, sphericity, shape index, surface area, moisture content, hundred garlic bulb weight, bulk density, and angle of repose of the garlic bulbs were 45.89, 42.86, 30.43, 39.08 and 39.71 mm, 0.86, 1.34, 17.08 cm2, 66%, 2530 g, 596.70 kg/m3, and 49.7o for garlic bulbs, respectively. similarly, the result of the width, length, thickness, geometric mean diameter, arithmetic mean diameter, sphericity, shape index, surface area, hundred garlic cloves weight, bulk density, and angle of repose of the garlic bulbs were 14.44, 31.02, 11.63, 17.15, and 20.07 mm, 0.57, 1.27, 4.06 cm2, 239.4 g, 468.4 kg/m3, and 37.56o for garlic cloves, respectively. therefore, these physical and mechanical properties of garlic bulbs and cloves were used in designing machine parts. keywords angle of repose, bulk density, garlic, physical properties, sphericity 1 oromia agricultural research institute, addis ababa; haramaya university, haramaya, ethiopia * corresponding author’s e-mail: abesokore@gmail.com introduction garlic (allium sativum l.) belongs to the family alliaceae and genus allium and is a shallow root vegetable (seifu et al., 2017). the allium plant is the maximum essential vegetable plant used as a seasoning in maximum ethiopian dishes. among them, onion (allium cepa l.) and garlic (allium sativum l.) are acknowledged as “kitchen queens”, and are taken into consideration as one of the maximum vital herbs for mass manufacturing in ethiopia (selvaraj et al., 2014). garlic is the most used root vegetable after onions in ethiopia. it has been used in many communities in ethiopia as a flavoring agent in food and as a medicinal plant for various ailments (addis and abebaw, 2017), grown both during the main rainy season and under irrigated conditions (csa, 2018). garlic is processed into dehydrated products such as flakes, powders, pickles, canned goods, and bottles. garlic products are sought after in the domestic market for catering and snack industries and are also exported to prominent markets to gain commercial value overseas (channabasamma, 2014). the physical properties of garlic bulbs and cloves are essential for the design and development of the separating device. the size and sphere of the bulb determine the distance between the rubber rollers in the design of the garlic clover. high bulk density affects structural loads (channabasamma, 2014). sajid et al. (2014) reported that the moisture content of garlic (allium sativum l.) was 64.58%. odebunmi et al. 2010 and kimura et al. 2017 also reported 65 and 58.6% moisture content in garlic, respectively. masoumi et al. (2006) compared some physical properties of two common types of iranian garlic cloves (white and pink), their study results showed that at different moisture levels ranging from 34.9% to 56.7% w.b. channabasamma (2014) reported the dimensions of the garlic bulb, such as the pole diameter; the diameter and thickness of the equator are 61.25, 43.21, and 36.00 mm. manjunatha et al. (2008) estimated the physical properties of garlic with 40.50% moisture content on a wet basis namely shape compared with standard chart, diameter, length, width, and thickness in micrometers digital with 0.01 mm accuracy. the length, width, and thickness of shrimp are 1.92-2.91, 0.78-1.32, and 0.69-0.99 cm, respectively (bahnasawy, 2007). dress (2011) studied the physical properties of garlic and cloves, for garlic bulbs: the length (l) ranged from 53.3 to 73.5 mm with an average value of 59.9 mm. the width (w) varies from 51.6 to 67.2 mm with an average value of 58 mm. thickness (t) varies from 39.6 to 51.5 mm with an average value of 45.2 mm, for garlic cloves: length (l) varies from 13.9 to 36.6 mm with a price average value is 26.4 mm. the width (w) varies from 6 to 20 mm with an average value of 11.9 mm. the thickness (t) varies from 4.1 to 13.5 mm with an average value of 8.5 mm. bakhtiari and ahmad (2015) found that the mean length, width, and thickness of garlic cloves were 32.0, 21.8, and 20.9 mm, respectively. the geometric and arithmetic mean diameters of garlic ranged from 2.53 to 4.93 and 2.53 to 5.02 cm, respectively, depending on the bulb size type (bahnasawy, 2007). channabasamma (2014) and rathinakumari et al. (2015) found that the geometric mean diameters of garlic bulbs and garlic cloves were 45.70 mm and 12.55 mm, respectively. dress (2011) studied some physical properties of garlic bulbs and garlic cloves, for garlic bulbs: the diameter of the arithmetic means ranged from 49.5 to 60.6 mm with an average value of 54 .4mm. the geometric mean diameter varies from 48.92 to 59.31 mm with a mean of 53.85 mm, for garlic cloves: the arithmetic means diameter varies from 9.4 to 22.3 https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v1i2.1079 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst mailto:abesokore%40gmail.com?subject= pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(2) 1-7, 2022 mm with an average value of 15.6 mm. the geometric mean diameter varies from 7.6 to 20.6 mm with a mean of 13.7 mm. bakhtiari and ahmad (2015) estimated the geometric and arithmetic mean diameters of garlic cloves to be 24.4 mm and 24.9 mm, respectively. the shape index is used to evaluate the shape of garlic bulbs. it is very important in the design of the sorting and grading machine, it is also used in the peeler. on the other hand, garlic bulbs are considered oval if the shape index is ˃1.5; it is considered spherical if the shape index is <1.5 (bahnasawy, 2007 channabasamma, 2014). the shape index ranged from 1.36 to 1.5 for garlic bulbs reported by bahnasawy (2007) and 0.45 for garlic cloves by channabasamma (2014). according to rathinakumari et al. (2015), the bulb shape index of garlic is 0.74. one hundred garlic bulbs and clove’s weight are important in the design of sheds, seed containers, and the capacity of transport tools (bahnasawy, 2007). the mean weight of cloves (g) was recorded as the mean weight of ten randomly sampled cloves after drying (tadesse, 2015). channabasamma (2014) found that the weights of one hundred garlic bulbs and garlic cloves ranged from 2270.7 to 4849.0 and 260.0 and 392 g, respectively. dress (2011) reported some physical properties of garlic bulbs and garlic cloves, for garlic bulbs: weight from 45.3 to 87.6 g with a mean value of 62.5 g, and for cloves garlic: weight from 0.24 to 5.2 g with a mean value of 1.49 g. bakhtiari and ahmad (2015) estimated the average thousand-grain mass to be 6783.0–8159.3 g. rathinakumari et al. (2015) estimated some physical, mechanical, and aerodynamic properties of garlic at 60.92% moisture content on a dry basis, with a sphericity of 0.51. dress (2011) has studied some physical properties of garlic bulbs and garlic cloves, the mean spherical value for garlic bulbs is 0.9, and for garlic cloves, the mean spherical value is 0.53. according to channabasamma (2014), the bulb sphere of garlic is 0.74. dress (2011) studied some physical properties of garlic bulbs and garlic cloves. for garlic bulbs, the surface ranged from 75.2-110.5 cm2 with an average value of 91.4 cm2 while for garlic cloves, the surface ranged from 1.8 to 13.3 cm2 with an average value is 6.1 cm2. the surface of garlic and clove bulbs ranges from 53.31 to 136.4 cm2 (bahnasawy, 2007). bakhtiari and ahmad (2015) estimated that the average surface area of garlic cloves increased from 1718.3 to 2029.1 mm2 (17.18 to 20.29 cm2). rathinakumari et al. (2015) found the garlic bulb and clove’s bulk densities were 453.5 kg/m3 and 424.94 kg/m3, respectively. dress (2011) studied the physical properties of garlic bulbs and cloves. for garlic bulbs, bulk densities ranged from 0.4 to 0.55 g/cm3, with an average value of 0.45 g/cm3. on the other hand, the bulk density of one garlic clove averaged 0.57 g/cm3, ranging from 0.45 to 0.61 g/cm3. bakhtiari and ahmad (2015) calculated that the average bulk density of garlic cloves increased from 476.3 to 567.4 kg/m3. masoumi et al. (2006) reported 468.8 to 612.8, and 510.2 to 672 kg/m3 for white and pink garlic cloves, respectively. the angle of repose of garlic bulbs reported by bahnasawy (2007) and dress (2011) was 41.52 to 45.04o and 26 to 30.5o, respectively. dress (2011) also reported that the angle of repose of garlic cloves was 39.5–41° (average 38.7°). manjunatha et al. (2008) studied some of the physical and mechanical properties of garlic bulbs in the moisture content range of 23.05 to 40.50% (w.b.), where the angle of repose increased from 25.53° to 37.50°, respectively. in a separate study, according to channabasamma (2014), values for garlic bulbs and cloves ranged from 48.6457.99° and 37-40° respectively. the farmers of arsi and west arsi zones of oromia reginal state requested asella agricultural engineering research center for a machine to separate cloves from garlic bulbs for planting due to the tedious and timeconsuming the traditional method of garlic separation from a compound garlic bulb by hand, which results in hand injuries. there is a machine designed and developed for separating cloves from a garlic bulb in india and china. however, those machines were very expensive and, designed and constructed for garlic varieties available in india and china. therefore, those machines need modification and additional costs due to big differences in the engineering properties of ethiopian garlic varieties from those countries’ garlic varieties. considering the problems mentioned above, to design and construct a low-cost and effective garlic bulb separating machine from row material available in ethiopia, studying the engineering properties of the garlic bulb and clove is very important with the objective of determining the physical and mechanical properties of garlic grown in ethiopia. materials and methods experimental location the study was conducted at the asella agricultural engineering research center and the kulumsa agricultural research center. determination of some engineering properties of the garlic bulbs and cloves was carried out at the asella agricultural engineering research center (aaerc). the moisture content of garlic was analyzed at the kulumsa agricultural research center (karc). experimental materials a 50 kg garlic bulb of holeta local variety was obtained from holeta local market. the study samples were packed in polyethylene plastic bags, transported to kulumsa agricultural research center (karc), and stored at room temperature (25oc) for conduction of moisture content and engineering properties of garlic. determination of the physical properties of garlic bulbs and cloves moisture content of garlic fifteen kilograms of garlic cloves were randomly obtained from the bulk samples, cleaned manually, and removed of all foreign matter such as dust, dirt, stones, chaff, and damaged cloves. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(2) 1-7, 2022 the moisture content of garlic bulbs and cloves was determined by the convection method proposed by madamba et al. (1994). three samples of 15g each were weighed and placed in the oven. the sample was heated at 100±0.5 °c until a constant weight was reached, then the sample was removed and cooled in a desiccator for weighing on an electronic balance. moisture content was calculated according to the following formula and expressed as a percentage (channabasamma, 2014). where mcdb = moisture content dry base, wi = initial weight of the sample, wf = final weight of the sample. linear dimensions 100 garlic bulbs and cloves were randomly selected and their linear dimensions were measured to an accuracy of ± 0.01 mm using a digital caliper (model cd6bsmitutoyo corporation, japan). for garlic bulbs, equatorial diameter (de), pole diameter (dp), and thickness (t) were measured. for garlic cloves, the main dimensions of length (l), width (b), and thickness (t) were measured (bahnasawy, 2007; channabasamma, 2014). geometric mean diameter the geometric mean diameter (dg) of the garlic bulbs and cloves was calculated using equation 22 (bahnasawy, 2007; channabasamma, 2014): where; dg = geometric mean diameter, mm, de = equatorial diameter, mm, dp = polar diameter, mm; t = thickness, mm. arithmetic mean diameter the arithmetic means diameter (dam) of the garlic bulbs and cloves was calculated using equation 23 (bahnasawy, 2007; channabasamma, 2014): where; dam = arithmetic mean diameter, mm. de = equatorial diameter, mm, dp = polar diameter, mm; t = thickness, mm. shape index the shape was calculated using equation 24 (bahnasawy, 2007; channabasamma, 2014): where; de = equatorial diameter, mm, dp = polar diameter, mm, t = thickness, mm. sphericity the sphericity () of the cloves was calculated using equation 25 (bahnasawy, 2007; channabasamma, 2014): where; dg = geometric mean diameter, mm l = length, mm, b = width, mm, t = thickness, mm. surface area the surface area of the bulk sample was found by analogy with a sphere of the same geometric mean diameter, using the following relationship (dress, 2011): s =  × dg 2 (6) where; s = surface area in cm2, dg = geometric mean diameter in cm. bulk density samples of bulbs and garlic cloves were poured to the upper level into containers of known volume. the excess sample was removed to keep the top surface perfectly flat and even. make sure the bulbs and garlic cloves were not broken in any way. the sample inside the vessel was then weighed using an electronic balance. bulk density was the ratio of the mass of the sample to the volume of the container (mohsenin, 1986). this procedure was repeated 5 times (channabasamma, 2014). ρb=ms/vc (7) where; ρb = bulk density, kg/m3, ms = weight of sample in container, (kg), vc = volume of the container, (m3). one hundred garlic bulbs and cloves weight 100 garlic bulbs and 100 garlic cloves were randomly selected and weighed on an electronic scale (model ps200/2000/c/2 radwag, poland) to an accuracy of ±0.001 g and this procedure was repeated 5 times (channabasamma, 2014). angle of repose the dynamic angle of the repose of bulbs and cloves was measured by the emptying method. a metal vessel 125 mm long, 125 mm wide, and 200 mm high was used to determine the dynamic angle of repose of the bulb/ cloves. a detachable front panel 200mm high and 125 mm wide was used to separate the material laterally. after filling and lining up the garlic sets in the container, i quickly pulled the front panel up and pushed it up so the garlic bulbs/garlic cloves poured out. garlic bulbs/ cloves slide out of the container through the open side, forming an inclined surface. after stabilizing the slope of the material, the angle of repose was calculated from the height and length of the garlic sample remaining in the box. this procedure was repeated three times with https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(2) 1-7, 2022 different samples and average values were calculated (channabasamma, 2014). where; 0 = angle of repose in degree, h = height of the sample in mm, l = length of the sample in mm. table 1: dimensional properties of garlic bulbs and cloves at 66% m.c.d.b variables de(mm) dp(mm) t(mm) dg(mm) dam(mm) bulb 45.89±7.97 42.86 ± 7.35 30.43 ± 5.62 39.08 ± 6.42 39.71 ± 6.44 cloves 14.44 ± 3.06 31.02 ± 4.21 11.63 ± 3.31 17.15 ± 2.89 20.07 ± 6.48 where; de = equatorial diameter, dp = polar diameter, t = thickness, dg = geometric mean diameter, dam = arithmetic mean diameter; all values are means of triplicates ± standard deviation figure 1: determination of an angle of repose of garlic bulbs/cloves data analysis all experiments were performed in triplicate. the collected data were analyzed by analysis of variance (anova) using statistical software r (version 3.4.3, 2017). the results are presented using the mean value and standard deviation (mean ± standard deviation). results and discussions the design of garlic bulb processing unit operation is designed based on the physical properties of garlic bulbs and cloves, such as pole and equatorial diameter, length, width, thickness, average diameter, geometric mean diameter, sphericity, weight, bulk density, and angle of repose of garlic bulbs and cloves (channabasamma, 2014). the engineering properties of garlic bulbs and cloves, namely the dimensions, and physical and mechanical properties of garlic bulbs and cloves, are discussed in the following sections. dimensional properties of garlic bulbs and cloves records of dimensional characteristics of the garlic bulb and clove samples such as equatorial diameter, polar diameter, thickness, geometric mean diameter, and average diameter are presented in table.3.1. accordingly, the values were 45.89, 42.86, and 30.43 mm for the first three of the parameters, respectively. similarly, the values for the remaining two parameters indicated in the list are 39.08 and 39.71 mm, respectively. channabasamma (2014) reported garlic bulb size such as pole diameter, equatorial diameter, and thickness was 61.25, 43.21, and 36.00 mm, respectively, which is higher than the values obtained in this study. the garlic clove sizes such as width, length, thickness, geometric mean diameter, and mean diameter were 14.44, 31.02, 11.63, 17.15, and 20.07 mm, respectively. other size records such as length, width, and thickness were shown as 27.30, 10.18, and 7.42 mm as reported by channabasamma (2014), which are lower than the results obtained from the present finding. dress (2011) reported the dimensions of garlic bulbs as 59.90 mm in length, 58.00 mm in width, and 45.20 mm in thickness, which is higher than the result obtained in this work, and for the garlic cloves, values were 26.4 mm in length, 11.9 mm in width, and 8.5 mm in thickness, which again is lower than the results obtained in this work. bakhtiari and ahmad (2015) also found the mean length, width, and thickness of garlic cloves were 32.0, 21.8, and 20.9 mm, respectively, which are higher than the results of the present work. however, values of dimensions of the hundred garlic cloves were comparable with the values of 1.92 to 2.91, 0.78 to 1.32, and 0.69 to 0.99 cm of length, width, and thickness, respectively, of fifteen cloves, which were reported by bahnasawy (2007). the spacing between the rollers was selected based on these sizes (channabasamma, 2014). the geometric average diameters of 100 bulbs and garlic cloves were 39.08 mm and 17.15 mm, respectively. these https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(2) 1-7, 2022 values are lower than the 45.70 mm geometric mean diameter of garlic bulbs and higher than the 12.55 mm geometric mean diameter of garlic cloves reported by channabasamma (2014) and rathinakumari et al. (2015). bakhtiari and ahmad (2015) also estimated the geometric average diameter of garlic cloves to be 24.40 mm, which is higher than the current estimate. the geometric average diameters of the garlic bulbs and cloves determined in this work showed lower values than the geometric mean diameter of garlic bulbs which ranged from 48.92 to 59.31 mm and of the cloves, which ranged from 7.6 to 20.60 mm as reported by dress (2011). however, the geometric mean diameter of values was comparable with those (2.53 to 4.93 cm) of fifteen egyptian garlic varieties reported by bahnasawy (2007). the mean values of the arithmetic average diameters of the one hundred garlic bulbs and cloves were 39.71 mm and 20.07 mm, respectively. these values were lower than the corresponding values of bulbs, which ranged from 49.5 to 60.6 mm (with a mean value of 54.4 mm) as reported by dress (2011). however, the arithmetic means diameter (20.07 mm) of the one hundred cloves was within the range of 9.4 to 22.30 mm (with the mean value of 15.6 mm) recorded by the same author. the arithmetic means diameter values recorded for the cloves in this work were less than the 24.90 mm for cloves reported by bakhtiari and ahmad (2015). on the other hand, these values of the garlic cloves were comparable with the 2.53 to 5.02 cm range reported for fifteen egyptian garlic varieties (bahnasawy, 2007). figure 2: dimensional measurement for garlic bulbs and cloves figure 3: moisture content test of garlic physical characteristics of garlic bulbs and cloves the surface area, sphericity, and shape index values for one hundred bulbs and cloves are shown in table 2. the surface areas of bulbs and garlic cloves were 17.08 cm2 and 4.06 cm2, respectively. these values are less than 75.2 to 110.5 cm2 (with a mean value of 91.4 cm2) and 53.31 to 136.4 cm2 of garlic bulbs reported by dress (2011) and bahnasawy (2007), respectively. however, the values for garlic cloves were in agreement with the values of 1.8 to 13.3 cm2 reported by dress (2011). the values for the cloves (17.08 cm2), were found to be close to the 17.18 to 20.29 cm2 of those reported by bakhtiari and ahmad (2015). table 2: physical properties of garlic bulbs and cloves at 66% m.c.d.b variables wt of 100 pieces (g) bd (kg/m3) ar(0) sa(cm2) φ si bulbs 2530 ± 77.13 596.7 ± 36.67 49.7 ± 2.06 17.08 ± 6.94 0.86 ± 0.03 1.34 ± 0.23 cloves 239.4 ± 9.07 468.4 ± 20.94 37.56 ± 1.89 4.06 ± 1.17 0.57 ± 0.07 1.27 ± 0.12 where; wt = weight of 100 garlic bulb and clove, bd = bulk density, ar = angle of repose, sa = surface area, ϕ = sphericity, si = shape index; all values are means of triplicates ± standard deviation the sphericity of garlic bulbs and cloves were 0.86 and 0.57, respectively. these values are comparable with the 0.9 and 0.53 of the garlic bulbs and cloves, respectively, reported by dress (2011) and with the 0.559 of garlic cloves reported by hacıseferoğulları (2005). these values were greater than 0.74 for garlic bulbs and 0.51 for the cloves, as reported by channabasamma (2014) and rathinakumari et al. (2015). the shape index was 1.34 and 1.27 for bulbs and cloves, respectively. the bulb and clove shape index values were higher than 0.74 for garlic bulbs reported by rathinakumari et al. (2015) and 0.45 for garlic cloves by channabasamma (2014), but less than the 1.36 to 1.5 for garlic bulbs reported by bahnasawy (2007). garlic bulbs are considered spherical because the garlic bulb shape index is <1.5 (channabasamma, 2014). therefore, the current result showed the shapes of both garlic bulbs and cloves of the studied holeta variety are spherical. the shapes of garlic bulbs and cloves are very important in selecting the clearance between rollers. physical properties of garlic bulbs and cloves such as weight of one hundred pieces, moisture content, bulk density, and angle of repose are presented in table 3.2. the weights of one hundred pieces were 2530 and 239.4 g for garlic bulbs and cloves, respectively. these values were greater than the 45.3 to 87.6 g (with the mean value https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(2) 1-7, 2022 of 62.5 g) of garlic bulbs and 0.24 to 5.2 g (with the mean value of 1.49 g) of the cloves reported by dress (2011) and less than the 260 to 392 g of the garlic cloves reported by channabasamma (2014) and the 6783.0 to 8159.3g for one thousand pieces or 678.3 to 815.93 g for one hundred pieces of garlic cloves by bakhtiari and ahmad (2015). the weight of one hundred pieces determined in this work was comparable with the weight of a similar number of cloves reported by channabasamma (2014), which ranged from 2270.7 to 4849g. these characteristics are used in the design of the machine hopper capacity. the moisture contents of garlic cloves in this work were 66% db. kimura et al. (2017) and channabasamma (2014) reported the moisture contents of garlic of 58.6% and 59.36%, respectively, which are lower than the present finding. however, odebunmi et al. (2010) and sajid et al. (2014) reported moisture content of 65 and 64.58%, respectively, which are relatively close to the result obtained in this work. the bulk densities recorded in this study were 596.70 and 468.40 kg/m3 for garlic bulbs and cloves, respectively. these values were greater than the 453.50 kg/m3 and 424.94 kg/m3 reported for bulbs and cloves, respectively (rathinakumari et al., 2015). the values were also greater than the 453.5 and 424.94 kg/m3 reported by channabasamma (2014) for garlic bulbs and cloves, respectively. the values were in agreement with the 476.3 to 567.4 kg/m3 reported by bakhtiari and ahmad (2015) for garlic cloves. the values were less than the 468.8 to 612.8, and 510.2 to 672 kg/m3 reported by masoumi et al. (2006) for white and pink cloves of garlic, respectively. the angle of repose of bulb and cloves of broken garlic were 49.7 and 37.56o, respectively. the results obtained in this work were greater than the values reported by bahnasawy (2007) and dress (2011), which ranged from 41.52 to 45.04o and 26 to 30.5o (with a mean value of 28.5o) for garlic bulbs, respectively. dress (2011) also reported 39.5 to 41o (with a mean value of 38.7o) for garlic cloves which are more close to the current finding. however, the findings for bulbs and cloves were comparable to the 48.64 – 57.99º and 37 – 40º, respectively, reported by channabasamma (2014). these results were used to determine the inclination of the feed hopper and the accommodation chute of the garlic bulb separator. the feed hopper and collection chute were fixed at an angle of 77.27 and 45° respectively, which was greater than the angle of repose of the bulb and clove of broken garlic. this made the cloves easier to pour. conclusions and recommendations garlic (allium sativum l.) is the most widely used root vegetable after onions and is mainly produced as a seasoning for food and has medicinal value for various diseases in ethiopia. this research work has concluded that the engineering properties of holeta’s local variety of garlic bulbs and cloves were determined to generate data that was used for designing the prototype machine. the dimensional properties of garlic bulbs, based on 100 pieces sample, were 45.89 mm equatorial diameter, 42.86 mm polar diameter, and thickness of 30.43 mm. similarly, the dimensional properties of the cloves were 31.02 mm in length, 14.44 mm in width, and 11.63 mm in thickness. other physical properties of garlic bulbs indicated average values of 17.08 cm2 for surface area, 0.86 for sphericity, 2530 g, as the weight of hundred bulbs, moisture content of 66%, bulk density of 596.7 kg/m3, angle of repose of 49.700, and shape index of 1.34. likewise, the cloves exhibited an average surface area of 4.06 cm2, sphericity value of 0.57, 239.4 g weight of hundred clove pieces, 468.4 kg/m3 bulk density, 37.560 the angle of repose, and 1.27 shape index as physical and mechanical properties of garlic cloves. these physical and mechanical properties were used in designing machine parts. the studies of engineering properties of other garlic varieties should be considered in the future. references addis, w., & abebaw, a. (2017). determination of heavy metal concentration in soils used for cultivation of allium sativum l. (garlic) in east gojjam zone, amhara region, ethiopia. cogent chemistry, 3(1), 1419422. bahnasawy, a.h. (2007). some physical and mechanical properties of garlic. international journal of food engineering, 3(6). bakhtiari, m.r., & ahmad, d. (2015). determining physical and aerodynamic properties of garlic to design and develop a pneumatic garlic clove metering system. agricultural engineering international: cigr journal, 17(1). channabasamma, b.b. (2014). development of a motorized garlic bulb breaker (doctoral dissertation). http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/81244. csa (central statistical agency). (2018). the federal democratic republic of ethiopia central statistical agency agricultural sample survey 2017/18. report on area and production of major crops. stat bull 586(1), addis ababa, ethiopia, p&nbsp. 11–23 dress, a.m. (2011). physical and mechanical properties of garlic relating rubbing and planting machines. misr journal of agricultural engineering, 28(3), 571-588. hacıseferoğulları, h., özcan, m., demir, f. and çalışır, s. (2005). some nutritional and technological properties of garlic (allium sativum l.). journal of food engineering, 68(4), 463-469. kimura, s., tung, y.c., pan, m.h., su, n.w., lai, y.j. and cheng, k.c. (2017). black garlic: a critical review of its production, bioactivity, and application. journal of food and drug analysis, 25(1), 62-70. madamba, p.s., driscoll, r.h. and buckle, k.a. (1994). bulk density, porosity, and resistance to airflow of garlic slices. drying technology, 12(4), 937-954. manjunatha, m., samuel, d.v.k. and jha, s.k. (2008). some engineering properties of garlic (allium sativum l.). journal of agricultural engineering, 45(2), 1823. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(2) 1-7, 2022 masoumi, a.a., rajabipour, a., tabil, l.g. and akram, a.a. 2006. physical attributes of garlic (allium sativum l.). journal of agricultural science and technology (jast), 8(1), 15-23. mohsenin, n.n. (1986). physical properties of plant and animal material. (revised) gordon and breach science publishers new york. odebunmi, e.o., oluwaniyi, o.o. and bashiru, m.o. (2010). comparative proximate analysis of some food condiments. journal of applied sciences research, 6(3), 272-274. rathinakumari, a.c., channabasamma, b.b. and kumaran, g.s. (2015). the physical and mechanical properties of garlic bulbs and cloves (allium sativum l.) are relevant to the development of garlic bulb breakers. international journal of tropical agriculture, 33(2), 1881-1887. sajid, m., butt, m.s., shehzad, a. and tanweer, s. (2014). chemical and mineral analysis of garlic: a golden herb. pakistan journal of food sciences, 24(1), 108-110. seifu, w., yemane, t., bedada, s., alemu, t. and boshoftu, e. (2017). evaluation of different mulching practices on garlic (allium sativum l.) growth parameters under irrigated condition in fiche, north shoa ethiopia. evaluation, 7(9). selvaraj, t., tadele, s. and amin, m. 2014. white rot (sclerotium cepivorum berk)-an aggressive pest of onion and garlic in ethiopia: an overview. journal of agricultural biotechnology and sustainable development, 6(1), 6-15. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 1 pa ge 18 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) molds and mycotoxins in food value chain: a challenge to food and nutrition security adeoye b. a.1*, fadesire a. k.2, nyam p. n.4, olukotun g. b.1, labbo z.1, ahmadu j. h.1, egbulefu c. s.1 shanu m. a.3, busari a. k.1, mbochi c. a.3 volume 2 issue 2, year 2023 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i2.1932 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: july 20, 2023 accepted: august 17, 2023 published: september 07, 2023 due to postharvest losses on fresh produce, most farmers apply simple and affordable open sun-drying in-between harvest and the final consumers but this method causes the growth of mold and fungi in processed food. hence, the objective of this study was to isolate and characterize molds associated with the drying of plantain chips, and post-drying handling of catfish and cassava peels using standard laboratory procedures. one gram (1gm) of respective samples of plantain chips, dried fish, and cassava peel was taken and crushed in a mortar, 1g of each was serially diluted up 10-6 fold, and 0.1ml of each was pour-plated in potato dextrose agar modified with chloramphenicol and incubated for 72 hours at 280c. thereafter, discrete colonies were counted and characterized using standard laboratory procedures. a total of eight fungal isolates were identified which were aspergillus flavus, rhizopus sp., aspergillus niger, fusarium sp., penicillium digitatum, aspergillus fumigatus, mucor sp., neurospora sp. the mean fungal counts of cassava peels revealed that the samples recorded the highest mean fungal counts which were by mucor sp. (24.1x106 cfu/g) while catfish had the lowest overall mean counts (3.2x106 cfu/g). but aspergillus niger had the lowest counts of (2.7x106 cfu/g) in plantain chips. the total mean fungal count at ratio: catfish (31.4), plantain chips (37.6), and cassava peel (111). in conclusion, several findings from this work showed that samples dried under the sun in the studied area were contaminated with mycotoxin-producing microbes that could lead to their early decay, deterioration and loss of nutrients. keywords fungi, consumer, mycotoxin, molds, food value chain, nutrition security 1 national biotechnology development agency, musa yaradua express way, lugbe, fct, abuja, nigeria 2 department of nutrition and dietetics, siihst makarfi campus kaduna state university, nigeria 3 department of nutrition and dietetics, school of health, makarfi, kaduna state, nigeria 4 department of social sciences, siihst markarfi campus kaduna state university, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: benadeoye98@gmail.com introduction in developing countries like nigeria, farming activity is increasing due to the daring need to feed the evergrowing population. several of these population lives in urban areas requiring a lot of food and material supplies for themselves and their livestock. fish is one of the most nutritious food sources for humans due to their high protein content. as such, they are very suitable for microorganisms as a growth medium (lina et al., 2021). the growth of these organisms coupled with lipid degradation often leads to the spoilage of this important product. high environmental temperature and moisture often create conducive conditions for this deterioration which eventually reduce the quality of fish and its keeping time and shelf life (sean t. hammond et al., 2015). plantain chips are known to be an attractive nourishing essential food in certain areas of african countries slated due to their nutritional content. the immature, plantain is developed into a powdery form/state using the usual local sun-drying procedure and method to process, in other reduce/maintain the moisture content to extend its shelf life and retain the quality (marina et al., 2019). microbial population growth rates depend on environmental conditions, temperature is key to metabolic rates/action and growth of food-spoiling microbes (sean t. hammond et al., 2015). the continued growth of mold and fungi in processed food produces mycotoxins in its food resulting in spoilage via spores that germinate and form visible mycelium before the end of processing (p. battalini, 2008). mycotoxins are poisonous toxic secondary metabolites produced by fungi naturally; they are of low molecular weight not contagious or infectious but can be found on plant/food products generally, they are capable of causing acute/intoxication and spoilage (mohammed s. s. d. et al., 2013). in this part of the world, farm produces are usually in abundance during the rainy season thereby making foods surplus, leading to either wastage or farmers being forced to sell at cheap prices leading to serious loss of input capital, profit, and effort. slow drying especially during the high-humid period results in mold buildup by different types of microflora and subsequent associated health risks. controlling moisture can prevent fungi growth. therefore, this study aimed to assess fungi associated with dried catfish, plantain chips, and cassava peels during open sun-drying and storage, as well as the health risks from mycotoxin-producing molds. materials and methods study area the study was carried out at the microbiology laboratory of the food and industrial biotechnology department of the national biotechnology development agency, pa ge 19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 18-22, 2023 lugbe, federal capital territory, nigeria. i tried, but see below for best google map location, thanks food (pitt, j.i., hocking, a.d., 2009). the fungi isolated were identified microscopically using simple staining techniques where two to three (2-3) drops of lactophenol cotton blue stain were added to a cut portion of the growing fungi under a cover slip and observed with oil immersion under the microscope. biochemical tests were carried out according to the methods described by harrigan and mccance (1976) as well as seeley and van demark (1972) on morphology, motility, spore staining, catalase, coagulase production, starch hydrolysis, and sugar fermentation. (onyeze et al., 2019). personal protective equipment (ppe) such as respirators/ nose masks, goggles, gloves, and lab coats was used considering the number one laboratory rule, which is safety first so that researchers were well protected. also putting into consideration spore from the fungal. the usage of laminar flow hood during pour-plating. the fungi were killed via proper decontamination burgener, j. (2006) before discarding to avoid exposing the environment to hazardous and pathogenic organisms. results biochemical test figure 1: new view of study area using google map sample collection a total of ten (10) african catfish were randomly obtained from river niger bank, marine road in lokoja where drying of fish was done by some local processors. five (5) plantain chips undergoing open sun-drying were also randomly collected and were carefully packed into polythene bags separately and labelled. open sun-drying cassava peels were obtained from garri processing centre at lokongoma phase ii. all materials were transported to the microbiology laboratory for mycological analysis. isolation and characterization of fungi one gram (1g) of the respective sample was measured and mashed using a mortar and a pestle and was added to nine milliliters (9ml) of pre-sterilized sterile peptone water and, serially diluted up to 10-6 fold. afterwards, 1ml from 10-2, 10-4, and 10-6 suspensions of the samples (catfish, plantain chips, and cassava peels) were pour-plated using freshly prepared potato dextrose agar previously modified by adding chloramphenicol antibiotics to suppress bacteria growth. the mixture was then gently swirled to mix and allowed to gel after which the plates were incubated at 280c for three to five (3-5) days. after the incubation period, the discrete colonies that emerged were counted, characterized, and purified by sub-culturing several times and then the pure cultures were maintained on the modified potato dextrose agar slants as stock until further use, media suitable for the enumeration, isolation, and identification of fungi from test results spore staining sporangia conidiospores sporangiospores sugar fermentation glucose (+) maltose (+) galatose (+) hydrolysis (+) spore staining fungi spore hyphae fruiting structure stains blue while the background stains blue catalase most are a catalyst (-ve) motility non-motile morphology generally the hyphae grew and form a network on known mycelia starch hydrolysis (+) enumeration of fungi colonies that developed after incubation were subjected to counting. the total fungal counts were expressed as spore/g. fungi load of the selected food/feed samples table 1: the occurrence of fungal isolates associated with the samples fungal isolate fungal counts on sample (x106 cfu/g) catfish plantain chips cassava peels aspergillus flavus 4.2 5.3 rhizopus sp. 4.9 23.2 pa ge 20 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 18-22, 2023 figure 2: relative occurrence of fungi on the samples a close observation of table 1 for total fungal counts and prevalence shows that cassava peels had the highest. (fig. 2) shows relative occurrence in samples comparison. discussion from the study shown in table 1, the mean fungal counts of cassava peels revealed that the samples recorded the highest mean fungal counts which were by mucor sp. (24.1x106 cfu/g) while catfish had the lowest overall mean counts overall but aspergillus niger had the lowest counts of 2.7x106 cfu/g in plantain chips. a total of eight fungal isolates were identified which aspergillus flavus, rhizopus sp., aspergillus niger, fusarium sp., penicillium digitatum, aspergillus fumigatus, mucor sp., neurospora sp. and aspergillus fumigatus was not found on catfish and plantain chips. most of the organisms found in these samples are those commonly found in air and soil environments as should be expected and reported, aspergillus niger is most commonly found in mesophilic environments such as decaying vegetation or soil and plant materials (belli et al., 2004). in general terms, fungi grow and survive in optimal conditions most especially in humid environments. hence, they require a certain moisture level which if provided by foods during processing could lead to their growth and eventual spoilage (essono et al., 2007). a close observation of table 1 for fungal counts and prevalence shows that cassava peels had the total highest fungal count (fig. i) and prevalence for aspergillus niger when compared with other samples. this revealed that all is not well with the food materials studied owing to the fungi quality present in the three products; catfish, plantain chips, and cassava peels processed in the area selected. the isolation of pathogenic and spoilage fungi such as aspergillus flavus in this work raises public health concerns about safety in consuming the products because of the mycotoxins they might contain. the presence of the identified fungi in the products is attributed mainly to the high moisture contents of the atmosphere followed by poor handling by the processors. the mean fungal counts of cassava peels revealed that the samples recorded the highest mean fungal counts which was by mucor sp (24.1x106 cfu/g) while catfish had the lowest overall mean counts overall but aspergillus niger had the lowest counts of 2.7x106 cfu/g in plantain chips. this result exceeded the range of specified microbiological limits recommended for products meant for human consumption (roberts et al., 1996). the results of this study were in no contradiction but similar to previous studies, such that the observation might be due to the fact that aspergillus niger is common in the soils from where cassava roots were drugged out (awuah and akrasi, 2007). also, cassava tubers are usually not washed thoroughly before being peeled. this might be the reason for the high incidence of the organism on the peel. this account agrees with several reports such as those of (arotupin and akinyosoye, 2006) in their work on the microbiological and physicochemical characteristics of cassava cultivated soils. in a similar observation, aspergillus niger was the dominant fungal on plantain chips (6.2x106 cfu/g). conversely, however, fusarium sp. recorded the highest occurrence of catfish (6.2x106). the obtained result might be attributed to poor postdrying handling of the fish samples and supported by the fact that fungi have the ability to grow and survive in a wide range of temperatures such as 6-47°c and ph range of 1.4-9.8 (morya and yadav, 2009). (ajay et al., 2011) also reported aspergillus niger as one of the commonest microorganisms associated with smoked fish. it was also reported that mucor sp. thrives in soil, plants, manure, decaying fruits, and vegetables; hence, they are regarded as a common contaminant of stored and processed foods in the kitchen (adebayo-tayo et al., 2008). the incidence of mucor species causing disease in man has been reported because of their ability to grow and thrive at high temperatures (thermo-tolerant status). table1 shows that mucor sp. was present in all the samples. this could be attributed to the storage conditions of the food and feed materials by the fish handlers especially the facilities used for their processing as well as the exposure to the environment because all the fungi produce spores that make them ubiquitous in nature (krijgsheld et al., 2013). generally speaking, the growth and high occurrence of fungi populations and mycotoxins in dried fish products aspergillus niger 4.0 2.7 23.6 fusarium sp. 6.2 3.8 2.1 penicillium digitatum 4.3 5.2 1.2 aspergillus fumigatus 21.3 mucor sp. 3.2 6.2 24.1 neurospora sp 3.3 3.2 total 31.4 37.6 111 pa ge 21 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 18-22, 2023 cause spoilage and pose a potential health threat to consumers as reported earlier by (yijia deng et al., 2021). several findings from this work showed that samples dried under the sun in the studied area were contaminated with mycotoxin-producing microbes that could cause their early decay, deterioration and loss of nutrients, which pose a potential health threat to consumers awareness has been created with the result of this research work that slows drying in humid environments aids molds and mycotoxins production that constitutes health and nutrition challenges, hence hindering food security. this research work is relevant in providing a solution to the challenge of food and nutrition security by alerting food processors to the danger of the slow drying process involved in the humid environment. further implementation – this will be to conduct further research on different drying temperature range to ascertain the best drying temperature that can minimize the growth of mycotoxin-producing microbes for each sample; catfish, cassava peel, and plantain chips respectively. conclusion it was concluded that the foods and feed products processed in the lokongoma, market/centers in lokoja, kogi state nigeria were contaminated with pathogenic and spoilage microbes that thrive due to the presence of high humidity via slow drying. the findings from this work show that smoked catfish dried under the sun in the studied area were contaminated with fungi that could lead to their deterioration and loss of nutrients. exposure of cassava peels to conditions that accelerate fungal growth poses a danger to the health of animals since little or no processing is done afterwards. recommendation based on the findings it was recommended that: 1. drying of human food materials/food stuff be done using a hot air oven to prevent the growth and multiplication of mycotoxin-producing microbes 2. centralized food processing equipment be established in the hinterlands for the rural folks. conflict of interest no conflict of interest. references adebayo-tayo, b. c., onilude, a. a. and ukpe, p. g. (2008): mycofloral of smoke-dried fishes sold in uyo, eastern nigeria. world journal of agricultural sciences, 4(3), 346-350. ajay, k. g, sushil, s., shubhi, a. and rekha, b. (2011). diversity, pathogenicity and toxicology of a. niger: an important spoilage fungi. research journal of microbiology, 6(3), 270-280. arotupin d. j. and akinyosoye f. a. (2006). microbiological and physicochemical characteristics of cassava cultivated soils” nigerian journal of microbiology, 20(3), 13611369. awuah, r.t. and k.o. akrasi (2007). supression of rot of yam caused by aspergillus niger with a yam rhizobacterium. afr. crop sci. conf. proc., 8, 875-879. belli, n., e., pardo, s., marın, g., farre, a.j. r. and sanchis, v. (2004): occurrence of ochratoxin a and toxigenic potential of fungal isolates from spanish grapes. j. sci. food agric., 84, 541-546. burgener, j. (2006). applied biosafety. 11(4), 228-230 deng, y., wang, y., deng, q., sun, l., wang, r., ye, l., ... & gooneratne, r. (2021). fungal diversity and mycotoxin contamination in dried fish products in zhanjiang market, china. food control, 121, 107614. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2020.107614 essono, g., m., ayodele, a., akoa, j., foko, s., olemb and gock, j. (2007): aspergillus species on cassava chips in storage in rural areas of southern cameroon: their relationship with storage duration, moisture content and processing methods. afr. j. microbiol., 1, 1-8. hammond, sean. t., brown, j. h., burger, j. r., flanagan, t. p., fristoe, t. s., mercado-silva, n., ... & okie, j. g. (2015). food spoilage, storage, and transport: implications for a sustainable future. bioscience, 65(8), 758-768. pitt, j. i., hocking, a. d., pitt, j. i., & hocking, a. d. (1997). methods for isolation, enumeration and identification. fungi and food spoilage, 21-57.https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-92207-2_4 krijgsheld, p., bleichrodt, r., and van veluw, g.j.(2013). development in aspergillus. stud mycol. 2013, 74, 1–29. lina, s., luxin, w. (2021): the microbial safety of fish and fish products: recent advances in understanding its significance, contamination sources, and control strategies; comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety, 20(1), 738-786. marina, v. z., baishali, d., donald, g. m., heather , l. m. l.., and marianne, f. t. (2019). assessment of moisture content measurement methods of dried food products in small-scale operations in developing countries: a review; trends in food science & technology; 88( june 2019), 484-496. mohammed s. s. datsugwai, bala ezekiel, yunusa audu, muhammad i. legbo, yakubu azeh, muhammsd r. gogo (2013): mycotoxins: toxigenic fungal compounds – a review. https://www.reseachgate. net/publication/309458374 morya, v.k. and yadav, d. (2009): isolation and screening of different isolates of aspergillus for amylases production. internet j. microbiol., 7. onyeze, r., udeh, s. m., akachi, b., & ugwu, o. p. (2013). isolation and characterization of fungi associated with the spoilage of corn (zea mays). international journal pharma medicine and biological science, 2(2013), 86-91. https;//doi.org/10.18178/ijpmbs p. battilani. (2008). food mycology – a multifaceted approach to fungi and food. https;//doi.org/10.3920/ wmj2008.x017 pa ge 22 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 18-22, 2023 roberts, d., hoober, w. and greenwood, m. (1996) practical food microbiology. public health laboratory, london seeley h. w. and van demark p.j (1972). microbes in action a laboratory manual (2nd edition). xii und 361 s., freeman & co. wilkie francis harrigan, margaret e. mccance. (1976). laboratory method in food and dairy microbiology (revised edition) dsa 29,2541. cabdirect.org pa ge 1 pa ge 46 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) quality of fortified zea mays l (maize) and triticum durum (wheat) flours abel alberto massingue júnior1*, bernabé bernardo massie1, francisco josé luís sigauque1, anastância amadeu dimande1 géssica dalberty fernandes1 volume 2 issue 2, year 2023 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i2.1997 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: september 27, 2023 accepted: october 30, 2023 published: november 04, 2023 maize flour is obtained through the milling process and contributes about 20% energy and 15% protein. wheat flour is rich in starch (70 to75%), water (12 to 14%), protein (8 to16%), a small portion of non-starch polysaccharides (2 to 3%), lipids (2%) and ash (1%). this study aimed to evaluate the centesimal quality of maize and wheat flour. 8 samples of flour were evaluated, being 2 ((first choice and mpupu) and 6 of wheat flour (faspão, babita, xiluva, eagle, pasta and ntombi)). moisture by loss on dissection at 105°c, ash by incineration, fat by goldfish method, protein by biuret method, fulling number by reading on mininfra grain analyzer scan-t, gluten, wet and dry by glutomatic system, gluten index by centrifugation and fiber by enzymatic-gravimetric method were determined as quality parameters. the results showed fat content 0.61 to 1.59%, moisture 13.3 and 13.4%, fiber 0.22 to 0.38% and protein around 5.99 to 7.09% for the corn flours. moisture ranging from 13.6 to 13.8%, protein from 10.30 to 11.22%, ash from 0.50 to 0.70%, water absorption from 58.23 to 59.73%, falling number 276 to 354s, gluten around 24 to 29.1%, gluten index from 0 to 95%, wet gluten from 28.46 to 29.80 and dry gluten ranging from 9.36 to 10.50%. no significant differences were observed among the wheat flour samples for moisture, protein, ash, water absorption and wet gluten. significant differences were found for falling number (fn), gluten and dry gluten. there was sufficient evidence of compliance with the flour quality criteria. keywords centesimal composition, farinography, rheological analysis, wheat and corn flours 1 department of food processing engineering, higher polytechnic institute of gaza, faculty of agriculture, mozambique * corresponding author’s e-mail: abelmassingue7@gmail.com introduction maize (zea mays l.) is a cereal of great importance worldwide, in countries of africa, latin america and part of asia maize contributes about 20% of energy and 15% of protein, in some cases maize constitutes the only source of protein for some populations (castro, 2008). the maize flour is obtained through the milling process, in which the grain is broken in order to remove the endosperm separating it from the bran and germ and reduce its size (giacomelli et al., 2012). in order to be transformed into flour for human consumption, maize undergoes some transformations. obtaining corn flour can be done in two ways, wet and dry. the process commonly used by agroindustries in the transformation of this cereal is dry milling, this due to the small need for machinery and the simplicity in the execution of the process (marcolin, 2018). in the wet milling process, the production of several by-products is favored, with starch being the most important. (marques, 2016). the word wheat is derived from the term triticum, which means broken, crushed in allusion to the process carried out for the separation of the grain from its coating. the designation “wheat” is applied to the plant as well as its seed (monho, 2013). white wheat flour is obtained by grinding the endosperm of the cereal, preceded by the separation of the germ and bran, thus obtaining more palatable products (scheuer et al., 2011). the quality of wheat grain and flour depends on the purpose of the product, thus assuming different meanings, these characteristics can be divided into physical, chemical enzymatic and rheological. among the physical-chemical tests can be found the hectoliter weight, protein, ash or fixed mineral residue and, the rheological tests, falling number, gluten content (dry and wet) and farinography (módenes et al., 2009). according to vedovati (2017), most of the composition of wheat flour is starch (70-75%), water (12-14%), protein (8-16%), a small portion of non-starch polysaccharides (2-3%), lipids (2%) and ash (1%). these values are variable according to the wheat cultivar. the proteins present in wheat are directly related to the extensibility and elasticity of the dough, a flour considered ideal for baking must present qualitative and quantitative fractions of glutenins and gliadins, which directly influence the rheological properties of gluten. the structural and functional properties of starch, in turn, influence the texture, consistency, moisture, appearance and shelf life of foods (costa, 2013). according to lamke & amorim (2013), the processing of food (wheat and corn) for the elaboration of industrialized foods covers several stages, from the production and selection of raw materials, to the storage and final distribution of the products. foods are processed into food products to make them more practical and attractive, in addition, the technologies employed by the industry allow the increase of the shelf life of the food and the enrichment of the products with vitamins and minerals. the quality control of these same products ensures the elaboration of products in accordance with the quality pa ge 47 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 46-53, 2023 standards required and measured by the regulatory bodies (paula & nantes, 2017). the present research aimed to characterize the centesimal composition of fortified maize and wheat flours. materials and methods sample collection 2 maize flour samples ((first choice and mpupu) and 6 wheat flour samples (faspão, babita, xiluva, eagle, pasta and ntombi)), packed in polypropylene bags, were randomly purchased from commercial markets in beira city. the samples were coded according to the point of collection and were taken to the laboratory of food hygiene for analysis. determination of centesimal composition and rheology the moisture content, ash, fat, protein, fiber and water absorption (w.a) were evaluated for the centesimal composition and the rheological parameters were evaluated for gluten content, falling number, wet gluten, dry gluten and gluten index following the methods described by ial (2008) & lins (2021). moisture content moisture was determined by the gravimetric method. for this purpose, 5g of flour was previously ground in a mortar, added in a petri dish previously weighed on an analytical balance adam brand of 0.0001g precision, dissected in an oven of the brand (ecotherm) with circulating air at 105ºc for 2 hours, then cooled to room temperature (±25º). equation 1 was used for moisture determination. % moisture= ((pi-pf))/pi*100 (1) where: piinitial weight of the sample; pffinal weight of the sample. determination of fat the fat content was determined by the goldfish method. 5g of the sample was subjected to direct fat extraction with petroleum ether, extracting (55°c) for 4 hours in a goldfish apparatus. expression 2 was used to determine the fat percentage. % fat content= ((capsule weight+fat)capsule weight))/(capsule weight)*100 (2) ashes in an analytical balance of adam brand with 0.0001g of precision, 5g of the sample was weighed in porcelain crucibles and placed in a muffle furnace brand (optil ivymen) at a temperature of 550°c until verification of incineration. the crucibles were then transferred to an oven at 105o c for 30 minutes with emphasis on lowering the temperature, followed by weighing them with the incinerated sample in inorganic matter. the percentage of ash was determined based on equation 3. % ashes content= ((m2-m))/((m1-m))*100 (3) where: m crucible weight; m1weight of crucible with wet sample; m2 weight of crucible with ash. proteins protein contents were determined by the biuret method, where 300 µl of each extract (prepared in the proportion: 10 g of flour and 90 ml of water) were mixed with 2000 µl of biuret reagent and left in a dark place for 30 minutes to give a purple color complex, and then the absorbance was read at 540 nm, in a spectrophotometer of the brand (yoke) previously zeroed with distilled water. the protein content of the samples was determined by extrapolation using a calibration curve consisting of casein in proportions from 0 to 10 mg/ml. fibers fiber was determined by the enzymatic-gravimetric method, where in triplicate 1g of treated sample previously passed through 32 mesh sieve was weighed. the samples were mixed with 40 ml of mes-tris buffer solution with ph 8.2 and 50 μg of heat-resistant ɑ-amylase. the samples were then covered with aluminum foil and placed in a water bath at 95-100°c for 35 minutes with continuous stirring. removed the beakers and cooled to (60±1) ºc, 100 μl of protease solution was added and again placed in a water bath. subsequently, 5 ml of 0.561 hydrochloric acid was added to the samples under stirring. at constant temperature the ph was adjusted (4.0-4.7) by adding 1m sodium hydroxide solution. 300 μl of amyloglucosidase solution was added, covered with aluminum foil and again placed in a water bath. subsequently, the content obtained from the enzymatic treatment was measured. the mixture was mixed with 95% alcohol at 60°c in a 4:1 ratio, covered with aluminum foil and left to stand for one hour at room temperature. at the end of the process, the previously weighed crucible was positioned in a kitassato coupled to a vacuum tube. 15ml of 78% alcohol was added and the alcoholic solution containing the alcoholic solution containing hydrolysis residue. the residue was washed with two portions of 15 ml of 95% alcohol and acetone, and the crucibles were dried in an oven at 100°c. the fiber was determined based on equation 4. % of fibers= (rt-p-c-bt)/m*100 (4) where: rt total residue of sample; bttotal residue of blank; c ash of the sample; m mass of the sample outlet; p protein content. falling number determination through the humidity obtained in the reading in the mininfra grain analyser scan-t, it was determined the required amount of sample for the analysis in the falling number table, with the weight found, it was weighed the amount found in the table according to the humidity of the flour in an analytical balance, subsequent addition pa ge 48 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 46-53, 2023 of 4.5ml of distilled water in a test tube. then, with the aid of funnel was introduced with subsequent homogenization for 30 seconds, then the sample already prepared was placed in the equipment (“falling number” fn 1000 -perten instruments. stirring for 60 seconds at the end of the test, the result of the alpha amylase activity present in the flour was obtained. water absorption (wa) water absorption was determined according to the method described by wang et al. (2006). 5g of sample was weighed into a 50 ml centrifuge tube and 30 ml of distilled water was added. the sample was shaken for 30 s with a glass rod. the contents were left to stand for 10 min and then the sample was centrifuged at 2300 rpm for 25 min. the supernatant was decanted and drained. the tube was placed tilted downwards (angle of 15° to 20°) in an oven at 50°c with air circulation for 25 min. the tube was cooled in a desiccator and weighed. the water absorption was calculated in relation to 100g of sample. determination of gluten the gluten content analysis was performed in the gluten determinator system (glutomatic, centrifuge and glutork). for this, 10g of wheat flour was weighed in duplicate in mixed chambers and 4.7ml of 2% nacl solution was added to the sample, where they were coupled to the glutomatic and washing started. after washing, the samples were transferred to metal sieves and taken to the centrifuge, where a centrifugation was performed for 1 minute. after the centrifugation, the gluten that had passed through the sieve was scraped and weighed, followed by all the wet gluten resulting from the washing (retained and passing), which resulted in the wet gluten value. after weighing, the wet gluten was compressed and dried in the glutork for 4 minutes. at the end of drying, the sample was weighed, giving the dry gluten value. expression 5 used to determine the gluten content. % of gluten= pgsx100/p (5) where: pgs weight of dry gluten; p weight of the sample. determination of the gluten index the gluten index was determined using the wet gluten, in the centrifugation process the harvester allowed a small amount to pass to the rear through the holes (which is weighed separately from the mass remaining on the front side of the harvester. this was followed by the residue from the inner (a1) and outer (a2) parts. equation 6 used for the determination of the gluten index. gi=a1/(a1+a2) x100% (6) where: a1 the mass present in the inner part of the harvester; a2 the mass present on the outside of the harvester. wet and dry gluten for the determination of wet gluten (percentage) is done by weighing the sample (10 g) of flour with 5ml of water, then a sieve is placed where the 10g of flour and 5ml of water are mixed, shakes by making a slightly circular motion the sieve to spread the flour and shakes to spread the water throughout the sample. separation of insoluble proteins and starch from gluten-forming flour (gliadins and gluteins), using the glutomatic device, the gluten samples are taken to a centrifuge with a rotational frequency capacity of 6000 in 5 minutes in order to reduce the moisture in the gluten and then the samples are weighed and to obtain the result, expression 7 was used. gh=m1x100% (7) where: gh wet gluten; m1 mass value of wet gluten. statistical analysis analysis of variance (anova) was performed using the general linear model (glm), through the statistical package rstudio 4.2.1. in case of significant effects, the difference of the experimental units was evaluated by tukey’s test at 5% level. results and discussions centesimal composition of maize flour the results of the physicochemical constitution of corn flour are shown in table 1. table 1. centesimal composition (100g) of fortified maize flours. the evaluated samples showed fat content ranging from 0.61 to 1.59%. higher (1.59%) lipid content was observed in sample a and lower (0.61%) for sample b, with significant differences (p <0.05) between them. these variations in fat content are possibly correlated with the composition and/or variety of maize used and the type of processing employed, since the samples underwent different treatments, with sample a being processed together with the germ. higher results (0.61 and 1.59% fat) were reported by giacomelli et al. (2012) in their study on the nutritional table 1: centesimal composition (100g) of fortified maize flours samples parameters fat (%) moisture (%) fiber (%) protein (%) a 1,59 13,3 0,38 7,09 b 0,61 13,4 0,22 5.99 source: authors pa ge 49 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 46-53, 2023 composition of cornmeal, obtained contents ranging from 3.26 and 4.84% of fat. results close to those obtained in the present research were referenced by teodoro (2018) in his study with aim of determining the iron and centesimal composition of wheat and corn flours, obtained fat content ranging from 1.6 to 1.8%. araujo (2019) studying the centesimal composition, water absorption index and solubility index in flaked cornmeal marketed in teresina, obtained fat content ranging from 1.11 to 2.33%. moisture of 13.3 and 13.4% was evident in the samples evaluated, without significant differences. this range of values can be considered acceptable assuming that the moisture levels established by the national health surveillance agency, anvisa (2017), range from 13 to 15%. results close to those found in the present research were reported by giacomelli et al. (2012) (11.05 to 12.57% moisture), when performing the nutritional composition of precooked, stone-ground maize flour and the culinary preparation “polenta”. the moisture content of maize flour should not exceed 14% (delagustin, 2012). studying moisture determination in corn flours using thermogravimetry and the classical method of analysis made by fernandes & araújo (2007), when analyzing the moisture content, they obtained results ranging from 10.2 to 12.2%. according to anvisa through rdc n°711, of july 1, 2022, the flours must have a maximum of 14%. the results evidenced fiber content ranging from 0.22 to 0.38%. higher (0.38%) fiber was observed in sample a. high values (0.22 and 0.38% fiber) were reported by giacomelli et al., (2012) around 2.63 to 3.88% fiber, when developing their research on nutritional composition of corn flours. the protein content ranged from 5.99 to 7.09%. this range can be considered acceptable assuming that, mutla et al. (2018), the protein content of maize depends on the variety, growing conditions and environmental factors of cultivation. values divergent to those obtained in the present study were reported by somavat et al. (2016), around 10.31%, 11.16% and 8.4% of protein content respectively, for purple, blue and yellow maize. centesimal and rheological composition of wheat flours table 2 represents the proximate, rheological and farinographic composition of wheat flour. table 2: centesimal (100g), farinographic and rheological characterization of wheat flours parameters samples a b c d e f moisture (%) 13.7±0.15ª 13.8±0.25ª 13.6±0.15ª 13.6±0.40ª 13.6±0.10ª 13.6±0.17ª protein (%) 10.90±0.28ª 11.22±0.51ª 10.30±0.01ª 10.35±0.11ª 11.02±0.67ª 10.36±0.11ª ash (%) 0.70±0.02ª 0.65±0.05ª 0.50±0.03b 0.70±0.01ª 0.65±0.02ª 0.69±0.05ª w.a (%) 58.23±0.24ª 59.73±0.55ª 59.20±1.30ª 58.23±0.49ª 58.58±0.35ª 58.16±0.28ª fn (%) 269±1.46b 325.67±0.62a 331.67±0.10a 324.0±0.11a 350.0±0.17a 334±0.14a gluten (%/s) 29.1±0.83a 27.6±2.08abc 28.5±0.61ab 25.7±0.58bcd 24.0±0.76d 25.5±0.30cd gi (%) 0 0 0 0 95 0 gh (%) 29.80±0.91a 29.31±0.78a 28.78±0.20a 28.46±1.45a 29.13±0.68a 29.08±1.18a gs (%) 10.50±0.30a 9.86±0.45ab 9.36±0.47ab 9.73±0.25ab 9.43±0.20b 9.75±0.13b means ± standard deviation followed by the same letter in the same row do not present significant differences at 5% tukey level. w.a = water absorpt; fn = falling number; gh = wet gluten; gi = gluten index; gs = dry gluten. source: authors moisture the samples showed moisture ranging from 13.6 to 13.8%, where higher values were observed in formulations b (13.8) and a (13.7), without significant differences between them. these results are acceptable considering the criteria established by normative instruction no. 08, of june 2, 2005, of the ministry of agriculture, livestock and supply, brazil (2005). similar values (13%) were reported by resosemito et al. (2022) when studying on obtaining and physicochemical evaluation of deglutenized special wheat flour, obtained moisture around 13.0%, lins (2021) (13.3 to 13.9% moisture), studying the influence of the semolina purification step on the physicochemical and rheological characteristics of wheat flours, by oro (2013) in his study on the adaptation of methods for the evaluation of the technological quality of whole wheat flour, obtained 13.6 to 13.9% moisture content, and by costa (2013) in the range of 13.8% moisture content, when studying about the evaluation of the industrial quality of wheat strains by means of physical-chemical, rheological and baking methods. lower results were reported by macedo (2017) when developing his research on physicochemical characterization of wheat flours used in bakeries in the municipality of paraiso tocantis, obtained moisture contents around 11.73 to 12.74%, and by rosa-campos et al. (2014) in their study entitled physicochemical analysis of sixteen brands of enriched type 1 wheat flours, marketed in the federal district, obtained moisture around 10.88 to 11.77%. pa ge 50 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 46-53, 2023 protein the protein content showed results ranging from 10.30 to 11.22%. higher protein content was observed in samples b (11.22%) and e (11.02). on the other hand, samples c, d, f and a showed protein contents around 10.30, 10.35, 10.36 and 10.90%, respectively. statistically, all samples did not show significant differences (p >0.05) among themselves. in his study on determination of the technological value and utilization of various types of blends of soft wheat flour and durum wheat semolina for the manufacture of traditional bread monho (2013), obtained protein contents ranging from 9 to 12%. rosa-campos et al. (2014) in their study entitled physicochemical analysis of sixteen brands of enriched type 1 wheat flours, marketed in the federal district, obtained 10.49 to 11.07% protein, results in agreement with those obtained in this study. superior results were described by singer (2006), physicochemical, rheological, enthalpy and baking properties of flour obtained from irrigated wheat, obtained protein ranging from 10.49 to 10.60%. ashes the results obtained in the determination of the fixed mineral residue content ranged from 0.50 to 0.70%. these results can be considered acceptable assuming that, cezar (2012), the maximum ash content should be 0.8%. higher values were verified in samples a and d (0.70%), f (0.69%) and b and e (0.65) without significant differences (p >0.05) between them, unlike sample c. in the evaluation carried out by lins (2021) studying the influence of the semolina purification step on the physicochemical and rheological characteristics of wheat flours, they obtained ash content ranging from 0.48 to 0.77%, by macedo (2017) around 0.60%, and by rosacampos et al. (2014) with 0.49 to 0.55% of fixed mineral residue, and also by lanzarini (2015) obtained ash content around 0.48 to 0.78%, when performing quality control applied to bread wheat flour produced in mills in the state of paraná , results close to those obtained in the present research. allied results were described by silva et al. (2015) analyzing different brands of wheat flour, obtained ash content around 0.50%, and by paixão (2022) when studying the quality control applied in wheat flours produced in the state of maranhão: emphasis on physicochemical and rheological analyzes, obtained 0.70% of fixed mineral residue. zimmermann (2009) when analyzing wheat flours found ash values between 1.4 and 2.5% for two of the flours analyzed, being considered whole flour, different from what occurred in this work in which all flours remained in the type 1 range, oro (2013) in his study on adaptation of methods for evaluating the technological quality of whole wheat flour, having obtained ash content around 1. 61%, guarienti & caiera (2022), studying special flour and obtained from clean and germinated cereal, found ash content between 0.66% and 1.61%.61%, guarienti & caierao (2022), studying on the special flour and obtained from the cleaned and degerminated cereal, found ash content between 0.66% and 1.35%, results above those obtained in the present research. these low ash contents may be associated with the composition of the raw material used, on the other hand, silva et al. (2015) point out that low ash values indicate better quality, since the higher the ash content, the greater the presence of bran in it, interfering with the quality of bakery products. water absorption (w.a) water absorption values ranged from 58.23 to 59.73%. statistically, there were no significant differences (p>0.05) between the formulations. results allied to those obtained in the present research were revealed by oro (2013) in his study on adaptation of methods for evaluation of technological quality of whole wheat flour, obtained 58.5% of water absorption, martins et al. (2012) when developing their study on water absorption in a mixture of wheat sticks of different commercial brands, obtained values for water absorption ranging between 54.07 and 67.66%, and by silva (2017) in his research on rheological and physicochemical analyzes of wheat flour from six different cultivars recommended for the state of paraná, obtained 58% of water absorption. costa et al. (2008) seeking to differentiate the technological parameters of flour from national and imported wheat grains, obtained water absorption values in the range of 54.43 and 59.3% for imported flours and 53.3 and 57.6% for national flours, paixão (2022) controlling the quality applied in wheat flours produced in the state of maranhão: emphasis on physicochemical and rheological analyzes, obtained 57 to 58.7% of water absorption, going in accordance with the results obtained in this study. junqueira et al. (2007), flours with high technological quality for bread production are those that present water absorption between 60 and 64%, by costa (2013) in the study of evaluation of the industrial quality of wheat strains through physical-chemical, rheological and baking methods having obtained values ranging from 59.4 to 77.0% of water absorption, results higher than those obtained in the present research. this significance can be justified given that, fernandes et al. (2008), for wholemeal flours high values of water absorption are expected due to their high fiber content in relation to refined flour. similarly, noort et al. (2010) explained that the presence of wholemeal flours does not cause a significant increase in water absorption in farinography. falling number (fn) the results obtained on the drop number ranged from 276 to 354 seconds. samples b, c, d, e f showed higher percentage of drop number. lower (269s) was observed in sample a, being different from the others. these differentiations regarding the fn are possibly correlated with the quality of wheat and treatment in processing. results consistent with those obtained in this study were described by lins (2021) in his research on the influence pa ge 51 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 46-53, 2023 of the semolina purification step on the physicochemical and rheological characteristics of wheat flours, obtained values of falling number around 350 seconds, cezar (2012) obtained a falling number around 200 to 350 seconds, when developing his study on quality control in wheat flour, lazarini et al. (2020) analyzed ten samples of type 1 wheat flour finding results for fn in the range 351.33 to 390 seconds, and by silva (2017) in his study on rheological and physicochemical analysis of wheat flour from different cultivars in the paraná state, obtained a drop number of 350 seconds. higher results than those obtained in the present research were reported by singer (2006) when evaluating the physicochemical, rheological, enthalpy and baking properties of flour obtained from irrigated wheat, obtained falling number around 409 to 477 seconds. gluten content the gluten content showed results ranging from 24 to 29.1%. higher gluten content was observed in samples a (29.1%), c (28.5%) and b (27.6%), with significant differences (p <0.05) between them. these results possibly, given silva et al. (2015), are directly related to water absorption, especially for bakery doughs that have a high elasticity. results consistent with those obtained in this study were described by lins (2021) in his research on the influence of the semolina purification step on the physicochemical and rheological characteristics of wheat flours, obtained gluten content from 24 to 29%. results lower than those obtained in the present research were reported by silva et al. (2015) around 16.01 and 23.51% gluten, when studying different brands of wheat flours, dias et al. (2015) (8.0% gluten) when performing physicochemical analysis of traditional wheat flour, zimermann et al. (2009) studying physicochemical and rheological evaluation of the main wheat flours marketed in bakeries in the municipality of cascavel, obtained gluten content ranging from 9.25 and 10,55%. gluten index gluten index results ranged from 0 to 95%. in the evaluation made by costa (2013), he found the gluten index in the range of 98.22%, close to the results obtained in this research. allied results (95% gluten index) were referenced by paixão (2018), ranging from 95.60 to 97.29%. cauvain & young (2009) reinforce that when the gluten formed is considered very strong and not very extensible, the resulting bread will be dense and without volume; however, if the gluten network is considered weak, it breaks at the time of fermentation, generating breads with holes. wet gluten (gh) no significant differences (p >0.05) were found between the samples. in the evaluation made by oro (2013) in his study on the adaptation of methods for the evaluation of the technological quality of whole wheat flour, he obtained wet gluten content around 16.98 to 25.75%, and by dias et al. (2015) when studying about physicochemical analysis of traditional wheat flour, obtained 24% of wet gluten content, results lower than those obtained in the present research. similar results were found by costa (2018), in which it was observed a variation of 24.83 to 28.72% for wet gluten, when evaluating the content of wet gluten and dry gluten of wheat flours of wheat flours marketed in conquista vitoria ba, silva (2017) in his study on rheological and physicochemical analysis of wheat flour from different cultivars in the paraná state, in the range of 28.02% of wet gluten, by costa (2013) in the study of on evaluation of the industrial quality of wheat strains by means of physical-chemical, rheological and baking methods, having obtained a variation of 28.9%. dry gluten (gs) the averages ranged from 9.36 to 10.50%. sample a (10.50%) had the highest mean, followed by formulation b with a mean of around 9.86. significant differences (p <0.05) were found between samples b, c, d, e and f compared to sample a. in the evaluation made by oro (2013) in his study on adaptation of methods for evaluation of technological quality of whole wheat flour, revealed dry gluten content around 9.9%. paixão (2018) reported dry gluten around 9.76 to 9.86%, dias et al. (2015) when studying about physicochemical analysis of traditional wheat flour, reported a range of 9.65% of dry gluten contents, costa (2013), approached dry gluten contents around 9.6%.6%. according to ribeiro (2009), the ideal range for dry gluten content is between 7.5 and 14%, silva (2017), obtained results ranging from 7 to 10% depending on their applications, results similar to those obtained in the present study. conclusion no significant differences were observed between the wheat flour samples for moisture, protein, ash, water absorption, and wet gluten. significant differences were found for falling number (fn), gluten and dry gluten. there was sufficient evidence of compliance with the flour quality criteria. acknowledgments we express with love and affection, our gratitude to all those who directly or indirectly provided their preponderant help, whether moral or material, for the development of this research references araujo, m. 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(2018). determination of iron and centesimal composition of wheat and corn flours. medianeira. vedovati, fs (2017). rheological behavior of wheat flour with partial substitution of green banana flour. londrina. 38. zimmermann, l. o. g., sedor, j., noreto, l. m., santiago, w. e, & ferreira, d. t. l. (2009). physicochemical and rheological evaluation of the main wheat flours marketed in bakeries in the municipality of cascavel. proceedings of the i international seminar on science. technology and environment. unioeste, cascavel – paraná. pa ge 1 pa ge 42 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) the safety of leafy vegetables in oman mohamed al-farsi1*, haroon muhammad ali1, mohammed al-omairi1 volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i1.2674 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: may 04, 2024 accepted: june 10, 2024 published: june 14, 2024 leafy vegetables are potential carriers of foodborne diseases that threaten the community’s well-being. therefore, monitoring leafy vegetable’s microbial and heavy metal contamination is crucial. this study evaluates the safety of leafy vegetables consumed in oman by examining pathogenic bacteria such as escherichia coli, staphylococci, salmonella, and listeria, as well as the heavy metals concentration. results indicate high levels of microbial contamination in all samples, exceeding the gulf standard organization permissible levels for e. coli and staphylococci. the highest levels of e. coli were 5.96, 6.08, 6.09, 6.25, and 6.01 log cfu/g in arugula, radish, lettuce, cabbage, and spring onion, respectively. while for staphylococcus the highest values were 5.59, 5.71, 4.33, 5.07, and 4.46 log cfu/g in arugula, radish, lettuce, cabbage, and spring onion, respectively. no salmonella or listeria colonies were found in any samples even after several days of incubations. the arsenic and lead concentrations in all samples were significantly higher than the permissible levels set by fao/who, while chromium was high in some samples. the concentrations of copper and iron in most samples fell below their respective permissible levels, while zinc was undetectable in all samples. these findings underscore inadequate hygiene, harvesting, storage, and agricultural practices, raising concerns about the health implications of consuming contaminated leafy vegetables. keywords microbiological, heavy metal, contamination, leafy vegetables 1 natural & medical sciences research center, university of nizwa, oman * corresponding author’s e-mail: malfarsi@unizwa.edu.om introduction vegetables are the vital constituents of the human eating regimen providing essential dietary components preserving prime health. among diverse varieties, leafy vegetables stand out at a distinct position due to their nutrient balance and culinary diversity. the consumption of leafy vegetables continuously increases in oman due to their promising nutrient profile. leafy vegetables such as arugula, cabbage, lettuce, spring onions, and radish are sources of certain vital minerals (iron, calcium, potassium, and magnesium), vitamins (k, c, e, and many types of b vitamins), and phytonutrients (beta-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin) (gupta et al., 2022) . settaluri et al. (settaluri et al., 2015) reported the nutritional constituents of omani leafy vegetables such as lettuce, cabbage, and arugula, they found that all the leafy vegetables possessed high contents of starch, sucrose, and other biomolecules vital for biological functions. saiwal et al. (saiwal et al., 2019) also found that leafy vegetables are excellent sources of antioxidants, omega-3 fats, selenium, and other healthy minerals. ismail & cheah (ismail & sook, 2003) proved in their study that cabbage contains a high content of beta-carotene, riboflavin, vitamin c, and vitamin k per serving. however, irrespective of their exceptional dietary advantages, leafy vegetables are potential carriers of foodborne diseases that threaten dietary safety and community well-being. consuming contaminated foods can result in foodborne infections posing challenges to public health and the global economy. contaminated foods have been associated with outbreaks of foodborne diseases, due to which contaminated leafy vegetables are feared to be the potential cause of foodborne outbreaks. according to the world health organization (who), as many as 600 million people, or 1 in every 10 people suffer from foodborne diseases every year and almost 420,000 people die (li et al., 2020). another study in 2016 discovered that most of the leafy vegetables sold in finland contained e.coli, listeria, and salmonella, highlighting the poor microbial safety of leafy vegetables in finland (nousiainen et al., 2016). among various pathogenic bacterial strains, escherichia coli, staphylococcus, salmonella, and listeria are the agents responsible for the contamination of leafy vegetables and possible suspects of launching foodborne outbreaks (marshall et al., 2020). similarly, yafetto et al. (yafetto et al., 2019) also reported 8.29 and 8.09 log cfu/g bacterial counts on nutrient agar for cabbage and lettuce, respectively. the resilience and aggressiveness of these pathogenic culprits highlight the cruciality of microbiological analysis of leafy vegetables guaranteeing their safety and preventing the consumers from serious health consequences. a threshold of 2 and 3 log cfu/g for e. coli and staphylococcus respectively in leafy vegetables has been established by the gulf standard organization (gso 1016), which is a regulatory body within the gulf cooperation council (gso, 2019). this threshold is 0 for salmonella and listeria, which shows the zero-tolerance policy of gso for salmonella and listeria in leafy vegetables. apart from the microbial hazards, leafy vegetables also host a variety of heavy metals sourced from soil, water, and agricultural products. plants absorb heavy metals through pa ge 43 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 42-50, 2024 different trails such as contaminated water, irrigation, agrochemicals, and atmospheric depositions (liu et al., 2005, hardaway et al., 2016). additionally, sewage sludge and the application of fertilizers, pesticides, and manure may also influence plants’ intake of trace elements. it was found that the uptake of metals by crops is directly linked to the heavy metal concentration in the soil (mcbride, 2003). it is vital to ensure that the concentrations of heavy metals in vegetables are less than the permissible limits set by fao/who (who, 1989). the permissible concentrations for arsenic (as), copper (cu), zinc (zn), iron (fe), lead (pb), and chromium (cr) are 0.2 mg/kg, 73 mg/kg, 99 mg/kg, 425 mg/kg, 0.3 mg/kg, and 2.3 mg/kg, respectively. several studies have reported higher concentrations of heavy metals in vegetables than those allowed by fao/who. for instance, mensah et al. (mensah et al., 2009) reported in their study that all heavy metals except nickel have surpassed the fao/who standardized heavy metals concentrations. similarly, much higher concentrations of heavy metals were reported in palestine vegetables by bawwab et al. (bawwab et al., 2022) compared to the fao/who limits. excessive intake of certain heavy metals including cadmium, lead, copper, and chromium can cause serious adverse effects including bone, neurological and cardiovascular disorders, renal impairment, and gastrointestinal disturbances. depending on the exposure time, the toxicity due to heavy metal exposure may be acute or chronic (jean-lou dorne et al., 2010). to ensure food safety, it is extremely important to monitor the microbial and heavy metal contamination in leafy vegetables along with their associated health risks for the consumers. therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the safety of leafy vegetables consumed in oman. for this purpose, we determined the microbiological quality of leafy vegetables by determining the number of colonies of pathogenic bacterial strains that are escherichia coli, staphylococci, salmonella, and listeria in leafy vegetables. additionally, we have also determined the heavy metals concentration in leafy vegetables. materials and methods samples collection twenty-five samples (approximately 500 g each) of edible portions of five leafy vegetables including lettuce (lactuca sativa), cabbage (brassica oleracea), arugula, (eruca sativa), radish (raphanus sativus), and spring onion (allium fistulosum) were collected in sterile sample bags from different hypermarkets in nizwa, oman. the samples were stored at 5 ◦c until analysis. the microbiological analysis was conducted within 6 hours of the collection. to keep the sources of the samples anonymous, they were represented by numbers i.e.; 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 along with the first letter of the vegetable’s common name. microbiological analysis the samples were cut down into small pieces using a sterile knife. a sample of 10g was then added to 90 ml of sterile buffered peptone water (bpw), which was made from10 g of peptone powder, 5g of sodium chloride, 3.5 g of disodium phosphate, and 1.5 g of mono-potassium phosphate were added to 1000 ml of water and mixed well using hot-plate stirrer for 5 minutes. for salmonella and listeria, the sample was incubated in bpw overnight. however, no overnight incubation was given for e.coli and staphylococcus as it can affect the threshold colony count of these strains. different selective mediums were used for all four types of microorganisms used in this study. escherichia coli count macconkey agar (15.45 g in 300 ml h2o) was used for the isolation of e. coli. the media was heated using a hot plate stirrer until boiling followed by sterilization at 121 oc for 15 minutes using an autoclave. the media was poured into sterile petri plates and let solidify at room temperature. then, three different volumes (0.1 ml, 0.2 ml, and 0.3 ml) of the 1:10 diluted sample were spread on the agar plates using a sterile spreader. after culturing all the samples, the petri plates were covered with parafilm to prevent cross-contamination during incubation. all the plates were then incubated overnight at 44 ◦c. after 24 hours of incubation, the number of colonies on all the plates was counted (degaga et al., 2022). staphylococci count to isolate staphylococci, mannitol salt agar was prepared (33.3 g in 300ml h2o). similar to e. coli isolation, the media was heated and autoclaved. the same volumes and dilutions were added to the plates and incubated at 37 ◦c for 24 hours before counting the colonies (degaga et al., 2022). salmonella count xylose-lysine-deoxycholate (xld) was prepared (17.004 g of xld was added to 300 ml dh2o) for the selective isolation of salmonella. the medium was heated at a very low temperature and then transferred to a water bath for a few minutes at 45-50 oc before use. the same volumes and dilutions were added to the plates and incubated at 37 ◦c for 24 hours before counting the colonies (degaga et al., 2022, sant’ana et al., 2011). listeria count for listeria isolation, 20.66 g of palcam agar was dissolved in h2o. the medium was heated till boiling, then sterilized at 121oc for 15 minutes. after sterilization, 0.6 ml of selective supplement (polymyxin b, acriflavine, and ceftazidime combined) was also added to palcam agar for the selective isolation of listeria. the same volumes and dilutions were added to the plates and incubated at 37 ◦c for 24 hours before counting the colonies (degaga et al., 2022, abatcha et al., 2020). heavy metal analysis the collected leafy vegetables were chopped into small pa ge 44 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 42-50, 2024 pieces, dried in an oven at 60 ◦c until constant weight, and crushed to powder form using a regular blender. for the accurate analysis of heavy metals, complete digestion is essential. for this purpose, 0.5 g of sample was weighed and 5ml of nitric acid (hno3) was added. then the sample was introduced to a microwave digestion apparatus (model: ultrawave, sn:16040687, milestone srl, sorisole, italy). after digestion in the microwave combustion system, the solution was filtered using whatman filter paper. then the filtrate was analyzed with inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (icp-oes, optima 8000, perkinelmer, massachusetts, america). five calibration standards were taken for each sample. the calibration concentration ranged from 0.07-3 for as, 1-20 for cu, 1-100 for zn, 1-150 for fe, 1-20 for pb, and 1-20 mg/l for cr. the amounts of as, cu, zn, fe, pb, and cr, were determined in mg/kg. all the samples were experimented on twice and the resulting values are the average of the duplicates (bingöl et al., 2010). statistical analysis the data were evaluated statistically using microsoft excel for the mean value and standard deviation (sd). analysis of variance (anova) was used to determine the level of significance (p < 0.05). results and discussion microbiological analysis in this study, five different leafy vegetables i.e., arugula, cabbage, onion, lettuce, and radish from five different hypermarkets, were evaluated for their microbiological qualities. table 1 represents the log values ± standard deviation of the calculated colonies per gram compared to the standard values outlined by gso 1016 for each bacterium (gso, 2019). the results showed that all the samples had high microbial contamination levels, and their log cfu/g values were much higher than the standard values for e. coli and staphylococci. this highlights the poor hygiene, harvesting, storage, and agricultural practices. however, the log cfu/g values varied among the varieties of leafy vegetables and the hypermarkets from where the samples were collected. the e. coli counts in all samples were significantly higher than the permissible limits set by gso 1016 (2.0 log cfu/g) (gso, 2019). the e. coli count ranged between 5.21-5.96 in arugula, 5.46-6.08 in radish, 5.32-6.25 in lettuce, 3.77-6.09 in cabbage and 5.30-6.01 in spring onion. even the lowest log cfu/g values in this study are much higher than those previously reported by khalil (khalil, 2016) for arugula which was 4.51 for e. coli. our results are also in line with those of hashemi et al. (hashemi et al., 2019) who reported 4.2 log cfu/g for e. coli in radish. these values are higher than the average log cfu/g values of 3.34 for e. coli in lettuce reported by choi et al. (choi et al., 2016). among the spring onions of all the brands, o2 and o5 were the most contaminated with 6.01 log cfu/g each for e.coli. o1 exhibited the next highest log cfu/g for e.coli, leaving o3 to be the least contaminated among all the samples for e. coli. in a previous study reported by xu et al. (xu et al., 2013), the initial e.coli contamination in onion leaves was 5.2 log cfu/g, which is comparatively less than the one found in our study. also, the staphylococci counts in all samples were significantly higher than the permissible limits set by gso 1016 (3.0 log cfu/g) (gso, 2019). the staphylococci counts ranged between 4.59-5.59 in arugula, 4.62-5.71 in radish, 3.10-5.07 in lettuce, 3.27-4.33 in cabbage and 3.48-4.46 in spring onion. our results showed higher log cfu/g values than those of hashemi et al. (hashemi et al., 2019) who reported 3.3 log cfu/g for staphylococci in radish. even though the values for staphylococci in the cabbage sample are surprisingly much less than the rest of the sample, they are almost similar to the log cfu/g values for both e.coli and staphylococci (4.44) reported by kothe et al. (kothe et al., 2019) when stored for 5 days at 30oc. they also reported log cfu/g values for e. coli much less than the values that resulted in our study. however, their values increased significantly when incubated for a whole week. this indicates that improper storage of vegetables for extended periods provides microorganisms optimal conditions for growth resulting in the microbial contamination and spoilage of vegetables. these values are higher than the average log cfu/g values of 4.62 for staphylococci in lettuce reported by choi et al. (choi et al., 2016). sample o5 resulted in being the most contaminated with 4.46 log cfu/g for staphylococci among the onion samples. the sample o2 exhibited the next highest log cfu/g in staphylococci, leaving o4 to be the least contaminated among all the samples for staphylococci. the overall results showed that leafy vegetables from hypermarkets 2 and 5 were the most contaminated with e. coli and staphylococci when compared to the samples from the rest of the omani hypermarkets. however, all the samples showed significantly higher microbial contamination than the gso 1016 standards (gso, 2019). this raises a critical concern regarding the microbial quality of leafy vegetables from all the hypermarkets. our study highlights the questionable transportation, distribution, storage, and handling of leafy vegetables in hypermarkets. encouragingly, not a single colony of salmonella and listeria was observed in any of the samples from all the hypermarkets even after several days of incubation. both strains are very pathogenic and have the potential to cause severe health complications in consumers. unlike the previous studies of aytaç et al. (aytac et al., 2010), abadias et al. (abadias et al., 2008), and fröder et al. (fröder et al., 2007), who reported the high prevalence of salmonella and listeria in leafy vegetables, our results suggest that omani leafy vegetables are free of salmonella and listeria contamination. the reason behind this might be due to competition between salmonella and listeria, and the background bacteria which in this case are e. coli and staphylococcus. this pa ge 45 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 42-50, 2024 hypothesis was also stated by abadias et al. (abadias et al., 2012), who suggested that different bacterial species on a single food sample can compete for physical space as well as nutrient availability. similarly, babic et al. (babic et al., 1997) also reported in their study that the background microbiota such as e.coli inhibited the growth of listeria in spinach. this indicates that leafy vegetables with elevated levels of one bacterium can cause growth inhibition of other pathogenic bacteria. the absence of these strains highlights the appreciable food safety of omani hypermarkets. however, the presence of e. coli and staphylococcus at such a significantly high number cannot be neglected. the high prevalence of e.coli and staphylococcus in leafy vegetables raises concerns regarding safety and public health. both these bacteria are pathogenic, making these leafy vegetables the potential source of food-borne outbreaks. these leafy vegetables contaminated with these bacterial strains can cause severe food-borne communicable illnesses, especially the local consumers unaware of the consequences of contaminated food. protective measures should be taken by the food safety authorities to address the raised concerns and ensure public health. table 1: the average microbial count of selected leafy vegetables collected from markets in nizwa, oman samples e. coli log cfu/g staphylococci log cfu/g salmonella log cfu/g listeria log cfu/g gso 1016 2.0a 3.0a 0 0 arugula: a1 5.73±0.11b 5.33±0.24b nd nd a2 5.21±0.25c 5.59±0.15b nd nd a3 5.75±0.23b 4.90±0.13c nd nd a4 5.27±0.04c 4.59±0.12d nd nd a5 5.96±0.14b 5.43±0.16b nd nd radish: r1 5.46±0.21b 5.65±0.16b nd nd r2 5.63±0.11b 5.08±0.16c nd nd r3 5.62±0.03b 4.62±0.08d nd nd r4 5.98±0.19b 5.30±0.11b nd nd r5 6.08±0.13b 5.71±0.14b nd nd lettuce: l1 5.71±0.15b 3.72±0.16e nd nd l2 6.25±0.20b 4.51±0.12d nd nd l3 5.32±0.13c 4.84±0.06c nd nd l4 5.80±0.09b 3.10±0.17a nd nd l5 5.74±0.21b 5.07±0.08c nd nd cabbage: c1 3.77±0.15d 3.43±0.13f nd nd c2 5.85±0.15b 4.33±0.11d nd nd c3 5.65±0.11b 3.27±0.14a nd nd c4 6.09±0.20b 4.07±0.10j nd nd c5 5.63±0.17b 3.69±0.13e nd nd spring onion: o1 5.84±0.14b 4.23±0.12d nd nd o2 6.01±0.14b 4.11±0.12j nd nd o3 5.49±0.11b 3.48±0.16e nd nd o4 5.30±0.03c 3.91±0.06j nd nd o5 6.01±0.19b 4.46±0.09d nd nd means ± sd followed by the same letter, within a column, are not significantly different (p > 0.05). samples 1-5: samples from 5 distinct locations, nd: not detected. pa ge 46 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 42-50, 2024 heavy metal analysis table 2 represents the concentrations of as, cu, zn, fe, pb, and cr per kg of leafy vegetables from five different hypermarkets in oman. the concentrations of as, and pb, in all the leafy vegetable samples from all the hypermarkets were significantly higher than the permissible limits set by fao/who (who, 1989) while some samples had higher concentrations of cr. the concentrations of cu and most of the fe samples fell below their respective permissible levels, while zn was non-detective in all the samples. however, the concentrations of heavy metals varied between the samples. the results showed that the concentrations of as range from 1.67 to 2.14 mg/kg in arugula, 1.89 to 2.19 mg/kg in radish, 1.98 to 2.19 mg/kg in lettuce, 1.95 to 2.26 mg/ kg in cabbage, and 1.65 to 1.92 mg/kg in spring onion. all these values are far higher than the 0.2 mg/kg permissible concentration set by fao/who (who, 1989). our study completely contradicts previous studies reporting as concentrations in leafy vegetables. for instance, ma et al. (ma et al., 2007) reported 0.09 and 0.14 mg/kg of as in lettuce and spring onion. however, gezahegn et al. (gezahegn et al., 2017) also previously reported 1.4 mg/ kg of as in cabbage. such elevated concentrations of as are associated with cardiovascular problems in humans such as hypertension, atherosclerosis, and peripheral cardiovascular diseases (balarastaghi et al., 2022). the consumption of these vegetables contaminated with as can lead to serious health issues. cu concentrations in all the samples are significantly lower than the permissible limit of 73 mg/kg for leafy vegetables. the cu concentration ranged from 13.8 to 19.4 mg/kg in arugula, 13.9 to 23.7 mg/kg in radish, 12.7 to 18.4 in lettuce, 9.1 to 13.2 mg/kg in cabbage, and 12.6 to 18.7 mg/kg in spring onion. our results align with those of kananke et al (kananke et al., 2014), who reported that the concentrations of cu fell below the permissible limits. even though cu is important for several body functions such as central nervous system maintenance and anemia prevention, its elevated levels can be toxic to the human body such as liver damage, gastrointestinal symptoms, and kidney damage (kananke et al., 2014). fortunately, our study reassures the cu levels below the threshold associated with toxicity. even though fe has a very high threshold concentration of 425 mg/kg in leafy vegetables, most of the arugula samples still crossed that limit. the samples in which the fe concentrations were higher than the fao/who limit are a1 (665 mg/kg), a2 (699 mg/kg), a4 (744 mg/kg), and a5 (633 mg/kg) in arugula, r1 (479 mg/kg) in radish, and o1 (524 mg/kg) in spring onion. fe concentrations in cabbage were non-detectable. all the remaining samples have permissible levels of fe. interestingly, lettuce samples from all the hypermarkets have fe concentrations below the threshold levels. these results agree with the previous studies (uriu-adams & keen, 2005, hanif et al., 2006, zwolak et al., 2019), which reported that fe levels in lettuce fall within the permissible limits. fe is important for many biological functions in the body such as oxygen transport, energy production, and immune functions (demi-rezen & aksoy, 2006). however, some of the tested samples, especially arugula possess elevated levels of fe that can potentially cause negative effects such as increased oxidative stress, pancreas damage, and cardiomyopathy (lieu et al., 2001, sampaio et al., 2014) pb concentrations ranged from 2.86 to 15.89 mg/kg in arugula, 2.8 to 6.01 mg/kg in radish, 3.55 to 4.85 mg/ kg in lettuce, 4.07 to 5.46 mg/kg in cabbage, and 2.97 to 3.32 mg/kg in spring onion. these concentrations are significantly higher than the maximum permitted by fao/who for leafy vegetables. however, these concentrations are far lower than the 12.3 mg/kg of pb in cabbage reported by gezahegn et al. (gezahegn et al., 2017). these elevated levels of pb in vegetables can result either from the ink-contaminated water absorbed by the soil or from the water used for watering the plants directly, especially the water leaked from industries as gezahegn et al. (gezahegn et al., 2017) suggested that the high levels of pb in cabbages can be attributed to the ink leakage from industries to the water. such elevated levels of pb can have negative impacts on the human body such as kidney dysfunction, and brain damage as it is toxic to the central and peripheral nervous system (murphy & oudit, 2010). most of the tested samples possess elevated cr concentrations exceeding the permissible limit of 2.3 mg/ kg for vegetables. a2 exhibited the highest concentration of 11.65 mg/kg, while the lowest cr concentration of 1.13 mg/kg was exhibited by c5. arugula, was found to be the most contaminated with cr with an average cr concentration of 6.7 mg/kg, followed by radish, lettuce, and spring onion with average concentrations of 3.73 mg/kg, 3.51 mg/kg and 3.27 mg/kg respectively. kananke et al. (kananke et al., 2014) reported a much lower average cr concentration of 1.79 mg/kg in leafy vegetables that falls within the permissible level. such high levels of cr can be attributed to the using waste for the irrigation of leafy vegetables (nava-ruíz & méndez-armenta, 2013). due to the persistence and high toxicity of cr, it is considered to be very toxic for human biological processes (soumi et al., 2016). some of the heavy metals such as cu, zn, and fe are vital for the biological functions of the human body. however, the elevated levels of these metals can exhibit adverse effects and can be toxic to the human body. therefore, it is crucial to ensure the concentrations of heavy metals are not above the fao/who recommended levels in foods (leafy vegetables in this study). there could be multiple reasons for the elevated contents of such toxic heavy metals in vegetables but fertilizers and irrigation water are the most convincing reasons. bawwab et al. (bawwab et al., 2022) suggested that sometimes compost contaminated with industrial waste is utilized as a fertilizer containing high contents of heavy metals. pa ge 47 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 42-50, 2024 mensah et al. (mensah et al., 2009) argued that apart from fertilizers, the use of contaminated water can also increase the heavy metals absorption in plants. when roots absorb pb, it cannot go through the root’s endoderms. however, the results from the study of domergue & vedy (domergue & védy, 1992) showed that leafy vegetables not only accumulate pb from the soil but also use leaves to accumulate pb from the atmosphere. other factors such as the plant species, the type of soil, growth phase, and the surrounding environment greatly affect the accumulation of heavy metals in plants. even the atmospheric deposition and marketing can be the potential reasons for the elevated heavy metals contents. the elevated samples are directly associated with the health consequences of consumers. as we discussed above, intake of vegetables with such prominent levels of heavy metals can lead to many serious health issues such as hypertension and cardiovascular diseases due to as, gastrointestinal, kidney, and liver damage due to copper, cardiomyopathy, and pancreas damage due to fe, compromised central and peripheral nervous system due to pb, and kidney dysfunction due to cr. table 2: the heavy metal concentration of selected leafy vegetables collected from markets in nizwa, oman samples arsenic mg/kg copper mg/ kg zinc mg/ kg iron mg/kg lead mg/kg chromium mg/kg who/fao limits 0.2a 73a 99 425a 0.3a 2.3a arugula a1 nd 19.4±0.4b nd 665±67b 4.36±0.39b 10.40±0.89b a2 1.84±0.19b 18.3±0.7c nd 699±95b 15.89±1.62c 11.65±1.48c a3 1.90±0.34b 16.8±1.5d nd 149±11c 4.16±0.51b 2.17±0.11d a4 2.14±0.15c 14.8±0.7e nd 744±17d 2.86±0.12d 4.86±0.11e a5 1.67±0.01d 13.8±0.1f nd 633±38b 3.43±0.0.39e 4.43±0.04f radish r1 1.89±0.29b 15.2±0.8g nd 479±62e 2.8±0.28d 6.8±1.1g r2 1.92±0.10b 14.3±0.3e nd 263±23f 3.34±0.22e 3.54±0.18h r3 2.19±0.10c 23.7±1.8h nd 271±10f 6.01±0.91f 3.12±0.42i r4 2.06±0.03c 13.9±0.3f nd 343±25g 3.26±0.79e 2.13±0.54d r5 1.92±0.02b 15.3±0.6g nd 106±8h 4.34±0.69b 3.07±0.17i lettuce l1 2.04±0.14c 12.7±0.1i nd 207±13i 4.49±0.32b 2.90±0.38i l2 2.05±0.01c 18.4±0.1c nd 16± j 4.85±0.78g 1.49±0.08 j l3 2.11±0.15c 13.5±1.1f nd 52±5k 3.55±0.15e 4.29±0.21f l4 1.98±0.22b 12.9±0.2i nd 106±15h nd 6.55±0.01g l5 2.19±0.20c 13.5±1.1f nd 40±8l 4.44±0.72b 2.34±0.40k cabbage c1 1.95±0.24b 13.2±0.5f nd nd 4.44±0.41b 3.42±0.77h c2 2.19±0.21c 12.7±2.3i nd nd 4.07±0.68h 1.72±0.15l c3 1.96±0.11b 9.1±1.5j nd nd 4.77±0.73g 1.21±0.05m c4 2.26±0.09c 11.8±1.2k nd nd 5.46±0.21i 1.59±0.02j c5 2.05±0.07c 11.1±1.4k nd nd 4.73±0.60g 1.13±0.10m spring onion o1 1.91±0.27b 14.2±2.9e nd 524±4k 3.28±0.68e 7.71±0.12n o2 1.65±0.01d 12.6±0.2i nd nd 3.07±0.08e 1.44±0.07j o3 1.92±0.02b 18.7±0.6b nd 62±2m 3.32±0.49e 2.47±0.40k o4 1.91±0.04b 15.6±0.7g nd 233±12n 2.97±0.14d 2.76±0.03o o5 1.9±0.03b 18.5±0.3b nd 121±5o 2.97±0.04d 1.99±0.32q means ± sd followed by the same letter, within a column, are not significantly different (p > 0.05). samples 1-5: samples from 5 distinct locations, nd: not detected. pa ge 48 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 42-50, 2024 conclusion it can be concluded from the present study that leafy vegetables have high microbiological and heavy metals contamination. most of the samples used in this study were contaminated with e. coli and staphylococci as well as some toxic heavy metals such as as, pb, and cr. this study highlights the questionable production, irrigation, fertilization, harvesting, packaging, transportation, handling, and storage of leafy vegetables in oman. the consumption of vegetables with such microbiological and heavy metals content can lead to concerning health issues among the consumers. further work needs to be conducted to ensure microbiological safety, assessing more food samples for even more pathogenic bacterial strains. additionally, the heavy metals accumulation by other vegetables and fruits also needs to be explored. acknowledgments the authors acknowledge the role of the food science and technology lab and natural and medical sciences research centre (nmsrc) administration in providing a conducive environment for research activities. the authors also acknowledge the role of the microbiology lab and daris in providing support and facilities necessary for conducting experiments and data analysis. references abadias, m., alegre, i., oliveira, m., altisent, r., & viñas, i. 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(2019). sources of soil pollution by heavy metals and their accumulation in vegetables: a review. water, air and soil pollution/water, air & soil pollution, 230(7). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-019-4221-y pa ge 1 pa ge 37 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) formulation of an improved nutritional quality composite flour for bakery products using wheat and sologold sweet potato william adebisi olosunde1*, tosin paul2, antia orua o1 volume 2 issue 2, year 2023 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i2.1825 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: august 18, 2023 accepted: september 22, 2023 published: september 28, 2023 the formulation of high nutritional quality composite flour for use in producing bakery products is essential and advantageous health wise to consumers of these products. therefore in this study, various formulated ratios (0:100, 10:90, 20:80, 30:70, 40:60, 50:50, 60:40, 70:30, 80:20, 90:10, and 100:0 denoted as a2, b9, b8, b7, b6, b5, b4, b3, b2, b1 and a1 respectively) of wheat and sologold sweet potato flour were made. the pure wheat a1 and pure sologold sweet potato a2 served as basis of assessing the nutritional contribution of sologold sweet potato flour at various ratios with wheat flour. the proximate properties, mineral, vitamins and beta carotene were determined in the various ratios formulated. more so, the best blend was selected based on desirability index of the formulated composite flours. results revealed that b6 (40% wheat and 60% sologold sweet potato) had the highest desirability index of 0.65164. hence, was selected as the best blend (composite) flour. the nutritional profile of the chosen b6 sample are as follows: moisture content (10.12%), crude fiber (3.21%), ash content (2.61%), protein content (5.80%), oil extract (5.20%), nfe (74.10%), sodium (0.13mg/g), calcium (2.08mg/g), magnesium (0.07mg/g), potassium (2.14mg/g), vitamin c (0.30µg/g), vitamin a (24.6µg/g) and beta-carotene content (27.5µg/g). this profile showed valuable positive impact of sologold sweet potato flour on the nutritional characteristics of the developed b6 composite flour. comparison of the blend b6 with some existing formulated composite flours, revealed that the developed composite flour b6 will likely have added advantage to the well-being of those that will consume its bakery products. thus the b6 blend (composite) flour is recommended for use in baking. keywords bakery products, composite flour, nutritional composition, sologold potato, wheat 1 department of agricultural and bioresources engineering, michael okpara university of agriculture, umudike, abia state, nigeria 2 department of agricultural and food engineering, faculty of engineering, university of uyo, uyo, akwa ibom state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: williamolosunde@uniuyo.edu.ng introduction flour plays a crucial role in baking. it provides structure, texture and flavour to baked goods. also, it is the foundation of bread, cakes, cookies, pastries and other baked products (tamaroh & sudrajat, 2021). when wheat flour is hydrated and mixed, the gluten protein will form an elastic network. the network will trap gases produced by yeast or leavening agents. this leads to the rising of dough coupled with a light, airy texture in the baked goods (aziz et al., 2018; oloniyo et al., 2021). flour is a staple ingredient in many food products; and wheat flour is the most widely used. however, the increasing prevalence of wheat-related allergies, dietary restrictions and the need for diversification in the food industry have prompted search for alternative sources of flour (ahemen et al., 2018; tamaroh & sudrajat, 2021). the potential sources of flour other than wheat include maize, rice, barley, sorghum, millet, oat, legume flours (such as soybean, chickpea, lentil), tuber flours (such as cassava, potato) and other locally available grains and pulses. two or more sources of flour may be combined to harness the beneficial attributes of each component (aburime et al., 2020; wang et al., 2020). it also create a versatile and balanced flour blend that can be used in various food applications. the composition of composite flour can be varied to give the desired characteristics. (azizi & rao, 2005; samia, 2013; pycia & ivanisora, 2020). composite flour could be used in various food applications, including bread, biscuits, cakes, pastries, noodles, and other bakery and food products (haruna et al., 2018). chinelo & nnenna (2016) studied the nutritional quality of bread made from composite flour that consist of wheat, sweet potato (yellow fleshed) and tiger nut flours. the findings indicated slight decrease in the protein content of the bread samples when sweet potato and tiger nut supplementation increases. more so, the crude fibre content was found to increase; but there was no significant change (p<0.05) in the ash and fat contents. carbohydrate which was the major component ranged from 73.47– 79.42%. awolu et al. (2017) investigated a composite flour that consist of rice, sweet potato and soybean flours. the result showed an increase in protein content above 10% when compared with 100% wheat flour. the composite (85.694% rice flour, 11.806% sweet potato and 2.5% soybean) and (95% rice flour, 2.5% sweet potato flour and 6.765% soybean), specifically had high levels of ash, fibre and protein contents. in addition, all the samples had carbohydrate content above 70 g/100g. fabian & nwamaka (2016) evaluated the nutrient compositions of bread fortified with sesame seed. it was found that full fat and defatted sesame seed meal respectively had 31.28% and 46.00% carbohydrate, 23.07% and 29.9% protein, 31.05% and 11.89% fat, and 13.20% and 12.14% crude fibre. fortification with sesame seed improved the nutrient composition and storage stability of the bread. the fortification with 20% full pa ge 38 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 37-45, 2023 fat or defatted sesame seed flours respectively increased protein from 11.80% to 13.93% or 14.89%, crude fibre from 1.63% to 3.44% or 5.25%, fat from 0.15% to 6.80% or 3.85%, but decreased carbohydrate from 55.44% to 50.37% or 48.68%. lee-hoon et al. (2017) determined the chemical properties of vitato potato flour (vitato), orange-fleshed sweet potato flour (ofsp) and purplefleshed sweet potato flour (pfsp). the vitato, ofsp and pfsp were at 20% with wheat flour. the composite was used to produce sponge cake. sponge cake without sweet potatoes flour served as control (wspsc). the chemical properties of these prepared sponge cakes were determined. the proximate composition revealed that vitato contained highest protein (4.59%) while pfsp had the highest ash (1.67%) and crude fiber (2.73%) content. addo & oyeleke (2004) evaluated the proximate compositions of orange fleshed sweet potato and red bambara groundnut for possible application in the production of high protein and pro-vitamin a enriched snacks for consumers. the flour blends were formulated in ratio 60:40, 50:50, 40:60, 30:70 respectively for orange fleshed sweet potato and red bambara groundnut. the protein and fat were observed to increase from 12.95±0.05% (60:40) to 16.87±0.02% (30:70) and 2.17±0.03% (60:40) to 3.05±0.04% (30:70) respectively. ash and carbohydrate decreased from 2.52±0.04% (60:40) to 2.27±0.05% (30:70) and 60.38±0.44% (30:70) to 69.09±0.30% (60:40) respectively. however, one of the varieties of potato that seems to be essential for utilization as a blend with wheat is sologold sweet potato. this is due to its high nutritional composition, functional properties and sensory attributes (adegunwa et al., 2017). the nutritional composition of sologold sweet potato includes macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants). these specific attributes makes sologold sweet potato an attractive ingredient for composite flour formulation (amandikwa et al., 2015). the utilization of sologold sweet potato will reduce food waste and also enhance its potential application in baked products. generally, composite flour offers significant advantages in bakery products in terms of improved nutritional profile, enhanced technological properties and economic viability (liu et al., 2020; obomeghei et al., 2020). therefore, this study is aimed at formulating composite flour from sologold sweet potato and wheat to have an improved nutritional qualities for bakery products. materials and methods equipment and sourcing of materials the major material used for this study was fresh sologold sweet potatoes, which was collected in nigeria from national root crops research institute umudike, abia state and wheat flour (dangote brand). the equipment used were hammer mill, mechanical sieves, electronic weighing balance, stop watch, electronic dough mixer, electronic ph meter, desiccators, stirrer, volumetric flasks, pipettes, beakers, crucibles, bowls, soxhlet apparatus, digestion flask, rapid visco-analyzer, ultraviolet/infrared and spectrophotometer. production of sologold sweet potato flour twenty kilograms (20kg) of fresh sologold sweet potato tubers were washed thoroughly, drained and peeled. the tubers were chopped to chips of 5mm thickness and then soaked in 2.5% sodium metabisulphate for 30 minutes. the pre-treated sologold potato chips were drained and divided into one hundred and fifty grams (150g) each. the samples were then dried in hot air oven set at temperature of 550c. the samples were removed when constant weights were obtained in three consecutive readings. the dried chips were crushed and milled with hammer mill into flour. the milled flour was sieved to fine particle size range of 0.295 to 0.462 mm. the proximate properties of the produced sologold sweet potatoes flour were carried out. production of wheat-sologold sweet potato flour blend the formulation of composite flour was carried out using completely randomized design (crd) as shown in table 1. table 1: wheat-sologold sweet potato flour formulation samples flour blend ratio sspf (g) wf (g) a1 100% wf, 0% sspf 0 300 b1 90% wf, 10% sspf 30 270 b2 80% wf, 20% sspf 60 240 b3 70% wf, 30% sspf 90 210 b4 60% wf, 40% sspf 120 180 b5 50% wf, 50% sspf 150 150 b6 40% wf, 60% sspf 180 120 b7 30% wf, 70% sspf 210 90 b8 20% wf, 80% sspf 240 60 b9 10% wf, 90% sspf 270 30 a2 0% wf, 100% sspf 300 0 sspf= sologold sweet potato flour, wf= wheat flour pa ge 39 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 37-45, 2023 determination of the proximate properties of composite wheat-sologold sweet potato flour the composite flour proximate properties such as crude protein, moisture content, crude fat, crude ash, crude fiber and carbohydrate were determined as prescribed by aoac (2016). all analyses were carried out in triplicates and the average values were recorded. determination of moisture content each sample (5g) were weighed into a porcelain dish of known weight and heated in a hot air oven at 105 oc for 3 hours. the samples were then cooled in a desiccator and weighed. the samples were consequently heated, weighed and cooled until a constant weight was attained. the formula used to calculate the moisture content was: moisture (g/100g) = (w2-w3) / (w2-w1) x 100 (1) where: w1 = weight of container + empty dish (g) w2 = weight of container + sample before drying (g) w3 = weight of container + sample after drying (g) determination of ash content sample 5 g was weighed into a porcelain crucible dish and then placed in a muffle furnace set at 550 oc for 5 hours until a white grey ash was obtained. the crucible was cooled in a desiccator and reweighed. the percentage ash content was calculated. the formula used was: ash (g/100g) = (w3-w1) / (w2-w1) x 100 (2) where: w1 = weight of crucible w2 = weight of crucible + sample before ash (g) w3 = weight of crucible + sample after ash (g) determination of crude protein crude protein contents of the sample was determine using micro-kjeldahl method. each sample 2 g was weighed in a digestion flask. tablet of kjeltec catalyst was added to each flask containing 15 ml of concentrated sulphuric acid. each flask was heated on pre heated digester set at 420 oc for about 30 minutes in a fume cupboard and digested until a clear homogenous mixture is obtained. after digestion, the flask was removed from the heater, cooled and the content diluted with about 50 ml of distilled water. the flask was then placed in the micro-kjedahl analyzer (distillation unit) where it received 50 ml of 40% naoh automatically. the mixture was subsequently heated up to release ammonia which was distilled into a conical flask containing 25 ml of 2% boric acid for about 4 minutes. addition of mixed indicator; bromocresol green and methyl red during the distillation process, the ammonia combined with boric acid form ammonium borate solution which was then titrated against 0.1 m hydrochloric acid until a purplishgrey end point was attained. the percentage nitrogen was calculated. the % crude protein was obtained by multiplying % g nitrogen by a factor of 6.25. crude protein (g/100g) = % nitrogen x 6.25 (3) determination of crude fibre crude fibre was determine according to the method of owoso et al., (2000). each of the sample (2g) was diluted in 100 ml distilled water in a conical flask 20 ml of 1.25% sulphuric acid was added and boiled gently for 30 min. the sample was then cooled and filtered. the filtrate was subjected to treatment using 1.25% sodium hydroxide. the residue was washed with 20 ml of ethanol and petroleum ether and then dried at 150 oc. the sample was weighed and ashed at 600 oc for 90 minutes, cooled and reweighed and the percentage of crude fibre was calculated. determination of oil extract oil extract was determine using the soxhlet extractor with a reflux condenser and a distillation flask (previously weighed). 2g each of the samples was weighed into a fat free extraction thimble plugged with cotton wool and placed in the appropriate chamber of the extractor. the distillation flask was filled to two third capacities with petroleum ether and boiled on a heating mantle; the refluxing continued until the extractor siphones over 4 hours. thereafter, n-hexane was recovered into a clean container until almost all was distilled out of the distillation flask. the remaining solvent in the mixture without the oil in the distillation flask was evaporated by introducing distillation flask to an oven set at 70 oc. the flask was allowed to cool subsequently in a desiccator after which the final weight of the flask was determined. the difference in the final and initial weight of the distillation flask represents the oil extracted from the sample. determination of carbohydrate (nitrogen free extract) the % carbohydrate content (nitrogen free extract) was calculated by differences: carbohydrate (%) = 100 – (% moisture + % ash content + % crude protein + % crude fibre + % crude fat). (4) determination of vitamins and beta-carotene of composite wheat-sologold sweet potato flour the determination of vitamins and beta-carotene of composite wheat-sologold sweet potato flour blends were carried out using aoac (2016). 10 grams each of the flour samples were weighed using analytical weighing balance. each sample was then transferred to a clean, dry container and kept covered to prevent moisture absorption. 60% ethanol was used as solvent for extraction of vitamins. 100 ml of the solvent was added to 2grams of each flour sample. the mixture was stirred thoroughly for 5 minutes and thereafter allowed to settle for 30 minutes. the mixture was then centrifuged at 3000 rpm for 10 minutes to separate the liquid extract from solid particles. series of standard solutions of vitamin a, vitamin c and beta-carotene were prepared with known concentrations. spectrophotometer was used to measure the absorbance of each standard solution at specific wavelengths relevant to each vitamin. calibration curves were plotted for each vitamin by plotting the pa ge 40 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 37-45, 2023 absorbance values against the corresponding known concentrations. the concentrations of vitamin a, vitamin b, and beta-carotene in each flour sample was obtained from the calibration curves. the results were expressed in micrograms per gram to quantify the level of each vitamin in each flour sample. determination of the minerals in wheat-sologold sweet potato composite flour the determination of the mineral’s composition in wheatsologold sweet potato flour blends was carried out using aoac (2016). 5grams of each flour sample was weighed using analytical weighing balance. the flour sample was transferred into a digestion vessel followed by addition of 100ml concentrated nitric acid. the digestion vessel was covered and heated using a bunsen burner until digestion was completed and thereafter allowed to cool to room temperature. the digested sample was then transferred to a volumetric flask and diluted with deionized water to 500ml; then mixed thoroughly to ensure homogeneity. the diluted sample was filtered and the undissolved particles discarded while the filtrate was collected in a clean container. the atomic absorption spectrophotometer was used to obtain calibration curves for each of the mineral to be tested in the sample. the absorbance or emission intensity of the diluted and filtered sample was measured and used to determine the concentration of each mineral based on the calibration curve. calculation of the mineral content in each flour sample was done by multiplying the concentration of each mineral element by the dilution factor and the weight of the original sample. the results were expressed in milligrams per gram of each flour sample. results and discussion proximate composition of wheat-sologold sweet potato composite flour the proximate properties of the wheat-sologold sweet potato flour blends determined are as presented in figure 1. the average moisture content of the flour samples figure 1: proximate properties of wheat-sologold sweet potato flour blends range between 9.60%11.90%. sample b1 with 90.00% wheat flour and 10.00% sspf recorded the highest value of moisture content (11.90%); while b9 with 10.00% wheat flour and 90.00% sspf recorded the lowest value of 9.60%. the average moisture content of sample a1 (100% wheat and 0% sspf) and sample a2 (0% wheat and 100% sspf) were 12.02% and 9.52% respectively. however, flour with water activity range of 6-12% is considered as intermediate water activity flour. (malomo et al., 2012). this implies that the composite could have reasonable life span before microbial spoilage. moreover, the ash content of the composite flour samples is not significant (p˃0.050) and ranges between 4.62% 0.96% with blend a1 having lowest value (0.96%) and blend a2 highest value (4.62%). this shows that the sologold sweet potato flour supplies the blend with minerals. the average crude protein content of the flour blends ranges between 6.35% 3.96%. blend b1 (90.00% wheat flour and 10.00% sspf) recorded the lowest value (3.96%) while blend b9 (90.00% wheat flour and 10.00% sspf) recorded the highest value of 6.29%. however, sample a1 (100% wheat and 0% sspf) recorded average crude protein content of 3.76% while sample a2 (0% wheat and 100% sspf) recorded 6.35%. this indicates that the major supplier of crude protein in the blend is sologold sweet potato. the average crude fibre content of the entire flour blends ranges between 4.08% 1.31%. blend b1 (90.00% wheat flour and 10.00% sspf) recorded the lowest value (1.31%) while blends b9 (10.00% wheat flour and 90.00% sspf) recorded the highest value (3.72%). however, sample a1 (100% wheat and 0% sspf) recorded average crude fibre content of 1.03% and sample a2 (0% wheat and 100% sspf) has 4.08%. therefore, sample a2 (sologold sweet potato) is a good source of fibre and may compensate the deficiency in daily dietary fibre. according to malomo et al., (2012) high content of dietary fibre has an impact on food by reducing the rate of glucose breakdown and absorption. the oil extract content of blend b1 (90.00% wheat flour and 10.00% sspf) was the lowest with value of 4.78% while blend b9 (10.00% wheat flour and 90.00% sspf) recorded the highest value of 5.48%. however, sample a1 (100% wheat and 0% sspf) average oil extract content of was 4.70% while sample a2 (0% wheat and 100% sspf) pa ge 41 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 37-45, 2023 recorded 5.63%. oil extract is important since it enhances the organoleptic and preservative properties especially when available at optimum percentage. more so, analysis on nitrogen free extract (nfe) in the composite flour showed that blend b6 with 40.00% wheat flour and 60.00% sspf had the lowest value (74.10%) while blend b9 (10.00% wheat flour and 90.00% sspf) recorded the highest value of 78.20%. the sample a1 (100% wheat and 0% sspf) recorded average nfe of 77.55% and sample a2 (0% wheat and 100% sspf) recorded 72.24%. the nitrogen free extract (nfe) indicates the presence of non-fibrous and soluble carbohydrate such as sugars and starches. also samples with high nfe are more digestible than those with low nfe. generally, based on the proximate composition of each blend, the composite flour b6 was considered and preferred to have good nutritional attributes. the statistical analysis of variance carried out on the proximate properties of the wheatsologold sweet potato blends are presented in table 2. from table 2, the average moisture content of the flour table 2: anova of the proximate composition of composite wheat-sologold flour composition sum of squares df. mean square f sig. mc between groups 33.58208 24 1.399253 0.0690 1.6432 within groups .021 1 .002 total 25 protein between groups 115.4589 22 5.248133 13.1284 0.0358 within groups .076 1 .006 total 23 ash between groups 3.970558 24 0.016544 0.301059 0.5883 within groups .00 1 .000 25 crude fibre between groups 2.264032 23 0.098436 0.0443 0.8554 within groups 1.43 1 total 24 oil extract between groups 18.8314 1 0.856234 3.062318 0.4112 within groups 0.5 22 total 23 nfe between groups 194.1467 1 8.089446 6.487882 0.0372 within groups .001 24 .000 total 1011.583 25 blends is not significant (p˃0.050). more so, average protein content of the flour blends showed that the difference in the protein content of the composite flour samples is significant (p ≤ 0.050). the average crude fibre content of the flour blends showed that the fibre content of the composite flour samples is not significant (p˃0.050). also, the average oil extract content of the flour blends is not significant (p˃0.050). however, average nitrogen free extract content of the composite flour samples is significant (p≤0.050). this implies that the composite flour samples are soluble carbohydrates. mineral composition of composite wheat-sologold flour figure 2: mineral composition of composite wheat-sologold sweet potato flour blends pa ge 42 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 37-45, 2023 the mineral composition and its anova for wheatsologold sweet potato composite flour blends are presented in figure 2 and table 3 respectively. the sample, (a1) with 100% wheat and 0% sspf recorded low values of mineral compositions when compared with sspf and the composite flour. this may be attributed to the high mineral content of sspf. also, the statistical analysis of variance showed that the magnesium and iron contents of the composite flour samples are not significant (p>0.050). moreso, calcium, sodium and potassium contents are significant (p≤0.050). the higher percentage of calcium, sodium and potassium in sologold sweet potato flour influenced the composite flour samples. generally, blend b6 chosen based on proximate composition of the composite flour contains reasonable percentages of these minerals. vitamin composition of composite wheat-sologold flour the vitamin composition and anova of composite wheat-sologold sweet potato flour blends are given in figure 3 and table 4 respectively. table 3: anova of the mineral composition of composite wheat-sologold flour composition sum of squares df. mean square f sig. ca between groups 314.58 1 9550.63 4.1909 0.029 within groups 5 8 .02 total 319.58 9 na between groups 274.02 1 3277.81 3.6907 0.043 within groups 5 8 .04 total 279.02 9 mg between groups 299.94 1 5198.80 9.4308 0.309 within groups 5 8 .03 total 304.94 9 k between groups 303.61 1 7158.7 4.0407 0.018 within groups 5 8 .01 total 308.61 9 fe between groups 306.11 1 6301.55 1.5907 0.122 within groups 5 8 .05 total 311.11 9 figure 3: vitamin composition of composite wheat-sologold sweet potato flour blends table 4: anova of the vitamin composition of composite wheat-sologold flour composition sum of squares df. mean square f sig. beta carotene between groups 938.98 3 94965.6 0.772828 0.045 within groups 3 8 .02 total 941.98 11 vitamin a between groups 199.627 3 91920.5 0.723912 0.036 within groups 3 8 .04 total 199.630 11 pa ge 43 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 37-45, 2023 vitamin c between groups 735364 3 66542.34 0.723912 0.040 within groups 6 8 .05 total 735370 11 the sample a1 (100% wheat and 0% sspf) recorded zero value for beta-carotene, vitamin a and c. however, sample a2 (0% wheat and 100% sologold sweet potato) had beta-carotene vitamin a and c. hence the presence of these vitamins in the composite flour is attributed to the high vitamin content of ssp flour. from table 4, the statistical analysis of variance for average vitamin composition of the flour sample blends shows that the difference in the beta carotene, vitamin a and vitamin c contents of the composite flour samples are significant (p≤0.050). however, sample blends with high vitamins and beta carotene are high in antioxidants and may enhance the immune system and protect the body from free radicals. in overall, the b6 composition is well fortified with these vitamins. desirability index of nutritional properties of composite wheat-sologold sweet potato flour the desirability index of all the nutritional properties of composite wheat-sologold sweet potato flour is shown table 5: desirability index of nutritional properties of composite wheat sologold sweet potato flour sa m pl e w f ss pf b et c µg /g v ita µg /g v it c µg / g m c % a c % c p % c f % o e % n fe % c am g/ g n am g/ g m gm g/ g k m g/ g d es ira bi lit y a1 10 0 0 0. 0 0. 0 0. 0 12 .0 2 0. 96 3. 76 1. 03 4. 70 77 .5 5 1. 90 0. 15 0. 10 2. 37 0. 33 20 5 b1 90 10 06 .3 03 .1 0. 07 11 .9 0 1. 25 3. 96 1. 31 4. 78 73 .4 3 2. 05 0. 15 0. 09 1. 52 0. 38 32 0 b2 80 20 11 .1 07 .4 0. 11 11 .8 6 1. 40 4. 53 1. 68 4. 86 75 .8 2 2. 07 0. 14 0. 09 2. 20 0. 49 88 1 b3 70 30 16 .5 12 .5 0. 16 11 .1 4 1. 57 4. 82 1. 89 4. 90 72 .8 7 2. 10 0. 14 0. 08 1. 71 0. 56 58 5 b4 60 40 20 .6 15 .2 0. 22 10 .5 4 1. 95 5. 15 2. 68 5. 00 75 .2 3 2. 09 0. 14 0. 08 2. 17 0. 55 48 3 b5 50 50 23 .2 19 .0 0. 25 10 .3 5 2. 18 5. 62 3. 11 5. 13 72 .4 2 1. 95 0. 13 0. 08 1. 86 0. 50 43 3 b6 40 60 27 .5 24 .6 0. 30 10 .1 2 2. 61 5. 80 3. 21 5. 20 74 .1 0 2. 08 0. 13 0. 07 2. 14 0. 65 16 4 selected b7 30 70 30 .6 0. 30 35 .8 5 9. 83 2. 89 5. 92 3. 28 5. 31 72 .7 7 2. 02 0. 12 0. 07 1. 92 0. 60 76 2 b8 20 80 35 .0 0. 33 40 .5 0 9. 74 3. 37 6. 15 3. 30 5. 40 73 .4 6 2. 04 0. 12 0. 07 2. 10 0. 60 18 7 b9 10 90 38 .2 0. 35 45 .2 5 9. 60 4. 12 6. 29 3. 72 5. 48 72 .3 0 2. 01 0. 11 0. 06 2. 00 0. 59 66 0 a2 0 10 0 42 .4 0. 38 47 .1 8 9. 52 4. 62 6. 35 4. 08 5. 63 72 .2 4 2. 06 0. 10 0. 05 2. 04 0. 52 04 7 pa ge 44 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 37-45, 2023 in table 5. the sample with the highest desirability is selected as the optimum composite flour sample. the selected sample is b6 with 40% wheat and 60% sologold sweet potato flour and has 0.65164 desirability. this indicates that b6 is the optimum composite flour, and it is likely to give the desired qualities of bakery product with the following attributes: moisture content (10.12%), crude fibre (3.21%), ash content (2.61%), protein content (5.80%), oil extract (5.2%), carbohydrate, nfe (74.1%), calcium (2.08mg/g), sodium (0.13mg/g), potassium (2.14mg/g), vitamin c (0.3µg/g), vitamin a (24.6µg/g) and betacarotene content (27.29µg/g). comparative analysis of selected existing composite flours and the wheat-sologold sweet potato composite flour used for bakery products the nutritional properties of the chosen best blend (composite flour) b6 developed were compared with some selected existing composite flour meant for bakery table 6: some nutritional properties of selected existing composite flour samples and the developed composite flour (b6) composite flour blend ratio protein (%) cho (%) fat (%) fiber (%) vitamins minerals (mg/g) reference wheat-sologold 60:40 5.8 74.1 5.2 3.21 a,c, β-car otene sodium, calcium, magnesium, potassium researcher (authors) rice, potatoes and soybeans 85:12:3 12.5 74.2 8.4 1.9 b magnesium awolu et al., (2017) wheat-yam 60:40 6.9 66.3 6.9 3.6 b magnesium, phosphorus amandikwa et al., 2015 wheatcorn 70:30 2.3 78.5 1.2 4.3 b magnesium, potassium aburime et al., 2020 wheat-soybeans 80:20 14.9 30.6 21.1 3.2 b iron, calcium, potassium lee-hoon et al., (2017) wheat, potato and bambara nut 60:30:10 16.9 60.4 6.0 2.1 b iron, magnesium addo & oyeleke (2004) wheat-sesame 80:20 13.9 48.8 3.9 3.4 b iron, magnesium, phosphorus fabian & nwamaka (2016) wheat, tiger nut and potatoes 70:20:10 3.8 73.5 2.2 2.8 b calcium, iron, magnesium chinelo & nnenna (2016) wheat-coconut 70:30 4.0 57.0 16.0 4.0 c iron, potassium adegunwa et al., (2017) wheat-vitato potato 80:20 4.6 81.5 0.8 2.2 a iron, magnesium lee-hoon et al., (2017) products and are presented in table 6. the composite flour samples in table 6 shows that the blends with grains, legumes and tubers have high nutritional compositions. hence, grains, legumes and tubers are recommended as composite constituents. in addition, the developed composite flour (b6) has added advantage of containing more minerals and vitamins content than existing composite flour from various studies as presented. conclusion the nutritional qualities of the developed composite flour (40% wheat and 60% sologold sweet potato) will likely have positive impact on the health of the consumer of its bakery products. recommendation the 40% wheat and 60% sologold 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(2022). functional and pysiochemical properties of flours and starches from different tuber crops. int. biol. macromol, 148, 324–332. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ijbiomac.2020.01.146 pa ge 1 pa ge 1 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) review on dairy cattle reproductive performance under different production system in ethiopia abera fekata dinkissa1*, mitiku eshetu guye2 volume 1 issue 1, year 2022 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v1i1.407 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: july 21, 2022 accepted: july 22, 2022 published: july 24, 2022 reproductive performance of dairy cattle in terms of age at first service (afs), age at first calving (afc), calving interval (ci), day open (do) and number of service per conception (nspc) in different production system in ethiopia was reviewed. the reproductive performance parameter of dairy cattle like age at first serves (afs), age at first calving (afc), calving interval (ci), day opens (do) and number of service per conception (nspc) under different production system is quite different. age at first calving (afc) in pastoral and agro-pastoral and intensive dairy production system were 43.5±1.5months and 33.2 months, respectively. days open (do) in pastoral and agro-pastoral, small holder dairy production and urban and dairy production for local cows were 141±7 days, 185±51.2days and 199.8±11.60 days, respectively. 85 to 115days considered as optimum for dairy herd, 116 to 130 days indicate slight problem, 131 to 145 days moderate problems. thus, indicated that days open in different production system is not with in normal range. similarly, for cross dairy cows in intensive dairy production system was157.8 days. the calving interval (ci) was in pastoral and agro-pastoral, small holder dairy production system, urban and pre-urban for local breed were 14.63±10 months, 14.36± 1.03 months and 22.17±0.79 months, respectively. whereas in urban and pre-urban and intensive dairy production for cross dairy cows were12.42±5.9 months, 15.820±.41months and 14.56 months, respectively. nspc for horro x jersey (1.8) and horro (2.1) are not with in normal range, but for borana (1.6), fogera (1.28), friesian x zebu (1.56) was with in normal range. this difference might be due to poor management in terms of nutrition, health care, housing, heat detection, timely insemination and breed as well as environmental factors. it could be concluded that proper management in terms of nutrition, health care, housing, heat detection, timely insemination would improve reproductive performance under different production system. beside this, too boost dairy cattle reproductive performance, intensification of dairy cattle production should be promoted in ethiopia to meet increasing demand for dairy products and to reduce imports of dairy commodities. thus, all coordinated works of all concerned bodies should be in place to boost the production and productivity and thereby enhance the livelihood of the dairy farmers keywords dairy, reproductive, performance, production system 1 department of animal and range science, bule hora universty, bule hora, ethiopia. 2 school of animal and range science, haramaya university, dire dawa, haramaya, ethiopia. * corresponding author’s e-mail: fekataabera@gmail.com introduction ethiopia is known for its huge cattle population and livestock sector contributes significantly to the national economy but unfortunately, production per animal is extremely low. it is one of the sub-saharan africa with a large potential for cattle production. the country is 1st among african countries and 9th in the world by possessing cattle population. the total cattle population for the country is estimated to be about 60.39 million. out of this total cattle population, the female cattle constitute about 54.68% (csa, 2018). the average lactation length per cow at country level is estimated to be about six months, and average milk yield per cow per day is about 1.37 liters (csa, 2018). livestock production plays important role to human health and poverty alleviation in ethiopia. the cattle production gives multi-purpose role where cattle provide milk, meat, fertilizer, fuel, draft power and also as a means of economic uplift from the sale of milk and milk products. the sector contributes 15 to 17% of gross domestic product (gdp) and 35 to 49% of agricultural gdp and 37 to 87% of the household incomes (behnke and metaferia, 2011). there are five production systems that have been identified based on the integration of livestock with crop production, the level of input and intensity of production, agro-ecology, and market orientation. these are pastoral (traditional pastoral livestock farming), agropastoral (traditional lowland mixed livestock farming), the mixed crop-livestock system (traditional highland mixed farming), urban and peri-urban (the emerging smallholder dairy farming) and commercial (specialized commercial intensive dairy farming) (fao, 2011). pastoral systems are mainly found in the lowlands where livestock production is the dominant form of production to sustain the livelihood of pastoral society with no cropping, while agro pastoral system combines both cropping and livestock production. in both systems, the production is based entirely on low input, with low milk yield, and little market orientation (tegegne et al., 2013).one measure of productivity is reproductive performance. reproductive and productive performance is vital for the profitability of many animal production systems. especially, the economics of dairy enterprise is based on an efficient reproductive and performance of dairy animals (nibret, 2012). https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v1i1.407 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst mailto:fekataabera@gmail.com pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 1-9, 2022 in ethiopia, the poor genetic potential for productive traits, substandard feeding, poor health care and management practices are the main contributors to low productivity (belay et al., 2012). the reproductive performance of dairy cows is the most important factor that is a prerequisite for sustainable dairy production system and influencing the productivity. this review would support researchers to understand more about the reproductive performance parameters and different production system under ethiopian condition. the review paper provides information to dairy producers and breeders regarding to reproductive performances of dairy cattle under different production system. therefore, the objectives of this review paper were to highlight the overall reproductive performance of dairy cattle under different production system in ethiopian. different dairy production systems ethiopian dairy cattle production systems already existing in ethiopia is part of four major livestock production systems: specialized commercial dairy production systems, pastoral and agro– pastoral production, rural smallholder (mixed crop– livestock) production and urban and periurban smallholder dairy production. milk, with little or no land resources, only making use of the human and capital resources made available mainly for specialized dairy production under stall feeding conditions (azage et al., 2013) the ethiopian dairy production system is based on predominantly indigenous zebu cattle, which is well adapted to and distributed among the diverse ecological conditions and management systems of the country. although no exhaustive identification and characterization work has been conducted, it is suggested that there are over 25 types/breeds of indigenous cattle, the most popular ones including boran, horro, fogera, arsi, karayu and nuer (ibc, 2004). pastoral and agro-pastoral pastoralists raise about 30% of the indigenous livestock population which serve as the major milk production system for an estimated 10% of the country’s human population living in the lowland areas. milk production in pastoral and agro-pastoral system is characterized by low yield and seasonal availability (zegeye, 2003) pastoral and agro-pastoral production system is the major milk production practiced in the lowland regions of ethiopia where livelihoods are heavily dependent on livestock. cattle dominate the livestock population followed by camel, goats, and sheep. major pastoral areas extend from the north-eastern and eastern lowlands (afar and somali) to the southern and south-western lowlands (fao, 2017). in pastoral and agro-pastoral areas shorter calving intervals of 15.5 months than 19 months, respectively (workneh and rowland, 2004). peri-urban and urban production system periurban livestock keeping fits different livelihood strategies and contributes to food security, income and employment generation, saving and insurance (azage et al., 2006). peri-urban dairy systems are located mainly in rural areas or at the edge of the urban areas having relatively better access to urban centers in which dairy products are highly needed (azage et al., 2013). urban and peri-urban being market oriented systems emerge as a significant part of milk production systems in ethiopia. food and nutrition, increased income, employment generation, organic waste recycling and uplifting social status are known to be the most important benefits (gillah et al., 2012). urban and peri-urban systems are intensified through the use of crossbred dairy cows, purchased and conserved feed and stall-feeding (azage et al., 2010). urban and peri-urban being market oriented systems emerge as a significant part of milk production systems in ethiopia. food and nutrition, increased income, employment generation, organic waste recycling and uplifting social status are known to be the most important benefits (gillah et al., 2012). urban and peri-urban systems are intensified through the use of crossbred dairy cows, purchased and conserved feed and stall-feeding (azage et al., 2010). the main feed resources are agro industrial by products and purchased roughages. the system comprises small and medium sized dairy farms that own crossbred dairy cows. farmers use all or part of their land for forage production (azage et al., 2000) the urban and peri-urban dairy production system is an expanding production system, largely found in the highlands and is concentrated in the addis ababa milk shed area as well as around the regional capital cities where an adequate market for fresh milk is readily available. it is practiced by many landless urban and suburban poor households. however, some businessmen and retired civil servants also keep some dairy animals depending, wholly or partly, on hired labor. producers are market oriented and respond to improved technical, input supply and marketing services (bogale et al., 2014).the main feed resources are agro-industrial by-products, purchased roughage, crop residue and pasture land. the primary objective of milk production is generating additional cash income (aneteneh et al., 2010) mixed crop–livestock dairy production system mixed crop–livestock dairy production is a subsistenceoriented farming system concentrated in the midand high-altitude agro-ecological zones where cereals and cash crops are dominant farm activities. cattle are primarily kept to supply draft power needed for crop production. however, milk production is an integral part of the production system. the bulk of the total milk produced nationally and about three quarters of the liquid milk processed commercially (fao, 2019) natural pasture, crop residues, and weeds and crop thinning are the major feed types. the management style is mostly low-input, low-output traditional extensive system. about 65 percent of the total milking cows are https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 1-9, 2022 found in this system and produce about 72 percent of the national annual milk output (fao and nzagrc, 2017). water is sourced from rivers and rainwater. housing type can be open kraal, partition within family house or share the same room with humans. milk yield per cow is 1.9 liters per day, on average (felleke et al., 2010). milk production in this production system depends largely on indigenous breeds and small amount in cross breeds of cattle. therefore, most of the milking cows are indigenous animals with low production performance with an average age of first calving being 53 months while 25 months for average calving intervals. in the farming system, feed requirements are got from native pasture with supplement from crop residues and stub grazing (afras, 2018). dairy production in the mixed crop-livestock system is pivotal to supplying the bulk of milk and milk products to the ethiopian population although it is not essentially market-oriented. smallholder farmers either sell excess milk informally to individual consumers and milk collectors or process it into butter and cottage cheese for sale. productivity per unit of land and per head of animal is extremely low. at the same time, poor service delivery systems, particularly veterinary services, make it prone to disease outbreaks and losses due to mortality and morbidity (fao, 2019) intensive dairy production system intensive dairy productions systems are located in and around addis ababa and basically keep high grade or purebred dairy stock (azage et al., 2000). the commercial farms are smallto large-scale dairy farms, the large-scale farms being concentrated in and around addis ababa. the herd is dominated with improved/cross breed dairy cattle and the production system is market oriented and milk production is for sale (surplus production) (ahmed et al., 2003) the exact number of commercial dairy farms is not known but they represent a small fraction of total dairy farmers. the number of dairy cows in this system, however, is steadily growing and is estimated at ~3 percent of the total national milking cows. geographically, they are concentrated mainly in the central highlands near major cities and towns. average herd sizes can be more than 100 milking cows for large-scale farms; 30–100 for mediumscale and <30 for small-scale farms (fao, 2019).driven by the unprecedented increase in demand for milk and other dairy products, commercial dairy is a growing subsystem in ethiopia. however, it is constrained by shortage of inputs particularly feed, genotypes, and veterinary services. most commercial farmers are obliged to process the milk they produce into various dairy products but not all have the financial and infrastructural capabilities to meet such obligations (shapiro et al., 2015; fao, 2017) the specialized commercial dairy systems involving higher levels of investment are concentrated in the central highland plateau. in terms of scale of operation, the farms are classified as large-, smallor medium-scale. being licensed farms with operational business plans, they are market oriented specifically targeting consumers in urban areas. producers tend to have a good understanding of dairy management. the commercial dairy system is labor and input intensive relative to other systems. the animals do not provide draft power but their manure is used as fertilizer (fao, 2019) major feed types include hay, concentrated dairy mix, and industrial by-products. these are mainly purchased, though some farms cultivate own pasture. main water source is tap or boreholes. common animal health problems include mastitis, infertility, and bovine tuberculosis. these farms have access to vaccination, treatment and deworming services. standard dairy housing or simple shelter may be used. productive and reproductive performances are usually better with daily milk yield in the range of 15–20 liters per cows and an average lactation yield of about 4,375 liters (fao, 2019) in general, the reproductive performance of dairy cattle under different production system was depicted table 1.from this table age at first calving (afc) in pastoral and agro-pastoral and intensive dairy production were 43.5±1.5 and 33.2, respectively. number of services pericon ception (nspc) in pastoral and agro-pastoral, small dairy production and intensive dairy production system are not with in normal range. nspc 1.3 to 1.7 regarded as normal at national level. however, from (table 1) except urban and per-urban dairy production which fall with in normal range and the three-production system are out of the stranded. the days open (do) in pastoral and agro-pastoral, small holder dairy production and urban and dairy production for local cows were 141±7, 185 ±51.2 and 199.8±11.60, respectively. in contrary, tadesse et al. (2010) reported that 85 to 115days considered as optimum for dairy herd, 116 to 130 indicate slight problem, 131 to 145 moderate problems. similarly, for cross dairy cow’s day open in intensive dairy production system was157.8. thus, indicated that the day open in different production system was not with in normal range. the calving intervals (ci) in pastoral and agro-pastoral, small holder dairy production system, urban and preurban for local cows were 14.63 ± 10, 14.36± 1.03 and 22.17± 0.79, respectively. whereas in urban and pre-urban and intensive dairy production system for cross dairy cows were 12.42±5.9, 15.820±.41 and 14.56, respectively. the difference might be due to poor management in terms of nutrition, health care, housing, heat detection, timely insemination as well as environmental factors in all production system. reproductive performance of dairy cattle in ethiopia reproductive traits describe the animal’s ability to conceive, calve down and suckle the calf to weaning successfully (davis, 1993). reproductive efficiency of a herd is an important component of dairy cattle productivity in the world. economic losses because of poor fertility can be attributed to the cost of prolonged calving interval, https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 1-9, 2022 increased insemination costs, reduced returns from calves born and forced replacements in the event of culling. a delay in conception because of poor fertility increases calving interval mostly due to the increase in the number of days from calving to conception (nishida et al., 2006). the productivity of dairy cattle breeds depends mainly on their reproductive performance and efficiency of service per conception. reproductive performance is a characteristic of outstanding importance in dairy cattle business (gabriel et al., 1983).reproductive performance parameters are age at first service, age at first calving, number of services per-conception, calving interval, and days open are the bases of profitable production for dairy farm (mukasa,1989). reproductive efficiency of dairy cows is influenced by different factors including genetic, season, age, production system, nutrition, management, environment and disease (belay et al., 2012) age at first service age at first services (afs) is the age at which heifers attain body condition and sexual maturity for accepting service for the first time (gidey, 2001).assefa et al. (2015) reported that the average age at first service was 40.74 months for heifers of indigenous breed and the average effective age service of local bull is 44.4 months in sidama zone southern ethiopia. nuraddis et al. (2011) reported that the mean afs for crossbred dairy cows (holstein frisian x zebu) in urban and peri-urban production system in gondar town was 23.2 months. belay et al. (2012), hunduma (2012) and emebet (2006) reported that 24.3, 24.9 and 24.1months age at first service for cross breed dairy cows under small scale dairy production system in jimma, asella, dire dawa, respectively table 1: reproductive performance of dairy cattle under different production system production system agro-e breed reproductive performance of dairy cattle reference afs(m) afc(m) ci(m) do (d) nspc pagro ll l 32.4± 1.4 43.5± 1.5 14.63±10 141 ± 7 2.44±0.1 aynalem etal.(2011) shdp hl l 39.4 ±1.7 14.36± 1.03 185 +51.2 2.1+0.1 niraj et al.(2014) upre ml cr 24.9±3.8 34.8±4 12.42±5.9 85.6±5.6 1.52±0.9 hunduma (2012) ml l 41.621±.63 51.98+1.45 22.17± 0.79 199.8+11.60 1.34± 0.28 belay et al.(2016) ml cr 24.19± 1. 34.78± 1.08 15.820±.41 100.75+6.99 2.100±.17 belay et al.(2016) idp hl cr 22.76 33.2 14.56 157.8 1.93 zenebe etal. (2016) where pagro =pastoral agro-pastoral, shdp=small holder dairy production, upre=urban and pre-urban dairy production, idp= intensive dairy production, l=local cows, cr=cross dairy cows, ll=low land, hl=highland, ml=midland, agro-ecology, m=months, d=days table 2: average age at first service of indigenous and crossbred dairy cattle breed location age at first maturity(months) sources horro ethiopia 46 male and 48 females mekonnen et al. (2012) native ethiopia 40.74 female and 44.4 male assefa et al. (2015) horro x jersey ethiopia 33 damissu et al. (2013) friesian x fogera ethiopia 36.8 gebeyehu et al. (2005) friesian x zebu ethiopia 24.3 belay et al. (2012) table 3: average age at first calving (afc) of zebu and crossbred dairy cattle breed location age at first calving(month) sources horro ethiopia 58.08 makonnen et al. (2012) fogera ethiopia 50.8 menale et al. (2011) begait ethiopia 60 rege et al. (2006) cross bred ethiopia 34.8 hunduma (2012) cross bred (hf x zebu) ethiopia 36.4 belay et al. (2012) jersey cows ethiopia 34.5 habtamu et al. (2010) horro x jersey ethiopia 42.2 damissu et al. (2013) holstein–friesian ethiopia 561 amene et al. (2011) age at first calving (afc) the age at first calving is the age when an individual calf gives birth for the first time. first calving characterizes the start of the productive life of a cow having an influence on both reproductive and productive life of the female, directly having an effect on her lifetime calf crop and milk production, and indirectly through its influence on the cost that has been invested for the upbringing (azage et al., 2011). first calving makes the beginning of a cow productive life and influences both the production and reproduction life of the female, directly through its effect on her life https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 1-9, 2022 time calf crop and milk production and indirectly it is influence on the cost invested (mukasamugerwa, 1989). under controlled breeding system, heifers are usually mated when they are mature enough to withstand the stress of parturition and lactation. it is recommended that heifers calve between 23 and 25 months of age, which is considered as optimum that increase profitability of the dairy business (hammoud et al., 2010).nuraddis et al. (2011) and hunduma (2012) reported mean afc of 34.7 months and 34.8 months for crossbred dairy cows in gonder and asella towns, respectively. belay et al. (2012) reported 36.4 months of afc for crossbred (hf x zebu) cows under small scale dairy farms in jimma town. tadesse et al. (2010) reported 39.2 months for holstein frisian (hf) cows under intensive production system in central highland ethiopia. calving interval (ci) calving interval (ci) refers to the period between two consecutive calving expressed in days or months (gidey, 2001). it is probably the best indicator of a cow’s reproductive efficiency and expresses the economic importance of reproduction. twelve months calving interval is generally considered the most economically desirable period for dairy cows. however, such a standard lactation length might not work for smallholder dairy cows in which the lactation length is extended considerably in most cases (msangi et al., 2005). relatively longer calving interval might be indicative of poor nutritional status, poor breeding management, lack of own bull and artificial insemination service, longer days open, diseases and poor management practices (belay et al., 2012). in pastoral and agro-pastoral areas shorter calving intervals of 15.5 months than 19 months, respectively have been reported (workneh and rowland, 2004). calving intervals do have low heritability and this can be enhanced through early breeding and nutrition (mulugeta and belayneh, 2013). this is important to the breeders because the lowest calving interval result the highest lifetime for calf production. one of the major problems that affect the lifetime productivity of dairy herds is extended calving interval (belay et al., 2012). table 4: average calving interval in days breed location (ci) calving interval in month sources borana ethiopia 20.73 yifat et al. (2012) begait ethiopia 15.26 rege et al. (2006) fogera ethiopia 17.5 rege et al. (2006) horro ethiopia 17.56 rege et al. (2006) arsi ethiopia 14.63 gabriel et al. (1983) jersey cows ethiopia 15 habtamu et al. (2010) crossbred dairy cows ethiopia 12.4 belay et al. (2012 zebu x holstein-friesian ethiopia 21.33 belay et al. (2012 holstein–friesian ethiopia 518.7 amene et al. (2011) day open days open (also called calving-to-conception interval) is the period between calving and conception in cows (tewodros, 2008). days open is influenced by the length of time for the uterus to completely involutes, resumption of normal ovarian cycle, occurrence of silent ovulation, accuracy of heat detection, management, semen quality and skill of inseminator or efficiency of bull (melaku et al., 2011). according to gebeyehu et al. (2007) and tadesse et al. (2010) a herd average of less than 85 open days indicates that cows are being breed early, 85 to 115days considered as optimum for dairy herd, 116 to 130 indicate slight problem, 131 to 145 moderate problems, while more than open days considered as sever reproductive problem in the dairy herd. reproductive parameter is influenced by feed shortage, silent estrus and lack of proper heat detection might have contributed considerably to the long days open (belay et al., 2012). from (table:5) it is table 5: do of indigenous zebu and cross breed cattle breed location (do)days open in days sources horro (zebu) ethiopia 134 gizaw et al. (2011 horro x jersey ethiopia 109 gizaw et al. (2011 friesian x zebu cattle ethiopia 87 nibret (2012) indicated that day opens for horro, horro x jersey, friesian x zebu cattle were 134 days,109days, 87 days, respectively. thus, might be due to breed and production system .85 to 115days open considered as optimum for dairy herd, 116 to 130 indicate slight problem, 131 to 145 moderate problems (tadesse et al., 2010) number of services per conception (nspc) the total number of services per conception is known to be the number of services/inseminations needed for a conception to be successful (menale et al.,2011). number of services required for conception (nspc) is one factor considered in determining reproductive efficiency of cow. it is reflecting the efficiency of management. the differences could be attributed to differences in management practices and agro-ecology of the respective areas. appropriate and in time heat detection and insemination could be attributed to lower or higher number of services of per conception (yifat et al., 2009). https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 1-9, 2022 table 6: nspc of indigenous zebu and cross breed cattle breed location nspc sources native ethiopia 2.2 kumar et al. (2014) horro ethiopia 2.1 damissu et al. (2013) borana ethiopia 1.6 yifat et al. (2012) fogera ethiopia 1.28 menale et al. (2011) horro-jersey ethiopia 1.8 damissu et al. (2013) according to the authors number of services per conception depends largely on the breeding system used. it is higher under uncontrolled, natural breeding than hand mating and artificial insemination (ai) and values of nspc greater than 2 should be regarded as poor (mukasamugerwa, 1989).the nsc was significantly affected by herd, season, placenta expulsion time, lactation length and milk yield (abdel and alemam, 2008). belay et al. (2012), gebeyehu et al. (2005) and demeke et al. (2004) reported 1.56, 1.62 and 1.73 nspc for cross breeds in jimma, andassa ranch and holeta research center ethiopia, respectively in summary, nspc for native (2.2), horrojersey (1.8) and horro (2.1) are not with in normal range. however, for borana (1.6), fogera (1.28), friesian x zebu (1.56) was with in normal range. according to the authors number of services per conception between 1.3 and 1.7 is considered as normal range. this might be due to different breeding system and it is higher under uncontrolled, natural breeding than hand mating and artificial insemination (ai) and values of nspc greater than 2 should be regarded as poor.therefore, the number of nspc for native 2.2 and horro (2.1) is poor as compared to other. conclusion and recommendation reproductive performance of dairy cattle under different production system was reviewed. the reproductive performance parameter of dairy cattle like age at first serves (afs), age at first calving (afc), calving interval (ci), day opens (do) and number of service per conception (nspc) under different production system is quite different. age at first calving (afc) in pastoral and agro-pastoral and intensive dairy production system were 43.5±1.5months and 33.2 months, respectively. days open (do) in pastoral and agro-pastoral, small holder dairy production and urban and dairy production for local cows were 141±7 days, 185±51.2days and 199.8±11.60 days, respectively. similarly, for cross dairy cows in intensive dairy production system was157.8 days.85 to 115days considered as optimum for dairy herd, 116 to 130 days indicate slight problem, 131 to 145 days moderate problems. thus, indicated that days open is different in all production system. the calving interval (ci) were in pastoral and agro-pastoral, small holder dairy production system, urban and pre-urban for local cows were 14.63±10 months, 14.36± 1.03 months and 22.17± 0.79 months, respectively. whereas in urban and pre-urban and intensive dairy production for cross dairy cows were 12.42±5.9 months, 15.820±.41months and 14.56 months, respectively. nspc for horro x jersey (1.8) and horro (2.1) are not with in normal range, but for borana dairy cows (1.6), fogera (1.28), friesian x zebu (1.56) were with in normal range. the difference might be due to poor management in terms of nutrition, health care, housing, heat detection, timely insemination and breed as well as environmental factors. it could be concluded that proper management in terms of nutrition, health care, housing, heat detection, timely insemination would improve reproductive performance under different production system. thus, coordinated works of all concerned bodies should be in place to boost the production and productivity and thereby enhance the livelihood of the dairy farmers. based on the above conclusion the following the recommendation were forwarded to improve the reproductive performance of dairy cows under different production there should be improved nutrition, proper heat detection, health care, timely insemination there should be proper management of postpartum reproductive problems, early growth of heifers and use new reproductive technology. to minimize voluntary waiting period after calving, establish well planned breeding policy and standard record keeping practice should be applied. acknowledgement the authors are extraordinarily obliged to the researchers conducted their research on reproductive performance, dairy production system and related topics, because their findings are the pillar of this review paper. references abdel r. i. m. k. and alemam t. a.2008.reproductive and productive performance of holstein-friesian cattle under tropical conditions with special reference to sudan. a review. 29 (1): 68 -73. afras abera alilo.2018. review on breeding objectives and practices of dairy cattle production in ethiopia. department of animal sciences, college of agriculture and veterinary medicine, university of jimma, ethiopia, 13(1): 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aditi roy chowdhury1*, sovik roy2 volume 2 issue 2, year 2023 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i2.1881 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: july 10, 2023 accepted: august 04, 2023 published: september 11, 2023 the purpose of this work is to prepare and evaluate a formulated functional eggless cake using key ingredients to incorporate nutritional value. the functional ingredients that were added to develop the batter were selected as prebiotic, probiotic, and stevia leaf powder. the aim of the study was to substitute the sugar content with a natural sweetener and to reduce the browning effect upon baking, followed by achieving a properly baked finished product with desirable sensory qualities. the shelf life study of the finished products was evaluated with respect to quality parameters, such as taste, color, flavor, texture, and visual microbial growth in different packaging materials. various trials were made with less oil content, varying prebiotic and probiotic concentrations, and using percentage variations of stevia. the reduced oil percentage was done with the objective of developing a low-calorie cake that would provide health benefits for baked products. the food safety aspects in relation to chemical safety were also considered when using low oil percentage. all proximate analysis and antioxidant analysis were performed for functional baked products. the low-calorie developed product was evaluated with respect to some instrumental as well as sensory characteristics along with microbial analysis. statistical analysis with respect to sensory qualities among different age groups was also evaluated using the tuckey test (honestly significant difference test), which works in conjunction with anova. a normality test was also performed to understand the p-value correlating the hypothesis to confirm. keywords eggless cake, functional cake, low calorie cake, sensory evaluation, tuckey test 1 department of food technology, techno main salt lake, em 4/1, sector-v, kol-91, india 2 department of mathematics, techno main salt lake, em 4/1, sector-v, kol-91, india * corresponding author’s e-mail: rcrakhi29@gmail.com introduction in recent decades, the supply and consumption of bakery products with reduced energy content has been increasing in response to the demand for products with lower calorie content (sandrou & arvanitoyannis, 2000). fat plays an important role in making various food items in bakeries and confectioneries. not only is it an important ingredient in cake-making operations because it affects food taste and texture, but it also influences human health depending on its intake. moreover, it adds moistness, enhancing the quality with added flavor (gisslen, 1994). cakes are soft bakery products produced mainly from wheat flour, sugar, oil, baking powder, and other ingredients. consumption of cake prepared from wheat flour has become popular in most developing countries of the tropics, especially among children and adults (adewoym et al, 2017). the world is trending towards habituating to bakery items with excess calories, lack of essential nutrients, imbalanced nutrition, and deterioration in meal quality. unhealthy dietary trends have led to metabolic syndrome, which causes health problems (shin et al., 2013). bakery products are consumed all over the world, either in the form of a staple diet or snack food items. fat is an important ingredient in bakery products, providing an oil-water microemulsion. some trends have emerged in diets around the world, including bakery items of intermediate moisture foods like cake and bread, evolved with functional components, having good sensory qualities. antioxidant-rich products with the inclusion of some phyto-components are currently involved in various research works. lower consumption of herbal aromatic plants in recent decades is insufficient in the food processing sectors (nanditha & prabhasankar, 2009). the present study focuses on including some phytonutrients along with adding probiotic and prebiotic components with a varied composition of ingredients. sometimes bakery products are used as vehicles for the incorporation of different nutritionally rich ingredients (sudha, m. et al, 2007). the excess intake of macro and micronutrients in the bakery sector shows an increased amount of calories and lack of bioactive or vital nutrients, leading to imbalanced nutrition and metabolic syndrome (shin et al., 2013 & cheng et al, 2009). the rise of cardiovascular disease and disorder in sugar metabolism and the associated syndrome has become very common in health-related problems, mostly associated with our high fat and carbohydrate intake through the diet. considering all the current problems consumers are facing related to illnesses has led to research to find solutions by creating a low-fat, lower carbohydrate, and moderate protein diet along with some bioactive components. the effect of the lower consumption of herbal plants in processed products is insufficient (nanditha & prabhasankar, 2009). attempts have, therefore, been made to develop a lowcalorie eggless cake with a reduced amount of added oil and sugar ratio. various trials are done, including curd, probiotic and prebiotic, and stevia to develop a functional food product for the bakery sector. pa ge 24 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 23-36, 2023 yogurt is used to confer color and flavor to baked products. reducing fat in the developed product may address public health issues. a concern of most consumers is to lead a healthy daily life. while in the bakery sector, reducing fat content in the products is attempted to make them acceptable to the consumers, other sectors use fat alternatives. the flavor, color, texture, taste, and overall quality of baked products (cake) are the prime focus for consumer acceptability. among the various intrinsic properties of bakery products, texture is the most important one. nowadays, antioxidant compounds also play a key role in perception as well as nutrition, in the context of acceptance and health benefits (dewettinck et al., 2008). functional foods research is gaining importance because of the interest in nutrition as a positive force for health. any fresh or processed foods that are claimed to have health-promoting and disease-preventing properties beyond nutrition of supplying nutrients are called functional foods (arias-aranda et al., 2010). functional foods represent one of the most interesting areas of research and innovation in the food industry (annunziata et al., 2011). a list of potential health substances like probiotics, prebiotics, natural sugar substitutes, fortified oils, oil analogs, etc. is continuously growing and has been included in a wide variety of substances that are recognized to have a positive role in the pathogenesis of many diseases, such as aging, cancer, cardiovascular disorders, and diabetes (sun, y. & hayakawa, s., 2007). the main focus of this study was given to develop eggless cake production with the inclusion of some dietary functional nutrients and probiotics. stevia leaf powder was also included to reduce the sugar content in the development of functional cake products. the investigation was aimed at various formulation trials reducing the oil content and getting instrumental analysis along with some sensory analysis among various age groups to infer the process viability and product acceptance. the statistical correlation has been drawn with respect to sensory analysis to confirm the hypothesis. various sensory attributes are judged with a normality test in anova among different age groups.” material and methods wheat flour variety of 90 % extract was purchased as a principal ingredient for cake preparation from local market of kolkata, ganesh variety. powdered sugar, baking powder, baking soda were admixed along with milk, cardamom, and curd. low amount of shortening was purchased with the brand name, doctors choice, fortified with vitamin a, d, e. all the said ingredients were purchased from the local market of kolkata, india. functional ingredients are also procured to develop different valued products as to make different trials with some functional benefits. probiotic and prebiotic immune symbiotic sachets were purchased from the local medicinal shop (intel health solutions private limited) and used in making trials. stevia powder was used for another trial instead of sugar to develop low-calorie product. stevia powder was procured from kushan international, kolkata. cake preparation cakes were prepared according to sugar batter method using wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda and sugar in a dry mix sieved by 60 mesh size and then taken in a vortex mixer and mixed properly with the addition of milk / curd along with oil. in the trial runs probiotics and prebiotics are mixed with varied percentages and also with stevia. natural flavouring component was also added. after that moulding operation was done in pans and the baking time temperature were set at 160°c for 30 minutes in a deck oven, manufactured by suan scientific instrument and equipment. after the cakes were baked, they were completely cooled for 1 hour and unplanned and sealed in packaging materials of different categories with paddle sealer. cake batter density and ph the specific gravity of flowable batter was determined as the ratio of the weight of a standard container filled with batter to that of the same container filled with water keeping them at 30°c the ph of the batter was determined with the ph paper (merck life science private limited) measurement of bulk density of cake bulk density was measured by the rapeseed displacement method. the initial weight of the cake was measured which was utilized to calculate the final bulk density in terms of gm/cc (abe, 2022). instrumental analysis a compression test was carried out to evaluate the texture of different samples of finished product with respect to springiness and cohesiveness. it was measured by texture profile analyser (ta-xt plus texture analyzers tab micro systemsms 36 mm cylinder radius)part code p/36r, test mode-compression, pretest speed-1.00mm/sec, test speed1.00mm/sec, post -test speed – 10.00mm/sec, distance5.000mm, trigger typeauto (force), trigger force-5.0g, hold time60.00 sec. texture profile analysis is a double compression test for determining the textural properties of foods (bourne, 2002). sensory evaluation sensory trials were made with a set of panelists of 5 people for different age groups, young age group (20 40years), medium (40 60 years), old age (above 60 years, based on the evaluation of cakes through 9-points hedonic scale (where 9 = extremely like and 1 = dislike extremely). the samples were scored for colour, flavour, taste, texture and overall acceptability chude (2023). tuckey (hsd) test tuckey hsd test, also known as (“honestly significant difference test”) is a statistical tool which works in pa ge 25 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 23-36, 2023 conjunction with anova. it identifies whether interaction among three or more variables is mutually statistically significant. tuckey test is a single-step multiple comparison that compares all possible pairs of means. the fundamental requirement for this test is to be applied, in the population from which the sample has been drawn which follow normal distribution (granato et al., 2014). tuckey hsd test analyses all pairwise comparisons among means. tuckey hsd is calculated using the following formula. null hypothesis that the data conforms to normality must be rejected. on the other hand, if the p-value is greater than 0.05, then the hypothesis of normality is not rejected. it has been observed that the data, according to the swtest, does not conform to normality. one of the reasons for this is that the test is not well-suited to handle small data sets with repeated values (the sample size is 30, which may be considered large, but it is still small enough for the sw test to be unreliable). for such a case, the d’agostino-pearson test (pearson et al., 1977)] can be applied to check normality (granato et al. 2014 & nanda et al., 2021). the d’agostino-pearson test correlates the shape of the distribution with the shape of the normal distribution. it is a combination of the skewness and kurtosis tests. the d’agostino-pearson test can be used for any distribution, and it is most often applied when data has repeated values. chemical evaluation analytical methods were followed from aoac, 2010 to find out the proximate composition of all trials in the quality control and food chemistry laboratory of tmsl, kolkata. composition of trial formulation where is the difference between the pair of means ( ), is the within mean square and is the number of treatments. considering one-way anova test, tuckey test is considered the post-hoc anova test. normality test since the tuckey test is based on the normality of the given data, to check whether the data conforms to normality or not, the shapiro-wilk (sw) test can be applied (granato et al., 2014). in the sw test, if the p-value is less than 0.05 (by p-value we mean the p-value of the test statistic), then the table 1: composition of trial formulation trial 1(control) trial 2 (pre-probiotic 0.5) trial 3 (pre-probiotic 0.25) trial 4 (stevia) wheat flour-100gm wheat flour-100gm wheat flour-100gm wheat flour-100gm sugar -70gm sugar -70gm sugar -70gm sugar -50gm oil-12ml oil-14ml oil-14ml oil-14ml milk-40ml milk-50ml milk-50ml milk-40ml curd-30gm baking powder-0.1gm baking powder-0.1gm baking powder-0.1gm baking powder-0.3gm baking soda-0.1gm baking soda-0.1gm baking soda-0.1gm baking soda-0.3gm cardamom-0.2gm cardamom-0.2gm cardamom-0.2gm cardamom-0.5gm curd-50gm prebiotic-probiotic powder0.5gm prebiotic-probiotic powder0.25gm stevia-2 gm proximate composition of low-calorie cakes prepared (chemical analysis of the various trials) proximate analysis was carried out following (a.o.a.c., 2010). instruments utilized in chemistry of food laboratory, tmsl named hot air oven (instrumention india), muffle furnace (instrumention india), shoxtech, kjeltech (kel plusdistylem). carbohydrate was calculated by subtraction method . calorific value was calculated for each trial knowing the corresponding proximate composition. analysis of antioxidant 5 gm sample was taken for each trial in a 250 ml conical flask with the inclusion of 100 ml of methanol: water (1:1) in each flask was kept in rotary shaker with the speed of 250 rpm for an hour. it was filtered and collected the filtrate followed by addition of 1 ml folin-chiocalteu, 3 ml na2co3 with respect to 1 ml of filtrate volume. it was kept for 30 minutes and the absorbance was recorded at 760 nm in spectrophotometer(make).antioxidant analysis was calculated in terms of total polyphenolic in gallic acid equivalent. microbial analysis and shelf life study microbial analysis was done by pour plate method with mrs agar for probiotic count. the plates were kept in the incubator keeping at 42◦c for 48 hours maintaining the time temperature ratios for colonization. colonies were counted by colony counter. shelf life study of various product were studied selecting three categories of packaging materials, low density polyethylene, cellulose paper and laminate keeping them in biosafety cabinet. the packaged products were then arranged on a tray and kept for 30 days in the laboratory pa ge 26 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 23-36, 2023 at 300c maintaining relative humidity near about 70 – 75%. shelf-life determined by recording the number of days each product remained at safe microbial level (visual microbial growth, and quality was judged with respect to colour, flavour and texture). after every 7 days interval observational studies were carried out for each product category from the zero day of production. results and discussions composition of trial formulations table 2: composition of trial formulation trial 1(control) trial 2 (pre-probiotic 0.5) trial 3 (pre-probiotic 0.25) trial 4 (stevia) wheat flour-100gm wheat flour-100gm wheat flour-100gm wheat flour-100gm sugar -70gm sugar -70gm sugar -70gm sugar -50gm oil-12ml oil-14ml oil-14ml oil-14ml milk-40ml milk-50ml milk-50ml milk-40ml curd-30gm baking powder-0.1gm baking powder-0.1gm baking powder-0.1gm baking powder-0.3gm baking soda-0.1gm baking soda-0.1gm baking soda-0.1gm baking soda-0.3gm cardamom-0.2gm cardamom-0.2gm cardamom-0.2gm cardamom-0.5gm curd-50gm prebiotic-probiotic powder-0.5gm prebiotic-probiotic powder-0.25gm stevia-2 gm figure 1: trial 1 figure 2: trial 2 figure 3: trial 3 figure 4: trial 4 the four trials are made with the varied composition of used ingredients which are shown in the table no 2 as formulation trials. functional components like curd, prebiotic-probiotics and stevia were used to achieve the comparable quality of the products with respect to market cake. specific gravity/batter density and batter ph with the level of inclusion of some functional components and with the minimum addition of fat, the cake batters were judged. low specific gravity is associated with good aeration of the batter. the addition of low amount of oil and milk along with the proper air incorporation process leaded to make of desirable batter for accepted finish product quality. similar results were obtained by (khalil, 1998) reported that specific gravity of cake batter prepare by fat replacement was higher than the control. the investigation was also done by (pong et.al.,1991), reporting batter prepare without shortening had higher specific gravity than those prepared with shortening. cake batter density and ph ph value of cake batter was slightly affected by functional ingredients. more or less ph value of cake batters were within the optimum level of 5.8 to 6.2 .the recorded ph value of cake batter are shown within a level of 6.5-7.7 as reported by (ash & colmey, 1973).the present study was focused on the ingredient inclusion and corresponding batter density as to correlate the product quality with the formulation trials. the cake batter density and ph is mentioned in table no 3. measurement of bulk density & baking loss is mentioned din table no 4. measurement of bulk density & baking loss of cake table 3: cake batter density and ph formulation trial batter density (gm/cc) batter ph trial 1control 0.991 6.2 trial 2 pre-probiotic 0.5 0.981 6.1 trial 3 pre-probiotic 0.25 0.984 6.1 trial 4 stevia 0.989 5.8 table 4: measurement of bulk density & baking loss of cake formulation trial bulk density (gm/cc) oven loss% trial 1control 0.4 38.18 trial 2 pre-probiotic 0.5 0.667 43.32 trial 3 pre-probiotic 0.25 0.3875 26.57 trial 4 stevia 0.526 54.27 pa ge 27 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 23-36, 2023 instrumental analysis the texture profile of the various trials was recorded to springiness and cohesiveness, which indicate the elasticity and inner matrix cohesion. the maximum force (g) required to compress the eggless cake is found to be highest in trial 2 which is represented in fig 6. this indicates much more spongy character of the developed matrix which may be attributed with proper gelatinization of starch during baking and the gelling property might be good enough to reflect a proper sponginess and chewiness in crumb texture. the crumb firmness is attributed by the starch content with respect to amylose and amylopectin fraction which is reflected in crumb texture (schiraldi & fessas, 54). the inclusion of stevia shows the lesser force peak value in compression in comparison to probioticprebiotic where the amount of sugar was added less and might be an indication of under baking. springiness measure elasticity in determining the recovery in the first and second compression factor with the gram force applied. cohesiveness quantify internal resistance of food structure and the ability of the materials to be stuck together. the overall compression value of different categories of products are in co-relation with tpa results shown by (salehi, et al., 2016) in developing cake. in the texture meter when plunger is brought down to reach to the end of the compression stroke, and then it gets stops and then accelerated upward. this procedure is a deformation motion that closely in action relating to human jaw. it also causes the visco elasticity reaction of the sample to vary in the analysis (voisey and man,1976). force time curve is produced with respect to a variable speed of the load arm, which prevent conversion to force-distance. the constant speed in the texture analyzer list to both force-time and force-distance curves. in the present study we observed the force-time curves for different trials by which the springiness and cohesiveness values are evaluated. cohesiveness is a ratio of the positive force area of the second compression to that of the first. springiness is the height recovered between the end of the first bite and the start of the second. it is measured along the baseline from the start of the second peak to the spot directly under the top of the peak. measurement is converted from second to unit of the length. sample of all trials springiness and cohesivenesss calculated is given in table no 5. x axis the all figure stand for time & y axis represents force in gram-force. figure 5: trial 1 figure 6: trial 2 figure 7: trial 3 figure 8: trial 4 texture profile analysis the overall texture with respect to springiness and cohesiveness show the best value for trial 4 but trial 2 springiness is quite high. as the springiness illustrate the elastic behaviour, the trial 2 can be considered as the characteristic of sponginess behavior. table 5: texture profile analysis sample of all trials springiness cohesiveness trial 1 55sec/cm 0.37 trial 2 93.3 sec/cm 0.17 trial 3 25.3 sec/cm 0.94 trial 4 33.6 sec/cm 0.55 pa ge 28 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 23-36, 2023 sensory evaluation sensory evaluation among various age group with specified panelists for each trial sensory analysis was done in a panel and it was customized with the age group of between 20-40 / 40-60 / 60-70. sensory characteristics of low-calorie cakes were highly accepted among young age group people. the quality attributes were judged with respect to taste, texture, appearance, colour, odour, flavor, gumminess, chewiness and mouthfeel. mouthfeel, texture and taste showed the highest evaluated score among other quality attributes for young age groups on hedonic scale for trial no 1. measuring product liking and preference in the scale of hedonic view is done worldwide with a uniqueness, providing reliable and valid results, (stone et. al., 2012). sensory evaluated score sheet is given in table no 6. table 6: trial 1 sample of control ta st e te xt ur e a pp ea ra nc e c ol ou r o do ur fl av ou r g um m in es s c he w in es s m ou th fe el o ve ra ll ac ce pt ab ili ty young age group 7 8 7 7 7 8 7 7 8 8 7 7 6.5 7.5 6.5 7 6 6.5 8.5 7 7.5 7 7.5 6.5 7.5 6.5 7.5 7.5 7 7.5 medium age group 6 8 7 8 8 8 7 8 7 8 7.5 7 8 7 7.5 7 8 7.5 6.5 7 7 7.5 8.5 7.5 7 7.5 7.5 7 7 7.5 older age group 7 7 7 8 6 7.5 7 7 8 7 7 7.5 7.5 7.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 7.5 7.5 6.5 6.5 8 7 7 7 7.5 7.5 7 6.5 sensory rating score of low-calorie cakes are highly accepted among medium age group for trial 2 category and reported in table no 7. the mean value of the product, trial 2 showed the higher value for texture, colour, flavour. a little bit gumminessis also shown for the higher value upon evaluation by hedonic scale, which by indicating entrapment of water in bound phase maintaining a good mouthfeel effect. sensory evaluation for the trial 3 was carried out with respect to sensory parameters which is illustrated in table no 8 highest score in mean value was shown for appearance, colour and flavour. with shows a good acceptance and mouthfeel value among medium age group. trial 4 was based on the inclusion of stevia as a functional table 7: trial 2 sa m pl e of pr ob io tic pr eb io tic po w de r (0 .5 ) ta st e te xt ur e a pp ea ra nc e c ol ou r o do ur fl av ou r g um m in es s c he w in es s m ou th fe el o ve ra ll ac ce pt ab ili ty young age group 7 8 8 8 7 6.5 7 7 7 7 7 8 7.5 7 7 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 7.5 7.5 8.5 7 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7 7.5 7 medium age group 7 8 8 8 6 8 8 7 7 8 6.5 7.5 7.5 7 7.5 7 7.5 6.5 6.5 7.5 8 6.5 6 7.5 8 7.5 7 8 8 7 older age group 8 8 7 8 7 8 8 6 7 7 7.5 7 8 8.5 7.5 8 8 7.5 7.5 7.5 8 7 7.5 7 6.5 7 7.5 7 6.5 6.5 component and the sensory evaluation of the product is given in table no 9 which was accepted highly among young age group. the recorded mean value for colour, was evaluated with the very high acceptance among young age group. texture and flavour were observed with a very good mean value. the four varieties of cake were prepared with the reduction of fat and sugar percentage with an objective to developed low calorie cake with the good health value. since various functional components like curd, prebioticprobiotic, stevia was used to developed functional bakery product, the sensory score for flavour, softness and overall texture were given the priority for quality product development. (khalil, 1998) pa ge 29 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 23-36, 2023 hypothesis testing of the above data now as we have seen above that all our samples are byproducts of normal population we go for statistical analysis of the data represented in tables 6-9 on the basis of anova test and post anova tuckey test. anova reveals whether there are any significant differences among the means of the samples whereas tuckey test tells us which of the two pairs are the most significant. one-way anova table is given as follows: table 8: trial 3 sa m pl e of pr ob io tic – pr eb io tic po w de r (0 .2 5) ta st e te xt ur e a pp ea ra nc e c ol ou r o do ur fl av ou r g um m in es s c he w in es s m ou th fe el o ve ra ll ac ce pt ab ili ty young age group 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 6.5 7.5 6.5 7.5 6.5 7 7.5 8 6.5 7.5 7.5 7 7 6 7.5 7.5 6.5 7.5 7.5 6.5 7 medium age group 6 6 7 8 7 8 6 7 8 7 7 7.5 7.5 6.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7 6.5 7.5 6.5 7 7 6 6.5 6.5 6.5 6 7.5 older age group 7 7 7 8.5 8 8 6 7 7 7 7 7.5 6 8 7 7 7 6.5 7 7.5 7.5 6.5 6.5 7 7.5 7.5 7.5 6 6.5 6.5 table 9: trial 4 sa m pl e of st ev ia le af po w de r ta st e te xt ur e a pp ea ra nc e c ol ou r o do ur fl av ou r g um m in es s c he w in es s m ou th fe el o ve ra ll ac ce pt ab ili ty young age group 7 8 7 8 7 6 7 7 7 7 6.5 7.5 6.5 7 6.5 7.5 7.5 8 6 6.5 8 7 7.5 7.5 7.5 7 6 6.5 6.5 7.5 medium age group 6 7.5 6 7 8 7 7 8 7 7 7 7.5 7.5 8 7 6 7.5 7.5 6 6.5 6.5 7 6.5 7.5 7.5 6.5 7 7 6.5 7.5 older age group 7 7 7 7 6 6.5 7 7 7 7 6.5 6.5 7 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 7.5 6.5 7 6 7 7.5 7.5 7 6.5 table 10: results (of normality test) table no. type sample size p-value skewness shape kurtosis shape result 12 young age 30 0.7754 potentially symmetric potentially mesokurtic data distribution is normal13 middle 0.7755 14 old 0.925 15 young age 0.4993 16 middle 0.26 17 old 0.6704 18 young age 0.8713 19 middle 0.2706 20 old 0.8432 21 young age 0.6729 22 middle 0.6156 23 old 0.9534 pa ge 30 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 23-36, 2023 table 6 (young age) table 7 (middle age) table 6 (old age) table 8 (young age) table 6 (middle age) table 7 (old age) table 7 (young age) table 8 (middle age) pa ge 31 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 23-36, 2023 where number of groups; sample size of group ; overall sample size, includes all the groups (i.e.); average of group ; grand mean and standard deviation of group . for the test, we have considered 5% level of significance. we summarize our findings below. our null hypothesis is as follows: h0: there is no significant difference between group means h1: there is significant difference between group means (here different groups are taste, texture, appearance, colour, odour, flavour, gumminess, chewiness, mouthfeel and overall acceptability) in each of the above table 12, 13, 14, it is evident that the value is greater than 0.05 (the level of significance), hence based on the provided data, the null hypothesis, h0 will not table 8 (old age) table 9 (young age) table 9 (middle age) table 9 (old age) figure 9: graphical representation of the normality of the data table 11: one-way anova table 12: anova-tuckey test a source young age group degrees of freedom sum of squares mean square f-statistic p-value groups (between groups) 9 2.4083 0.2676 0.7832 0.6343 error (within groups) 20 6.8333 0.3417 total 29 9.2417 0.3187 pa ge 32 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 23-36, 2023 table 13: anova-tuckey test b source medium age group degrees of freedom sum of squares mean square f-statistic p-value groups (between groups) 9 2.7 0.3 1 0.4711 error (within groups) 20 6 0.3 total 29 8.7 0.3 table 14: anova-tuckey test c source old age group degrees of freedom sum of squares mean square f-statistic p-value groups (between groups) 9 2.875 0.3194 1.369 0.2658 error (within groups) 20 4.667 0.2333 total 29 7.5417 0.2601 be rejected. we hereby conclude that there is no significant difference among group means. however, tuckey test reveals that there is no such significant difference between the means of any pair. in each of the above table 15, 16, 17, for medium age group and old age group we see that the value is greater than 0.05 (the level of significance), hence based on the provided data we do not reject the null hypothesis, h0. and we conclude that there is no significant difference among group means. however, tuckey test reveals that there is no significant difference between the means of any pair. on the other hand, for young age group, the value is much less than the level of significance and so null hypothesis is rejected. tuckey test consequently reveals that the pairs texture-flavour and texture-chewiness are significantly different. table 16: anova-tuckey test b source medium age group degrees of freedom sum of squares mean square f-statistic p-value groups (between groups) 9 0.7417 0.08241 0.1498 0.997 error (within groups) 20 11 0.55 total 29 11.7417 0.4049 table 17: anova-tuckey test c source old age group degrees of freedom sum of squares mean square f-statistic p-value groups (between groups) 9 4.3417 0.4824 1.608 0.1799 error (within groups) 20 6 0.3 total 29 10.3417 0.3566 table 15: anova-tuckey test a source young age group degrees of freedom sum of squares mean square f-statistic p-value groups (between groups) 9 4.3667 0.4852 2.7725 0.02758 error (within groups) 20 3.5 0.175 total 29 7.8667 0.2713 in each of the above table 18, 19, 20, it is evident that the value is greater than 0.05 (the level of significance), hence based on the provided data we do not reject the null hypothesis, h0. hence is accepted and we conclude that there is no significant difference among group means. however, tuckey test reveals that there is no significant difference between the means of any pair. table 18: anova-tuckey test a source young age group degrees of freedom sum of squares mean square f-statistic p-value groups (between groups) 9 1.0704 0.1189 0.5265 0.8375 error (within groups) 20 4.2917 0.2259 total 29 5.3621 0.1915 table 19: anova-tuckey test b source medium age group degrees of freedom sum of squares mean square f-statistic p-value groups (between groups) 9 1.3 0.1444 0.2842 0.9715 error (within groups) 20 10.1667 0.5083 total 29 11.4667 0.3954 pa ge 33 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 23-36, 2023 table 20: anova-tuckey test c source old age group degrees of freedom sum of squares mean square f-statistic p-value groups (between groups) 9 5.2 0.5778 2.0392 0.08854 error (within groups) 20 5.6667 0.2833 total 29 10.8667 0.3747 in each of the above table 21, 22, 23 it is evident that the value is greater than 0.05 (the level of significance), hence based on the provided data we do not reject the null hypothesis, h0. hence is accepted and we conclude that there is no significant difference among group means. however, tuckey test reveals that there is no significant difference between the means of any pair. table 22: anova-tuckey test b source medium age group degrees of freedom sum of squares mean square f-statistic p-value groups (between groups) 9 5.2417 0.5824 2.3296 0.05531 error (within groups) 20 5 0.25 total 29 10.2417 0.3532 table 23: anova-tuckey test c source old age group degrees of freedom sum of squares mean square f-statistic p-value groups (between groups) 9 1.7 0.1889 1.4167 0.2461 error (within groups) 20 2.6667 0.1333 total 29 4.3667 0.1506 table 21: anova-tuckey test a source young age group degrees of freedom sum of squares mean square f-statistic p-value groups (between groups) 9 2.5083 0.2787 0.7271 0.6798 error (within groups) 20 7.6667 0.3833 total 29 10.175 0.3509 proximate composition of low-calorie cakes prepared according to the proximate analysis of various trials moisture% was reported highest in trial 1 and within a moderate value in trial 2 and trial 3. similar moisture percentage was observed in the literature by (souza et. al., 2013). the high value of moisture content in trial 1 may be of using curd which will be in favour of increasing water absorption of protein and starch in micro matrix. (borges et. al., 2011). moderate value of moisture content in trial 2 and trial 3 as well as trial 4 indicates less viability of growth of microorganism and more durability of the said products with a better nutritional quality (rodrigues et. al., 2011). ash content for all trials were more or less equivalent as observed value remained within 0.5 to 0.6 percentage. the determination of ash content quantifies the total mineral present in food (rodrigues et. al., 2011). the functional cakes which were developed in the various trial resulted the presence of mineral oxide according to specification and well accepted for consumption. the study by (celestino, 2011). protein percentage was estimated in different trials in the range of 10.59-11.73 percentage which represent more or less good protein content for snacks bakery product. the reported crude protein content for functional bakery product is almost similar found by (essam, h. et. al., 2011) total carbohydrate was reported for different trials 49.43 -58.56 percentage which represent admissible amount of total carbohydrate and maybe comparable with low calorie cakes prepared with different fat and sugar replacer level investigated by (essam, h. et. al., 2011) highest percentage of crude fat was recorded in trial 4 table 24: proximate composition of low-calorie cakes prepared proximate composition trial 1(control) trial 2 (pre-probiotic 0.5) trial 3 (pre-probiotic 0.25) trial 4 (stevia) protein% 11.08 10.68 10.59 11.73 crude fat% 8.6 9.86 9.2 10.6 total ash% 0.49 0.51 0.6 0.58 total carbohydrate% 49.43 57.95 58.56 54.89 moisture% 30.4 21 21.05 22.2 pa ge 34 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 23-36, 2023 as 10.60% were as least content was recorded in trial 1 an 8.6%. the total crude fat content value represents the concept of low-calorie cake production on nutritional point of view and almost similar with the fat replacement data to generate low calorie cakes by replacement of 75% of fat done with the co-worker (alaa, e., et. al., 2011). the proximate composition of protein%, crude fat%, total ash%, total carbohydrate%, moisture% is mentioned in table no 24. table 25: comparison of calorific value of market sample with the developed trials sample of trials total calorific value control 319.44 pre-probiotic 0.5 363.26 pre-probiotic 0.25 372 stevia 361.88 market sample product valina cup cake (country harvest) 440.03 britannia cake muffills (valina) 429.7 sobisco desire cake (valina cake) 535.69 calculated calorific value comparing with market samples of different variety the developed trials showed low total calorific value in the range of 319 – 361 on 100 gm product basis. whereas the market sample values are recorded in the range of 440535 on 100 gm basis. thus, the calorific values of different trials show the significant decrease in energy values per 100 gm of product and maybe stated as potential low calorie functional product. calculated calorific value is mentioned in table no 25 analysis of antioxidant the antioxidant activity was measured by spectrophotometric analysis to evaluate total polyphenolic content in terms of gallic acid equivalent. the highest content of polyphenol is recorded in the combination of prebiotic-probiotic (2.25-2.32) gm per 100 gm of sample and stevia (3.98) gm per 100 gm in terms of gallic acid table 26: analysis of antioxidant sample name polyphenol content (in term of galic acid equivalent) in gm per 100 gm of sample trial 1control 1.08 trial 2 pre-probiotic 0.5 2.25 trial 3 pre-probiotic 0.25 2.32 trial 4 stevia 3.98 figure 10: serial dilution 101 figure 11: serial dilution 103 equivalent. the highest antioxidant capacity is shown with the stevia included cake and moderate value of antioxidant capacity is shown by prebiotic-probiotic. the eggless cake of these varieties are called as functional cake with the bioactive phyto components. (sargi, et al., 2013). analysis of antioxidant is mentioned in table no 26. microbial analysis and shelf life study the shelf studies of the different trials were made in different packaging material (low density polyethylene, figure 12: shelf life observation of studies from 0 days to 30 days pa ge 35 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 23-36, 2023 figure 13: shelf life observation of studies from 0 days to 30 days figure 14: shelf life observation of studies from 0 days to 30 days cellulose paper, aluminum laminates) for one-month basis. the observed results are correlated in the figures below fig 12 trial 1, fig 13, trial 2, fig 14 trial 3, fig 15 trial 4. the shelf profile indicates the better durability up to 15 days in ldpe and cellulosic paper where as in laminates the product quality was not good. the overall shelf life acceptability with respect to texture flavour, colour and visual microbial growth was good enough up to 25 days, in ldpe. in addition to observe the keeping quality of the baked product, the probiotic count was also measured in the selective medium, mrs agar for lab, and observed colony counts were measured in serial dilution 101, 103 and represented in fig no 10 and 11 for trial 2. the mean cfu was calculated 300 cfu /ml per gm and shown the significant bacterial count (friendly bacteria) which might be giving the better shelf life profile in the preserved product kept in ldpe and the good profile for cellulosic paper. figure 15: shelf life observation of studies from 0 days to 30 days conclusion in the current work, the final products developed with probiotic, prebiotic, stevia, and curd were accepted among various age groups. with respect to sensory analysis and texture profile study, probiotic prebiotic inclusion of 0.5% was highly accepted among the medium age group. the shelf life study also revealed that the highly accepted eggless functional product (cake) can be stored in lowdensity polyethylene for a longer period of time instead of being kept in laminate or cellulosic packaging materials. the overall texture with respect to springiness and cohesiveness showed the best value for trial 4 (with stevia), but trial 2 (with probiotic-prebiotic 0.5%) had high springiness. since springiness illustrates elastic behavior, trial 2 can be considered as a characteristic of sponginess. the high antioxidant value in terms of gallic acid equivalent shows that the developed products have some functional benefits apart from nutrition. compared to market cakes, the calorific values of the developed products are certainly lower than those available in pa ge 36 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 23-36, 2023 the market for consumers. hence, the said developed products will be ready-to-eat snacks with some functional components along with nutrition. the statistical analysis with the help of anova shows that the significance level (p-value) is highly correlated with the sensory parameters in most of the age groups. therefore, based on the provided data, the null hypothesis, h0, will not be rejected. we hereby conclude that there is no significant difference among group means. however, tuckey-hsd test reveals that there are no significant differences between group means of any two pairs (except for one particular variety). references a. o. a. c. 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(1976). physical chemistry of food processes, fundamental aspects, edited by ion c. baianu, physical chemistry of foods, vol 1, university of illinois urbana, cbs publishers & distributors pvt. ltd. pa ge 1 pa ge 5 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) microbial lactic acid fermentation improves nutritional and organoleptic profile of non-dairy milk made from bambara groundnut chude c.o.1*, nwagbo c.c.1, dibua n.a.2, okoye e.c.s.2, okpalanma e.f.3, okoyeuzu c.f.4 volume 2 issue 1, year 2023 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i1.1025 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: november 28, 2022 accepted: march 02, 2023 published: april 11, 2023 non-dairy milk was produced from bioprocessed bambara groundnut using submerged fermentation with bacterial strains of lactobacillus plantarum [nrrl b-4306] and lactobacillus fermentum [nrrl b-1932] obtained from the united states department of agriculture (usda). bambara groundnut was submerged in sterile water, inoculated with the starter culture containing 106 cfu/ml, and allowed to stand for 3 days. bambara milk was produced by wet-milling the nut and the resulting paste cooked on medium heat for 20 min and strained with cheesecloth to remove the particles. milk from non-inoculated bambara nut and cow milk was used as positive and negative controls for sensory characteristics and nutritional comparison. the nutritional and sensory profile was compared to meet who recommended daily intake (rda) with cow milk. proximate composition of the samples ranged from 20.80 19.70, 57.20 52.25, 6.80 8.79% and 368.10 425.10 kcal/100g for protein, carbohydrate, fat and energy, respectively. results show that protein content of the fermented bambara milk (19.70) was higher than cow milk (3.4) while fat content (8.79) was higher compared to cow milk (3.6 g/100g). amino acids content ranged from 3.90 5.00, 9.00 14.20, 5.62 6.80, 0.6 – 0.92, 17.20 – 19.50, 3.35 – 3.80, 2.50 – 3.00, 3.80 – 4.15, 7.00 – 8.00, 2.90 – 4.50, 2.80 – 3.20, 4.80 – 5.10, 3.80 – 4.50, 2.60 – 3.80, 2.60 – 4.00, 3.50 – 3.90 and 4.10 – 4.85 for alanine, arginine, aspartic acid, cystine, glutamic acid, histidine, isoluecine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, proline, serine, threonine, tyrosine and valine, respectively. in-vitro protein digestibility increased from 70.74 89.70%, while anti-nutritional factors decreased from 4.72 – 2.08, 870.30 – 383.70, 1470.15 – 1023.10 and 1.85 – 0.55 mg/100g for tannin, polyphenol, phytate, oxalate and trypsin inhibition activity, respectively. intensities of the sensory attributes was assessed based on parameters of appearance, aroma, mouth feel, consistency and overall acceptability using a nine-point hedonic scale rating, and the results found to compare favorably with cow milk. keywords probiotic non-dairy products, plant-based foods, milk alternatives, vegan foods, sensory profile, recommended daily allowance 1 department of food science and technology, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, nigeria 2 department of microbiology, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, nigeria 3 department of food science and technology, madonna university, nigeria 4 department of food science and technology, university of nigeria, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: co.chude@coou.edu.ng introduction with the increasing demand for alternative protein sources and healthier less processed foods, the food process industry is constantly searching for nutritious and consumer acceptable plant-based foods to meet the nutritional needs of various age groups. bambara groundnut (vigna subterranean (l)) is a legume crop in the sub-saharan africa grown mainly by subsistence farmers. it is indigenous to west and central africa and considered a highly nutritive but underutilized grain legume. our recent study (chude et al., 2021) noted that the nutritional composition of bambara grains varies with cultivar and growing locations but is considered a complete food because of its high protein content (9.60–40.0%); and is also considered to have a good balance of the essential amino acids. previous studies noted that bambara grains contains 54.5 69.3% carbohydrate, 17 24.6% protein, 5.3 7.8% oil, and the gross energy value is greater than that of other common pulses like pigeon pea (cajanus cajan) and cowpea, lentil (lens esculenta) (azam-ali et al., 2001; quaye & kanda, 2004). despite less interest in the commercial production of the crop and the almost total scientific neglect to improve yield, bambara groundnut greatly contributes to the dietary structure of many parts of africa (national research council, 2006). in addition to its commendable nutritional composition, bambara groundnut possesses outstanding traits for drought tolerance, nitrogen fixation, and ability to produce yields in marginal soils, among others. improved bambara groundnut cultivars do not exist (linnemann & azamali, 1993); it exists as landraces, which actually composed of many genotypes that is reported to result in an ability to endure stresses under local agricultural systems (zeven, 1998). lack of adequate processing techniques is said to hinder the utilization of this legume crop which has limited its production. fermentation using lactic acid bacteria (lab) provides a good measure to improve its hard-tocook phenomenon and optimize its utilization through improved palatability and nutrient availability (chude et al., 2018a, b; masood et al., 2011). lab fermentation has been used to improve preservative and detoxifying effects on fermented food product (day & morawicki, 2018). the process of lab fermentation also provides a cheap processing technique that has the potential to improve the digestibility of protein in grains and increase the protein content (chude et al., 2021). bambara groundnut like many underutilized crops in the african region has the potential to improve food security measures and also contribute to problems of insufficient protein availability https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i1.1025 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 5-15, 2023 which is a major problem in many developing countries due to the high cost of protein from animal sources. alternative measures to improve protein availability through other sources than animal protein becomes necessary to alleviate this problem. lots of work has been done on the production and nutritional status of non-dairy plant-based milks like soy milk, almond milk, coconut milk, rice milk or hemp milk. however, bambara groundnut also has the potential of a milk substitute that can be utilized by individuals intending to avoid products of animal origin for ethical or health reasons, or simply for taste preferences. most food producers market plant-based milk substitutes as being healthier than cow milk because they may be lower in saturated fat and, if entirely free of animal products, cholesterol-free. cow milk related health problems such as lactose intolerance in persons deficient in the enzyme lactase which is responsible for breaking down the lactose in the intestine can be solved with non-diary milk alternatives. health symptoms such as abdominal cramps, constipation, bloating or diarrhea may result in lactose intolerant individuals who consume a dairy product. amongst infants and children, dairy milk is considered common allergens although many tend to outgrow it in later years. more so, dairy milk especially unpasteurized milk is considered to have food safety concerns and has been linked to outbreaks of food pathogens around the world such as salmonella and e. coli outbreaks. owing to the outstanding qualities of bambara grains, there is need to research novel ways that can be used to effectively harness its use and potentials in various food product applications. hence, the study aims to evaluate the nutritional and sensory properties of non-diary milk produced from fermented bambara grains. materials and methods our previous studies (chude et al., 2021; chude et al., 2018a, b) described the pre-handling operations of the bambara groundnut and lab starter culture used in the fermentation process. briefly, the nuts were carefully cleaned and all extraneous materials and damaged nuts removed prior to use. washing of the nuts was done twice using ordinary water while rinsing was done with distilled water prior to cooking to softness as a pretreatment measure and to eliminate existing microflora before starter cultures inoculation. lactobacillus plantarum [nrrl b-4306] and lactobacillus fermentum [nrrl b-1932] used in this experiment were obtained from usda agricultural research services culture collection as pure cultures of freeze dried cells preserved in a dormant state. inoculation in 25 ml nutrient broth and incubated in co2 enriched jars for 24 h was used to bring the freeze dried cells to active state; cell recovery was achieved by centrifugation at 3600-x g for 15 min. the recovered cells were rinsed using 10 ml sterile distilled water and the spine repeated twice. afterwards, a suspension of the cells in 9 ml sterile distilled water was made and serially diluted before plating on plate count agar using pour plating method. the colonies on each plate of the dilution factor were counted after 24 h incubation in co2 enriched jars and only plates containing approximately 106 cfu/ml was utilized in the inoculation of the fermentation process. production of bambara milk the pre-treated bambara groundnut used in this experiment for the production of bambara milk was submerged in 30 liters of sterile distilled water and inoculated with 106 cfu/ml of the lactobacillus plantarum [nrrl b-4306] and lactobacillus fermentum [nrrl b-1932] obtained from usda. fermentation was allowed for 3 days after which the lab-fermented bambara groundnut and control was wet-milled. the resulting paste was poured into a pot, cooked on medium heat for 15 min, and stirred continuously so it does not stick to the bottom of the pot. after 15 min, the foam was scooped off and the samples allowed to cool down to about 100c. then cheesecloth was used to strain the samples to remove the particles, and it was pasteurized at low heat for 5 min, poured into a bottle, refrigerated and analyzed within 12 hours of production. milk from non-inoculated bambara groundnut and cow milk was used as control for sensory characteristics and nutritional comparison. determination of proximate composition and total energy standard procedures described by the association of official analytical chemists (1990) were used to determine the nutrient composition of the samples. briefly, the kjeldahl method was used for protein (n × 6.25) determination while soxhlet extraction with a known weight of sample in petroleum ether (boiling point, 40 to 60°c) was used for crude fat determination. the carbohydrate content was determined by sample differences of subtracting the total fat, crude protein, ash, and crude fiber from the total dry weight (100g) of the sample. a ballistic bomb calorimeter and the caloric value estimation was used for the gross energy determination according to antia et al. (2006) by summing the multiplied values for crude protein, oil, and carbohydrate by their respective factors. determination of mineral content the dry ashing method originally described by chapman and pratt (1982) was used for minerals determination. sample size of 2 g was acid-digested with diacid mixture (hno3:hclo4, 5:1, v/v) in a digestion chamber and the digested samples dissolved in double-distilled water and filtered (whatman no. 42). the filtrate was made to 50 ml with double-distilled water and used for the determination of total calcium, phosphorus and iron. calcium was determined by a titration method. iron was determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometer. phosphorus and other minerals were determined spectrophotometrically using molybdovanadate method. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 5-15, 2023 determination of amino acids the amino acids compositions of the samples were measured on protein hydrolysates based on high performance liquid chromatography technique according to the method described by chude & nkama (2020). the fermented and non-fermented bambara milk samples were weighed into conical flasks with 100 ml of 70 % methanol. the mixture was shaken for 5 min using a mechanical rotor and allowed to stand for 10 min. the resultant supernatant was filtered through whatman #1 filter papers and diluted with deionized water in a volume ratio of 1:3; and the ph adjusted to a range of 5-8 using hcl and naoh as described by jayaratne et al. (2020). the filtered samples will be utilized for hplc following protocol outlined by the manufacture. a standard solution containing 1.25 μmol/ml of each amino acid in 0.1n hydrochloric acid was created. derivatization of amino acids were done using a standard solution (20 μl) pipetted into a 10 × 5-mm tube and dried in vacuo at 65°c. the residue was added 30 μl of methanol-water-phenylisothiocianate (2:2:1 [v/v]) and then removed in vacuo at 65°c, after which 30 μl of the derivatizing reagent methanol-water-phenylisothiocianate (7:1:1:1 [v/v]) was added, and the tube was vortexed for 30 sec and allowed to stand for 20 min at ambient temperature. aliquot of 150 μl of the diluent containing 5mm sodium phosphate with 5% acetonitrile was added to each tube before injection. chromatographic analysis was obtained at 30°c using a gradient elution (table 1). an aqueous buffer (eluant a) was prepared using 0.5 ml/l triethylamine added to 0.14m sodium acetate and titrated to ph 6.20 with glacial acetic acid while eluant b was acetonitrile-water (60:40 [v/v]). each amino acid was calculated based on the proportional molar concentration using the concentration of standard amino acids and expressed as μ g amino acid/mg sample. table 1: gradient program employed for the separation of ptc-amino acids time flow rate (min) (ml/min) % eluent a % eluent b 0 1.0 90 10 12.0 1.0 70 30 20.0 1.0 52 48 22.0 1.0 0 100 24.0 1.0 0 100 30.0 1.5 0 100 37.0 1.0 90 10 determination of anti-nutrients composition determination of tannin content the modified vanillin-hcl method originally described by price et al. (1978) was used for the quantitation of tannins in the test and control samples. briefly, 200 ml of the samples were extracted for 20 min in capped rotating test tubes using 10 ml 1% (v/v) conc. hcl in methanol. aliquot of 0.5% of 5 ml vanillin reagent was added to the extract (1 ml) and the absorbance of the color determined at 30°c after 20 min and the absorbance read at 500 nm. an interference natural light pigment was corrected in the sample by subjecting the extract to same conditions of the reaction without the vanillin reagent. the results were expressed as catechin equivalents using standard curve, i.e amount of catechin (mg per ml) which gives a color intensity equivalent to that given by tannins after correcting for blank. determination of phytic acid content following methods originally described by wheeler & ferrel (1971), 3 ml of the samples were used for extraction of phytic acid using 3% trichloro-acetic acid kept on a vortex shaker at ambient temperature and subsequently centrifuged on high speed. precipitation was used to obtain the phytic acid from the supernatant by estimating the ferric phytate and iron in the samples. thus, a 4:6 iron: phosphorus molecular ratio was used to calculate the phytate-phosphorus (phytate-p) from the iron determined. the phytic acid was then estimated by multiplying the amount of phytate-phosphorus by the factor 3.55 based on the empirical formula c6p6o24h18. determination of oxalate content the aoac (2010) method was utilized for oxalate determination. to this regard, 1 g each of the samples was weighed into 100 ml conical flask and was added 75 ml of 3 m h2so4. the mixture was intermittently stirred for about 1 hour with the aid of a magnetic stirrer and then filtered using whatman no.1 filter paper. the filtrate was adjusted to 25 ml and titrated at 80 90°c using a solution of 0.1 n kmno4 until a faint pink colour that persisted for at least 30 sec appeared. the oxalate concentration in each sample was obtained from the calculation: 1 ml 0.1 permanganate = 0.006303 g oxalate. determination of polyphenol content the spectrophotometric method originally described by price and butler (1977) was utilized for polyphenols quantification using sample size of 50 ml mixed with 3 ml of methanol in a test tube and was manually shaken for 60 sec. the mixture was filtered using whatman no.1 and the filtrate mixed with 50 ml of water. analysis of https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 5-15, 2023 the samples was done within an hour. for the analysis, 3 ml aliquot of 0.1 m fecl3 in 0.1 n hcl was added to 1.0 ml of the filtrate and timed addition of 3 ml of 0.008 m k3fe(cn)6 was done. the absorbance was read at 720 nm after 10 min using a spectrophotometer. a standard curve was prepared using tannic acid and following the above procedure. determination of trypsin inhibition activity the inhibitory action of the bovine trypsin (ec 3.4.21.4) on substrate benzoyl-dl-arginine-p-nitrianilide (bapna) hydrochloric was used to determine trypsin inhibition activity (kakade et al., 1974). the samples (1 ml each) were extracted for 3 hours with 50 ml, 10 m naoh using a mechanical shaker continuously at ambient temperature. the ph of the resulting solution was adjusted to 9.4 9.6 with 1 m naoh and the suspension was shaken and diluted with distilled water to produced trypsin inhibition of 40 60% at 37°c. the respective dilutions were noted. consequently, tia was calculated in terms of mg pure trypsin (sigma type lll, lot 20h0868). where d is the dilution factor, a is the change in absorbance at 410 mm due to trypsin inhibition per cm3 diluted sample extract and s is the weight of the sample. determination of in-vitro protein digestibility measurement of in-vitro protein digestibility of the samples was determined according to the method originally described by maliwal (1983). in triplicate, a known quantity of the test and control samples was mixed with 16 mg nitrogen and digested in 15 ml of 0.1 m hcl for 2 h at 37ºc using 1 mg pepsin. aliquot of 15 ml of 10% trichloroacetic acid (tca) was added to stop the reaction. centrifugation of the mixture was done at 630 rev. for 5 min and the resultant filtrate passed through whatman no. 1 filter paper for quantification. thus, the tca soluble fraction was assayed for nitrogen using the micro-kjeldahl method (aoac, 2010). the following equation was used to obtain the digestibility of the samples: determination of sensory characteristics sensory qualities of the test and control products were conducted with the 10 member panelists trained to identify retronasal aroma and taste to determine sensory attributes. a consent form was given to the panelists and was also educated on their duties. a randomized, singleblind manner was employed for the evaluations were panelists were blinded from the identity of the specific product to be consumed. the product was labeled prior to the start of experiment with a randomization code and the code list kept confidential from the panelist during the experiment. the test was conducted while the samples were still fresh and the panelists were required to observe the sample, taste and score; then rinse their mouth with water before tasting another sample/product. as described by arteaga et al. (2021), 20 ml of each sample presented in random order at ambient temperature in glass cups sensory analysis was done using. the sensory analysis was divided into two sessions for presentations of fermented / unfermented bambara milk sample and fermented / cow milk samples per session. for palate cleansing, water and plain crackers were provided. the panelists assessed the intensities of the attributes based on parameters of appearance, aroma, mouth feel, consistency and overall acceptability using a nine-point hedonic scale rating of 9 = liked extremely down to 1 = disliked extremely. data analysis analysis of the data generated from the experiment was conducted in triplicates and expressed as mean ± sd using tukey–kramer multiple comparisons test or twoway analysis of variance (anova). pair-wise statistical comparison and the relevance between samples was evaluated using the mann-whitney rank sum test in sigmaplot (systat software, usa). statistical difference between fermented and non-fermented bambara milk was evaluated using the student’s t-test. p-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. results and discussion table 2 presents the proximate composition and total energy of the test and control bambara milk samples in comparison to recommended daily intake of adults. the protein content of non-inoculated bambara milk was found to be 20.80% which was similar to that reported by abdulsalami & sheriff (2010) but higher than that reported by okonkwo & opara (2010) for raw bambara seed. the protein content of the bambara milk slightly decreased after fermentation (19.70%). the result indicates that bioprocessing of the seeds had no significant effect on protein content. however, an increment in protein content after soaking was observed by hassan et al. (2005) for lupin seeds and explained that the increment resulted due to quantitative reduction of the antinutritional factors (tannin and phytic acid) and other water soluble constituents. in this study, the decrease in protein content after bioprocessing may have resulted from precooking the nut possibly due to solublization of protein by heating that lead to loss of protein in the final product as explained by deman (1999). similar reduction in protein after cooking was observed by hamed et al. (2008) and hainida et al. (2008) for pumpkin and roselle seeds, respectively. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 9 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 5-15, 2023 table 2: proximate composition, mineral content and total energy of samples paramet+1:10ers nbm ibm cow milk rdi* protein (g/100g) 20.80±0.8%a 19.70±0.2%a 3.4. ± 0.9 50g fat (g/100g) 6.80±0.1%a 8.79±0.5%b 3.6. ± 0.2 less 70g carbohydrate (g/100g) 57.20±0.4%a 52.25±0.7%b 53.40 ± 0.2 least 260g mn (mg/100 g) 3.00 c±0.60 1.90 d±0.40 11.7 ± 1.0 2.0mg p (mg/100 g) 265.80 a±0.40 248.40 b±0.60 93.5 ± 0.4 1,000.00mg ca (mg/100 g) 220.30 a±0.80 198.80 b±0.2012 6.4 ± 0.5 1,000.00mg k (mg/100 g) 50.20 c±0.90 38.90 d±0.20 138.5 ± 0.1 3,500.00mg na (mg/100 g) 11.50 c±0.50 7.80 d±1.00 58.2 ± 1.0 2300mg energy (kcal/100g) 368.10±1.0b 425.10±1.5a 252.58 ± 0.01 2,000kcal values are means ± sd (n = 3). values in the same row with different superscripts are significantly (p ˂ 0.05) different. nbm: noninoculated bambara milk, ibm: inoculated bambara milk*recommended daily intake (rdi) of adults (who, 1996; nih, 2020) the fat content of non-inoculated milk was 6.80% and was similar to that reported by abdulsalami & sheriff (2010) and higher than that of mune et al. (2007) for raw bambara seeds. bioprocess significantly increased fat content of the bambara milk (p˂0.05). bradbury et al. (1984) did not observe any significant changes in the crude fat content of sorghum after lactic acid fermentation for 4 days. chavan (1988) found a slight increase in crude fat content of sorghum and sorghum plus green gram blend during natural fermentation. more so, the carbohydrate content of non-inoculated sample was found to be 57.20% and was similar to that reported by okonkwo and opara (2010) for raw bambara seed. the carbohydrate content significantly (p˃0.05) decreased after fermentation. the changes observed are possibly due to leaching of soluble components into cooking (yagoub & abdalla, 2007) and fermentation water; and possibly the breakdown and utilization of the sugars by the fermenting organisms as a ready source of energy. carbohydrates particularly starch and soluble sugars are principal substrates for fermentation with lactics. hence, significant degradation and a subsequent decrease in starch content are expected to occur during fermentation of legumes. the gross energy content significantly (p˂0.05) increased with a maximum value of 425.10 kcal/100g. the calculated metabolizable energy values which ranged between 368.10 and 425.10 kcal/100 g showed that bambara groundnut have energy concentrations favorably comparable to cow milk. determination of mineral content indicates that the non-inoculated bambara milk was found to be rich in calcium. calcium content of flour from non-inoculated nuts was 220.30 mg/100 g which decreased to 198.80 mg/100 g after fermentation. the results indicated that fermentation of the nut, significantly (p˂0.05) reduced the calcium content of bambara groundnut. the loss of calcium during the treatment may be attributed to its leaching out into the discarded water used for cooking and fermentation. the results are in close consistence with the results of duhan et al. (2002) who also reported a significant decline in the total calcium content on water soaking. all other major minerals followed a trend similar to that obtained for calcium (table 2). the iron content of non-inoculated sample was 5.90 mg/100 g; bioprocessing of the seeds reduced iron content to 3.80 mg/100 g. the reduction in iron content may also be due to loss of iron in the fermentation medium. the results are in agreement with those of lestienne et al. (2005), who observed reduction in iron content of the soaked grains as compared to raw ones. however, the mineral content of the inoculated bambara milk despite the decrease was found to compare favorably with cow milk and with the rda of who (1996). figures 1 and 2 shows the chromatogram for amino acid analysis of the test (fermented) and control (non-fermented) samples. the study for amino acid composition observed that glutamic acid, aspartic acid and leucine are the most abundant amino acids in bambara milk. amino acid contents slightly increased after fermentation. similar observation has been reported by olaofe & akintayo (2000), and adeyeye & afolabi (2004) for soaking and cooking of bambara groundnut; glutamic acid was the most concentrated essential amino acid (17.00%). other researchers have also reported similar observations on the increasing effects of fermentation on amino acids content. according to sarkar et al. (1997), bacillus fermented soybean led to an increase in free amino acids and ammonia by 60and 40fold, respectively. baumann & bisping (1995) found that certain rhizopus strains with high proteolytic activity were able to release nearly 5 times more amino acids. song et al. (2008) reported that fermentation of soybean with l. plantarum and b. lactis caused increase in amino acids content while fermentation with s. cerevisae showed the opposite results. ferial & esmat (2011) observed 21.8% increases in essential amino acids in fermented chickpea with rhizopus at 48 hours of fermentation. thus, when comparing the essential amino acids in bambara milk with the recommended fao/who provisional pattern, it was superior with respect to aspartic acid, threonine, methionine, leucine, tyrosine, phenylalanine, histidine and arginine and adequate in valine and isoleucine (table 3), and it was only for lysine that supplementation might be required. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 10 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 5-15, 2023 figure 1: hplc chromatogram of lab-fermented bambara groundnut figure 2: hplc chromatogram of non-fermented bambara groundnut table 3: amino acid composition of samples amino acids nbm ibm cow milk* reference daily alanine 3.9 5.0 4.15 arginine 5.0 6.2 2.9 – 4.2 2.0 aspartic acid 5.62 6.8 6.2 – 7.8 4.0 cystine 0.6 0.92 0.65 glutamic acid 17.2 19.5 15.8 – 23.2 glycine 3.35 3.8 0.8 – 2.1 histidine 2.5 3.0 3.0 2.4 isoleucine 3.8 4.15 4.1 – 6.2 4.2 leucine 7.0 8.0 3.2 – 8.3 4.8 lysine 2.9 4.5 8.1 4.2 methionine 2.8 3.2 3.2 2.2 phenylalanine 4.8 5.1 5.4 2.8 proline 3.8 4.5 10.1 – 11.8 serine 2.6 3.8 6.6 threonine 2.6 4.0 5.8 2.6 tyrosine 3.5 3.9 5.8 1.4 valine 4.1 4.85 7.5 4.2 values are mean of triplicates. nbm: non-inoculated bambara milk. ibm: inoculated bambara milk. * saima et al. (2016)* *who (1996) https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 11 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 5-15, 2023 the antinutritional factors of the samples are shown in table 4. tannin content of the non-inoculated bambara milk (4.72 mg/100g) was higher than that reported by abiodun & adepeju (2011) for bambara groundnut. fermentation significantly (p ˃ 0.05) decreased tannin content to 2.08 mg/100g. similar trends was observed by mubarak (2005), hassan et al. (2005) and abedel-hady et al. (2005) for soaking and cooking of mug bean, lubin, maize and lentil seeds, respectively. polyphenol content of non-inoculated sample was 870.30 mg/100g, and significantly (p ˃ 0.05) decreased after fermentation to 383.70 mg/100g. these results were in agreement with the findings of yagoup et al. (2004) for roselle seeds. the phytate content also had a similar trend of decrease. bambara groundnut is rich in protein; therefore they had high phytate levels. in legumes, phytates are associated with protein bodies (sulieman et al., 2007) and, therefore, phytate levels should increase with increasing protein content. these results revealed that fermentation could lower the level of these antinutrients. the loss in phytates during fermentation of bambara groundnut may be due to leaching of phytate ions into the fermentation water under the influence of a concentration gradient (difference in chemical potential) which governs the rate of diffusion. similar results for reduction in phytic acid in the soaked bean have been earlier reported (bishnoi et al., 1994). fermentation also significantly (p ˃ 0.05) decreased oxalate content to 0.55 mg/100g; while trypsin inhibition activity has a content of 8.40 mg/100g for non-inoculated sample against 3.30 mg/100g observed after fermentation. table 4 also presents the in-vitro protein digestibility of the test and control samples. the increment in protein digestibility after fermentation is likely due to reduction in antinutrients as a result fermentation. effective reduction of antinutrients has been reported to improve the protein digestibility in legumes (babiker and eltinay, 1993). legume consumption has been associated to deleterious effects such as growth retardation (martinez et al., 1995), lowered digestibility and absorption of dietary nutrients (pusztai et al., 1995) and physiological, metabolic and immunological disturbances (hajobs et al., 1995). it is evident from the study that antinutrient concentration in legumes can be eliminated or reduced to tolerable level through lactic acid bioprocess. sensory attributes were determined to monitor the potentials of the product and ascertain the consumer perception of the fermented bambara milk in comparison to the non-fermented sample and cow milk, and the data presented in table 5. evaluation for color, consistency, mouth feel, taste and overall acceptability showed that bambara milk can compete favorably with cow milk in consumer acceptability. if a new product or formulation fails to appeal to consumers, the new product is considered as an unsuccessful development. table 4: antinutritional factors and in-vitro protein digestibility of samples antinutrients nbm ibm daily reference intake* tannin (mg/100 g) 4.72±1.0a 2.08±0.2b 1.5–2.5 g polyphenols (mg/100 g) 870.30±0.3a 383.70±0.5b 500mg to 1500mg phytic acid (mg/100 g) 1470.15±0.5a 1023.10±0.1b 100-400 mg oxalate (mg/100 gm) 1.85±0.8a 0.55±0.5b 50 – 100 mg trypsin inhibitor (mg/100 g) 8.40±0.2a 3.30±0.4b ----ivpd (%) 70.74±1.0b 89.70±0.6a ----values are means ± sd (n = 3). values on the same row with different superscripts are significantly (p ˂ 0.05) different. nbm: non-inoculated bambara milk, ibm: inoculated bambara milk. *(finkielstein and goldfarb, 2006; taguchi et al. 2015; raj et al. 2015; sharma et al. 2019) https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 12 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 5-15, 2023 figure 1: box plot illustrating sensory evaluation of fermented bambara milk and control the result for color showed that fermented bambaramilk had a mean score of 8.3, which was extremely liked. color is considered an important property of food product and could affect consumer acceptance of the product. the bambara-milk had a pale yellow color and contained no artificial color additive. the mean value for consistence was shown to be 7.7 and had no significant (p ˃ 0.05) difference, when compared to values of 7.4 and 7.8 obtained for non-inoculated milk and cow milk respectively. consistency is an important attribute for beverages and in commercial beverage products; emulsifiers and stabilizers, such as guar gum, κ-carrageenan and xanthan gum, may be added to improve the quality of the product by promoting its thickness. hence, the result obtained for consistency of the product indicates that this will not be needed in commercializing bambara-milk as the product was liked without artificial emulsifiers and stabilizers. bioprocessed bambara milk had a mean score of 7.8 for taste and no significant (p ˃ 0.05) difference with the control sample. it was observed that the fermented sample had no beany flavor ordinarily observed in products made from bambara groundnut. this was attributed to the actions of the lactic acid bacteria used in the fermentation process. it could also be possible that the fermented bambara nuts used in the production was lipoxygenase free through fermentation. according to yuan and chang (2007), the beany flavor components are mainly the oxidation products of unsaturated lipids catalyzed by lipoxygenases. when no lipoxygenase exists in legumes, polyunsaturated lipids will not be catalyzed to produce the undesirable flavor. mouth feel was used as an indication of texture for the bambara milk and characterized by degree of hardness or softness of the product. the sensorial data obtained for mouth feel had a mean score of 6.7 and no significant (p ˃ 0.05) difference with cow milk which was preferred. hence, mouth feel is an important parameter to consider in developing new beverage products, as this will also influence consumer perception and acceptability. conclusion bambara groundnut (vigna subterranean (l)), is a seed whose origin is of west and central africa where research and development is ineffective, however, the crop has been identified to have the potential to improve malnutrition and boost food availability. this study has shown that milk from this fermented legume can compare favorably with cow milk with regards to consumer acceptability as well as the recommended fao/who nutritional provisional pattern. this will provide a good alternative for consumers who wish to avoid intake of animal products due to cholesterol content or personal belief. the study also showed that microbial fermentation may offer the simplest and economic means to improve the safety, quality and functionality of bambara groundnut, hence, optimize its utilization as plant-based milk. in developing regions where population is constantly on the increase, food security becomes paramount and there is no better means of ensuring food security than harnessing the potentials of indigenous crops. considering the qualities mentioned for bambara groundnut, it has great opportunities towards food security, sustainability, income generation, product development, and dietary diversification. although the crop is limited by the content of anti-nutritional factors, microbial fermentation provides an effective and safe means to biodegrade these anti-nutrients. owing to the outstanding potentials of bambara groundnut in helping to curb food security issues, it should not only be seen and cultivated as subsistence crop; rather it should be seen as a crop that is relevant to food security. however, there is need to further investigate the scope for improvement in fermentation of bambara groundnut, since most fermented foods are produced at household level in a majority of african countries where this legume is indigenous. upgrading the production process for fermented bambara groundnut will necessitate several critical steps in the commercialization of plantbased milk from this important legume crop. identified microorganisms, which have the ability to effect beneficial https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 13 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(1) 5-15, 2023 changes in the fermentation process of this legume should be selected and subjected to genetic improvement geared towards maximizing desirable quality attributes and limiting any undesirable attributes such as antinutrients and beany-off flavour. acknowledgement the authors wish to acknowledge the agricultural research services culture collection, bacterial foodborne pathogens and mycology research unit; 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(1998). landraces: a review of definitions and classifications. euphytica, 104(2), 127-139. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 1 pa ge 10 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) design of manually operated four rows rice seeder wabi tafa1* volume 1 issue 1, year 2022 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v1i1.506 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: july 21, 2022 accepted: july 22, 2022 published: july 24, 2022 in ethiopia, rice is one of the targeted agricultural products that has received adequate attention in the promotion of agricultural output. it is regarded as the “millennium crop” and is anticipated to help ensure food security in the nation. as a result, over the past few years, its production has increased. despite the growth, there are still a lot of production system issues that need to be resolved, with planting technique leading the list. the farmers continued to use timeand labor-intensive traditional seed-broadcasting techniques, which led to a sharp reduction in output due to an unfavorable plant population. consequently, in order to maintain the ideal plant density and get around the issues with the conventional method of disseminating the seed on the farm; there was efforts have made to design suitable planting machine for rice. then depends on the binary dominance matrix traditional seeding techniques (broadcasting), manual planting technique in rows and the newly designed manually operated four rows rice were evaluated and it was found that newly designed seeder was better than manual method in all parameters. the machinability aspect, which comprises installation, simplicity, durability, choice of material, machine, low pricing, and prolonged life span when operated with high utilization with minimal downtime, was properly taken into account in order to achieve this design target and goals. keywords design, rice seeder, traditional seeding, row seeding, concept generation, binary dominance matrix 1 oromia agricultural research institute, asella agricultural engineering research center, asella, ethiopia. * corresponding author’s e-mail: wabitafa@gmail.com introduction ethiopia’s economy is based on agriculture, which accounts for over 46% of gdp, 83.6% of employment, and nearly 80% of foreign export revenues. tiny-scale farming accounts for 90–95 percent of ethiopian agriculture’s production, with 14.2 small subsistence households having an average of 0.89 hectares of land each (csa, 2014). in ethiopia, rice farming is a relatively new development. when wild rice (o. longistaminata) was discovered in the marshy and wet portions of the fogera and gambella plains, gebey et al., (2012) believed that efforts to introduce rice into ethiopia had already begun. in ethiopia, the potential area for rice cultivation is thought to be around 30 million hectares, of which more than 5 million ha are very appropriate, according to the moard (2010) assessment. according to csa, moard, and gebey et al. (2010) and csa, (2009), the crop’s area and output are on the rise. ethiopia’s current rice-producing regions are amhara, snnp, oromia, somali, gambella, benishangulgumuz, tigray, and afar. compared to its potential, ethiopia has a small quantity of land planted in rice. the amount of imported rice has increased along with output levels. the ethiopian government bought 25,667 tons of rice in 2008 and 30,082 tons in 2009, respectively. if rice output keeps rising, it is anticipated that the nation will soon be able to replace imports and begin exporting (moard, 2010). generally speaking, rice has enormous potential and may significantly impact ethiopia’s socioeconomic development, food and nutritional security, income production, and poverty alleviation. farmers in many parts of ethiopia have expressed a strong interest in rice farming and routinely ask for new technologies. the crop has been designated by the government as “the new millennium crop of ethiopia” in order to achieve food security because of its significance and potential. however, the lack of pre-harvest, postharvest, and processing technologies, as well as a lack of knowledge on how to use it, were among the biggest constraints on rice production in ethiopia, according to tesfaye et al., (2005). despite this enormous potential, ethiopian rice farming is largely traditional, with the majority of participants being small-scale farmers with modestly sized farms. similar to this, there aren’t many rice production processes that are mechanized, including soil cultivation, planting, harvesting, and threshing. the majority of farm tasks are carried out by hand, with the aid of simple hand tools, or with the aid of equipment pulled by animals. one of the biggest mechanization issues addressed was the planting process, which was caused by the lack of an appropriate rice planter or seeder. for the purpose of disseminating rice seeds by hand, farmers typically utilize this technique. it is evident that the conventional method of planting cannot maintain the ideal plant density in the field while evenly distributing the seed. low efficiency and excessive costs are the inevitable results. in comparison to conventional hand broadcasting techniques, it was investigated if rice seeding by mechanical means could provide the ideal plant population and attain high field capacity. additionally, it is simple to cultivate when the pattern is uniform in rows, and the rows offer the chance to employ an inter-row cultivator. devnanai, (2002a), devnanai, (2002b), tajuddin, and rajendran, (2002) among many others, have claimed that direct sowing of paddy using a drum seeder has led to lower production costs and https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v1i1.506 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst mailto:wabitafa%40gmail.com?subject= pa ge 11 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 higher yield when compared to manual transplanting and broadcasting approach. the first issue was that when the grains were repeatedly discharged from the drum through the orifices, the drum’s percentage of fill decreased. this resulted in a non-linear change in the grain flow rate, which again affected plant uniformity and, ultimately, crop production. the second issue was that the seeds continued to fall while rotating near the top of the field, potentially wasting better seed. third, it required frequent refilling and was challenging to gauge the quantity of seeds inside the drum. even though the machine has these restrictions, ethiopian farmers find it difficult to obtain and utilize this kind of equipment due to economic issues and the machine’s lack of availability in the nation. in light of the aforementioned constraints, it is necessary to construct a suitable rice seeder using materials that are readily available locally. therefore, an effort was made in this work to address issues with the traditional methods of planting rice (both broadcasting and row dropping) by creating a four-row rice seeder that is both technologically and economically feasible. the general objective of the project was to design a four rows rice seeder with the following specific objectives.  to develop functional structure for four rows rice seeder.  to prepare 3d and 2d drawing of the rice seeder.  to prepare exploded drawing of the seeder. materials and methods design procedures this study was carried out after studying different research reports which are mentioned in the review of literature. both primary and secondary sources of information have been exploited to conduct the study. the project was conducted using three treatments; traditional or local planting (broadcasting), and traditional/manually (dropping in rows) rice seeder and manually operated four rows rice seeder. seed rate, seed spacing, planting date, and plant population were the factors used for comparison. the methods to be used in this design are: the gathering required information which is associated with agricultural operation. studying the properties of rice seed. careful consideration and analysis on various parameters led to the selection of the best suitable concept for detailed design formulation will be done through the use of a binary dominance matrix. • the conceptual design of an appropriate system to meet their needs. • modeling (using solid work 2020 computer aided design software). • the determination on whether their problem will be solved. • specifying material to be used for each component. conceptual design at this point, the designing of the rice seeding machine begins with the fundamental approach to developing a new system in compliance with technical requirements. since rice production in our country is still ongoing, seed drilling machines will be developed in accordance with demand, as noted in the literature, as one of the technical transformations of rice product development. abstraction this part is used to identify the general criteria of the rice seeding machine specially, • to develop best drilling system (accurate line spacing as possible) • to decrease energy consumption • to reduce weight or space required • to significantly lower initial cost as possible • to improve production methods problem formulation • add the rice seed in its bucket • start the operation • counting amount of rice seeds • avoiding stick property of drilling material • metering space between row • starting drilling the seed detail design development design consideration the four rows rice seeder for direct seeding rice was designed as a functional and experimental unit. the design of machine components was based on the principles of operations and lab tests. it was compared with the compared conventional method, to give a correct shape in form of design. the mechanical design details were also given with due attention so, that it gave adequate functional rigidity for the design of machine. agronomical considerations rice agronomist recommendations; • seed rate; it should be in the range of 50 – 80kg/ha, • row to row distance given 20cm, • plant to plant distance should be 2 – 3cm, and • measured values (i.e. bulk density of paddy/rice 689kg/m3, angle of repose 360) were considered. design concept a set of customer needs and target specifications serve as the basis for the concept generation process, which yields a series of product concepts from which we can create the final specification (ulrich, 2020). in order to address issues with the current manual, traditional method, low cost automation was introduced. there are several unsure planting devices in this mechanism, like rice row seeding. the concept of the work is, • observe the manual methods to identify the important process variables. • quantify the important method. • investigate all areas of automated forming. • refine design of the machine, as this plays a major https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 12 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 role in rural area. with the aforementioned factors in mind, a semiautomated machine that replaces manual labor can be designed. list the system is more probably chosen what it’s seeking by fulfilling the following general requirement. • small in size to transport from place to place • less number of components • more accurate system as possible • safe and easy to operation • manual power source • less initial cost • easy to assemble and maintainability concept generation functional structure based on the problem related with rice seeding and assessing the literature of existing planting techniques we should have to design the new system. so let’s construct the functional structure as follow: figure 1: overall functional structure sub-function figure 2: sub functional structure concept selection the process of selecting a concept involves assessing it in light of the needs of the client and other factors, comparing its relative merits, and choosing one over another for further research, testing, or development. the following potential other options will be considered while evaluating the variant. due to the focus of this project being on rather damp soil conditions, we have neglected using another power source for machinery. the system may then go to the darkened region as follows after creating the decision tree. the decision is made using a table 1: selective system option seeding mechanism or method broadcasting(traditional) dropping in rows manually four rows seeder power source man man man seeding material rice seed only rice seed only rice seed only operating type carrying and walking carrying and walking pulling and rotating seed dropping method throwing by hand and gravity dropping and gravity gravity seed metering system difficult to meter the seed random counting metering shaft seed holding device bucket cylindrical container or bucket hopper weight heavy medium low no of wheel 0 0 2 straightforward system and a source of availability. decision tree standing from the above possible alternative option system, we do have construct the following decision tree selection of working principal variants from the aforementioned decision tree, which contains those 10 potential seeding system combinations, we must choose the best system. then, only using the following criteria, they have narrowed the options down to a few. figure 3: decision tree. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 13 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 o system complexity o easy during operation, o probability of seed drawn o required number of power o simplest mechanism o probability of manufacturing in ethiopia figure 4: structure of objective tree figure 5: assigning of weighting factor for each criterion determination of weighting factors of the ending branches in tabular form table 2: sub weighting and overall weighting factor the end branches no end branches dropping in rows manually four rows seeder 1 r111 0.25x0.4 0.10 2 r1121 0.4x0.3x0.4 0.048 3 r1122 0.6x0.3x0.4 0.072 4 r113 0.45x0.3x0.4 0.054 5 r121 0.45x0.3 0.135 6 r122 0.55x0.3 0.165 7 r131 0.6x0.3 0.18 8 r132 0.4x0.3 0.12 assessment of values and determination of overall values the values are expressed in points of use value analysis approaches by giving 1 for more important criterion and 0 for less important criterion in a given pair of criteria to be evaluated. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 14 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 table 4: satisfaction for achieving the criteria in percentage satisfaction (%) description 100 excellent, complete satisfaction, objective satisfied in every aspect 85 very good, extensive satisfaction, objective satisfied in all of important aspect 70 good, considerable satisfaction, objective satisfied in the majority of aspects 50 fair, moderate satisfaction, a middle point bin complete and no satisfaction 25 bad, minor satisfaction, objective satisfied in some but less than half of the aspect 10 failure, minimal satisfaction ,objective satisfied to very small extent 0 no satisfaction, objective is not satisfied in any aspect table 3: weighted and un-weighted overall values determination criteria 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 un weighted overall weighted overall 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 4 0.143 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0.071 3 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 2 0.071 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 0.25 5 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 4 0.143 6 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 3 0.107 7 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0.036 8 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 5 0.179 un-weighted overall value was calculated by: weighted overall value was calculated by comparing concept variants concept variants result of power source in decision matrix three power sources are considered to sow rice with different range of rate within the specified time according to their capacity. these concept variants are; a=single man, b= single man and single animal and c=single man with pair of animal. here as shown in the table, the maximum rating is 78.03 table 5: decision making matrix for the power source for the rice seeding purpose criteria 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 overall satisfaction owvi 0.143 0.071 0.071 0.25 0.143 0.107 0.036 0.179 a % 85 90 75 80 75 70 70 75 %* owvi 12.155 6.39 5.325 20 10.725 7.49 2.52 13.425 78.03 b % 75 60 70 55 60 65 70 65 %* owvi 10.725 4.26 4.97 13.75 8.58 6.955 2.52 11.635 63.395 c % 80 80 60 75 80 80 50 80 %*owvi 11.44 5.68 4.26 18.75 11.44 8.56 1.8 14.32 76.25 and hence concept variant a is selected as the best concept or alternative. so, single man can be used for the operation of the seeding machine concept variants result of seeding techniques in decision matrix three planting technique are considered to sow rice with different range of rate within the specified time according to their capacity. these concept variants are traditional (broadcasting), manual row seeding, and four rows rice seeder. a= traditional planting (broadcasting), b= four rows rice seeder and c= manual seeding techniques (dropping seeds manually in rows) from the decision making matrix the maximum value of table 6: decision making matrix for rice seeding technique criteria 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 overall satisfaction owvi 0.143 0.071 0.071 0.25 0.143 0.107 0.036 0.179 a % 25 70 25 10 80 70 70 20 %* owvi 3.575 4.97 1.775 2.5 11.44 7.49 2.52 3.58 32.5 b % 85 80 90 95 65 80 75 90 %* owvi 12.15 5.68 6.39 23.75 9.3 8.56 2.7 16.11 84.68 c % 80 85 60 75 85 85 50 80 %*owvi 11.44 6.035 4.26 18.75 12.15 9.10 1.8 14.32 77.8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 15 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 concept variant is 84.68 at b; therefore manually operated four rows rice seeder is the final selection concept variants result of hopper type in decision matrix the hopper is a device in which the seeds to be planted are kept before their gradual release into the furrowed tunnel. the amount of seed depends upon the size of the seed hopper. four concept variants are considered to design the four rows rice seeder. these concept variant are cylindrical, conical, trapezoidal, and rectangular hopper types. let denoting a= cylindrical, b= conical, c= trapezoidal and d= rectangular here as shown in the table, the maximum rating is 85.53 table 7: decision making matrix for hopper shape type criteria 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 overall satisfaction owvi 0.143 0.071 0.071 0.25 0.143 0.107 0.036 0.179 a % 25 70 25 10 80 70 70 20 %* owvi 3.575 4.97 1.775 2.5 11.44 7.49 2.52 3.58 32.5 b % 10 80 50 20 80 40 20 60 %* owvi 1.43 5.68 3.55 5 11.44 4.28 0.72 10.74 42.84 c % 80 95 80 90 85 85 100 80 %*owvi 11.44 6.745 5.68 22.5 12.155 9.095 3.6 14.32 85.535 d % 60 80 75 80 75 60 75 70 %*owvi 8.58 5.68 5.325 20 10.725 6.42 2.7 12.53 71.96 and hence concept variant c is selected as the best concept or alternative. therefore trapezoidal shape is the most appropriate hopper needed to hold rice seed. concept variants result of furrow opener type in decision matrix furrow openers are parts of a planter that are used to open furrow so that seed is placed at a specific depth below the surface. the design of furrow openers of seed planters varies to suit the soil conditions. here the variants to be used are, a=stub runner, b= hoe type, c= single disk type and d= double disk. from this decision matrix, the best concept variant is concept a which is 78.55.so stub runner type is chosen table 8: decision making matrix for furrow opener type criteria 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 overall satisfaction owvi 0.143 0.071 0.071 0.25 0.143 0.107 0.036 0.179 a % 95 90 75 65 85 75 70 80 %* owvi 13.58 6.39 5.32 16.25 12.15 8 2.52 14.32 78.55 b % 70 60 60 70 60 65 70 90 %* owvi 10.01 4.26 4.26 17.5 8.58 6.95 2.52 16.11 70.19 c % 50 70 80 85 70 65 55 40 %*owvi 7.15 4.97 5.68 21.25 10.01 6.95 1.98 7.16 65.15 d % 0 80 60 75 85 80 50 70 %*owvi 7.15 5.68 4.26 18.75 12.15 8.56 1.8 12.53 71.23 to open the furrow for seeding machine concept variants result of ground wheel type in decision matrix the ground wheel is the power transmission device to provide motion to the ground wheel shaft and rotating metering shaft. for our design let us consider the matrix of three variants, a= wood wheel, b= iron wheel, and c= pneumatic wheel. as we can see from the above decision matrix concept b which is 83.745 is the best variant concept. so, ground wheel of iron cover type will be chosen for the design. description and design requirements of the manually operated four rows rice seeder description of row seeding machine as the name suggests, a manually driven four-row seeder was created. it has four rows, each of which has its table 9: decision making matrix for ground wheel type criteria 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 overall satisfaction owvi 0.143 0.071 0.071 0.25 0.143 0.107 0.036 0.179 a % 35 75 35 15 75 70 70 20 %* owvi 5.005 5.325 2.485 3.75 10.725 7.49 2.52 3.58 40.88 b % 85 80 90 95 65 80 75 85 %* owvi 12.15 5.68 6.39 23.75 9.3 8.56 2.7 15.215 83.745 c % 80 80 60 75 80 80 50 80 %*owvi 11.44 5.68 4.26 18.75 11.44 8.56 1.8 14.32 76.25 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 16 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 own hopper, and it uses a rotating shaft as a metering mechanism. because there are holes all the way around the shaft, when the shaft’s holes are in the lowest position, the seeds fall out due to gravity. the ground wheel and four hoppers were fixed on the shaft; but, they have not rotated while the ground wheels are rotating. paddy stored in the hopper and the seed flow to the metering shaft is controlled by the cut-off mechanism. one operator could pull the implement using a long beam handle that was provided. the paddy seed was covered during planting by the chain attached made of angle iron at the bottom of the machine’s back end. the operator could regulate the unneeded seed flow and seed waste during the turning trip by standing up, spinning one of the ground wheels, and setting the other ground wheel to the idle position. this machine was ideal for row planting of a variety of crops, including wheat, barley, soybeans, sorghum, etc. since it had holes on the spinning shafts that were provided based on the conventional seed-seed and row-row spacing. for this particular design, it was simply taken into account as paddy or rice seed. typically, a seeder consists of drive wheels, a frame, seed hoppers, metering systems, furrow openers, and furrow covering tools. figure 6: isometric view of manually operated four rows rice seeder and its components design requirements of the seeding machine in order to start the design, depending on many literatures the following assumed values were taken in to consideration. > speed of operation 1 – 3km/hr, > machine weight 12kg, wheel diameter 28cm), ff=(cr+i)……………………………………..6 where c_r = rolling resistance m_wt = machine weight = 12kg = 58.86n i= maximum gradient of the ground, let 1% the rolling resistance can be found by using the following formula: at first, wheel revolution and machine weight on wheel would be calculated as follows: > peripheral distance =𝜋d = 𝜋*28cm=0.88m, > as wheel covers 1.89m/rev, at 1m/s it covers (1m/s) since the machine has two ground wheel, machine weight, mwt on wheel equals the machine weight divided by two, mwt = 58.86n power developed by the operator according to campell et al. (1990) the power of useful work done by human being is given by: hp=0.35-0.092logt……………………………3 where, hp = horse power developed during time t t = time in minutes now, for 6 – 8 hours continues work the power developed by the operator would be hp=0.35-0.092log(360 minor 480)=0.115-0.103 hp let’s take the average of the ranges; it becomes = 0.109hp. therefore, based on the calculation above, the power of productive labor created by a typical human worker is equal to 0.109 horsepower. we can use the following formula to convert this power into force: let the operating speed of the machine be 1m/s, therefore by rearranging equation 2 we can get hence, force developed by an average human worker = 8.175kgf the torque produced by the driving wheel torque produced by the driving wheel, tw is one of the required data to calculate the torque produced by the driving wheel for both shaft analysis and wheel analysis. consequently, it was determined utilizing the following formula: t_w=ff*dw/2…………………………………….9 where, tw = torque produced by the driving wheel ff= force required maneuvering the machine, kgf dw = diameter of the wheel, 0.28m therefore, substituting the values in equation 9 we can get; tw = 21.23n x 0.14m = 2.972n.m power required driving the planter equation 2.9 determined the machine’s one-person operability; this property may also be represented in terms of power, thus the following equation was used to compute it: pm=tw nw……………………………10 where, nw = wheel revolution in rad/sec, pm = 2.972n.m x (1.136 x 2𝞹) = 21.21 watt. since 1kw equals 741hp, it became 0.02121/0.741=0.0286hp therefore, po of operator much greater than pm demand of the machine, so again this shows us it is safe to operate by one person(i.e. 0.109hp of the operator produced greater than 0.0286hp of the power required by the https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 17 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 machine, so we can conclude that it is easy to operate). design analysis and material selection of major components of the manually operated four rows rice seeder mainframe the planter’s frame, which serves as the platform for other components to be affixed, is its skeletal framework. the main frame’s material was chosen to achieve the desired strength and reasonable weight. the frame’s design was also influenced by the components that would be put on it. to provide the necessary strength and rigidity while taking into account the orientation and attachment of various components, such as hoppers and handle beams, a mild steel sheet metal with a thickness of 2mm, width of 80mm, and length of 710mm was chosen. the pulling beam channel and seed collecting hoppers were directly mounted in the middle of the frame using the proper nuts and bolts that had holes for assembly adjustments. provisions were created during the frame’s design process to fix the adjustable hopper and pulling beam placement at a 20 cm distance, or the distance between two rows. as illustrated in figure 7(a) and (b) below, the pulling handle was attached to the frame’s center section at the necessary spacing and in accordance with the ergonomic criteria. figure 7: seeder frame and seeder parts attached to the frame design of seed hopper the hopper is a tool used to store planting seeds prior to their slow release into the tunnel’s ridges. the size of the seed hopper determines how much seed it can hold. the trapezoidal hopper’s four distinct compartments for holding and releasing seed are installed on the spinning shaft and supported by the frame to lower maintenance expenses. they share the same material and are the same size. mild steel sheet metal with a thickness of 1.5 mm was utilized for construction since it is widely accessible and reasonably priced. to make opening easier, the hopper also incorporates a cut-off controller. figure 8 depicts the design and measurements of each hopper chamber. when designing a hopper, the necessary volumetric efficiency, bulk density (689 kg/m3), and angle of repose are taken into account. the hopper was designed to ensure proper flow of seeds by the action of gravity only. the slope of the hopper wall is maintained as per the requirement of metering mechanism, which should be more than the angle of repose of rice seed (360). in the design of hopper capacity, seeding rate of 40 kg/ ha for rice was considered; and the bulk density of rice at a seed storage moisture content of 15%, was considered as 689kg/m3 (waziri and mittal, 1983). equation given by olaoye and bolufawi, (2001) was used to estimate the volume of the hopper as follows; v=sr/(n×γs )……………………………………………11 where: v= is the volume of the hopper sr = seeding rate (kg/ha) n = number of refilling per hectare (let, 40 times) γs = bulk density of the seeds (kg/ m3) v=sr/(n×γs )=(50kg/ha)/(40/ha×689kg/m3 )=1.45×10-3m3 the maximum volume of the designed trapezoidal hopper is: v=h/2 (a1+a2+√a1×a2 )………………12 where; v = volume, m3 h = height, m a1 = area of trapezoid, top of hopper, m2 a2 = area of trapezoid, bottom of hopper, m2 so, the volume the designed hopper will was; v=150/2(16,000mm2+800mm2+√(16,000mm2×800mm2 )) v=1528328.157mm3=1.5×10-3 m3 since the designed volume of seed hopper is 1.5×10-3 m3 is higher than the theoretical volume (1.45×10-3) m3) found by equation 12. therefore, the designed dimensions of the hoppers are correct. weight of the hopper since the seed attached to the metering hoppers have equal dimensions and made from the same material, the area of the single hopper used for the rest three hoppers was estimated from the following equations (math.com, 2012); ahm=a1+a2…………………………………13 =(100×160)+(20×40)=16800mm2 where; a1 = area of trapezoid, top of hopper, m2 a2 = area of trapezoid, bottom of hopper, m2 the volume of hopper can be computed using the following equations (itsi-su, 2011); vhm=ahm×thm………………………………14 =16800mm2×1.5mm=25200mm3=2.52×10-5m3 the mass of hopper can be computed using the following equations (itsi-su, 2011); mhm=vhm×ρhm…………………………………15 =2.52×10-5m3×7850kg/m3=0.1978kg for the four hoppers we have: mhm= no.of hoppers×vhm×ρhm=4×0.1978kg=0.792kg the weight of hopper can be computed using the following equations (gat, uri, 1988); whm=mhm×g………………………………16 =0.792kg×9.81m/s2=7.76n where: https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 18 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 ahm = surface area of the hopper material vhm = volume of the hopper material thm= thickness of the hopper material mhm= mass of the hopper material ρhm = density of the hopper material whm= weight of the hopper material figure 8: seed hopper design of the seed metering mechanism the seed sowing machine’s metering system, which distributes seeds consistently at the desired application rates, is its brain. the drum served as measuring mechanisms in this instance (figure 9). however, the hopper’s purpose as a feeder was employed, and the shaft then metered the seeds. as previously indicated, the shaft of this machine served as a measuring mechanism and was used to plant paddy rice seed or rice grain in rows. therefore, it was decided to compute the number of holes on shafts in each hopper using the following formula: n=πd/(i×x)…………………………………17 where, n = number of holes on the drum d = diameter of the shaft, it takes 4.1cm x = required seed to seed spacing, it takes 2cm i= ratio of wheel to metering shaft rotation, 1:1 therefore, substituting the values in eq. 34 we found that; n=(π*4.1cm)/2cm=6.44=takes 7 holes the length(l), width(w), and thickness(t) of 50 seeds were taken, and the size of the hole was calculated based on the average geometrical mean of the rice grain. according to yonas l., (2017) their geometrical mean average was calculated using the following equation and came out at 2.95mm. we used 6mm for the design. dg=∛(l*w*t)…………………………….…18 where: l = mean length (mm) w = mean width (mm) t = mean thickness (mm) dg = mean geometric diameter (mm) figure 9: seed metering shaft design of furrow opener the components of a planter known as furrow openers are used to open a furrow so that seeds can be planted at a particular depth below the surface. furrow openers for seed planters come in a variety of designs to accommodate different soil types. furrow openers of the adjustable curved stub runner type were created to prevent seed rebounding, roll over impediments, and increase seed placement accuracy at various planting depths. furrow openers of the stub runner type are appropriate for usage when it is necessary to penetrate agricultural residues or hard terrain. they can be kept quite clean, which makes them more effective than permanent openers in wet, sticky soils. because the depth can be regulated by using the slot supplied on the furrow opener for the purpose of altering the depth of the seeder, curved runner furrow openers are particularly well fitted to medium or shallow seeding of row crops that are crucial in regard to planting depth. the furrow openers were made of mild steel sheet metal that was 2 mm thick, bent, and had dimensions of 164.5 mm in height by 152 mm in width. they were then connected with a shaft and a furrow opener connecter using slotted nuts and bolts. figure 10: curved runner type furrow opener adjustable seed covering planters should be made to compact the earth, push the seeds into the compacted dirt, then cover the seeds with loose soil in order to achieve the best outcomes for germination and emergence. the capillary continuity between the lower moist soil layers and the upper layers in which the seed is placed, as well as between the seed and soil immediately surrounding it, is improved by increasing the seed/soil contact below and around the seed. the soil just above the seed row should be left loose to reduce crusting and encourage simple emergence. in order to prevent birds from dropping soil, it is also crucial that the grain is covered in seed. the specially created furrow figure 11: seed covering mechanism https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 covering tools enable optimum soil coverage over the seeds in the furrows. the material used for the design was mild steel flat iron of 980*140*3mm positioned and fitted immediately at the back of the seeder hopper two ends pulling beam and handle pulling beam is principal parts used to join the main seeder parts and the handle used for pulling forward the seeder during planting. for the design single circular beam having 36mm and 1240mm diameter and length respectively made up of wood for the purpose of decreasing the weight of the machine was selected. the beam was hinged to the hitch. the pulling beam was attached to the frame by using of the frame and beam connecter used as a hitch at one end and attached to the handle holder on the other end as shown on figure12 below. in order to transfer the planter from one location to another during planting operations, a handle is used to supply the pulling force from a human operator. the planned handle was made of a circle of wood that measured 865 mm in length and 36 mm in outer diameter. through the use of connecting bushing and nuts and bolts, the handle was fastened to the pulling beam. the handle on the seeder was primarily designed to regulate planter pull when sowing and turning in the field. the length of the handle and pulling beam were designed with ergonomics and surface smoothness in mind. figure 12: pulling beam and handle shaft design and analysis a shaft is a rotating machine element which is used to transmit power from one place to another. the power is delivered to the shaft by some tangential force and the resultant torque (or twisting moment) set up within the shaft permits the power to be transferred to various machines linked up to the shaft. in other words, we may say that a shaft is used for the transmission of torque and bending moment. the various members are mounted on the shaft by means of keys or splines. for this project hollow shaft having the internal diameter of 8.5mm and outer diameter of 41mm was designed. these types of shafts are stronger per mass of material, for particular power transmission, it requires minimum weight, and they may be forged on mandrel, thus making the material more homogenous than would be possible for the solid shaft. the stresses, torques, and bending moments generated in the shaft during operation must be seen in relation to the shaft that the seed hopper assembly is mounted on. when power is transferred from the ground wheel to the seed hopper, the shaft is intrinsically subjected to a torsional moment, or torque, at a specific rotational speed. as a result, the shaft develops torsional shear stress. additionally, a shaft typically carries the load from a hopper or seed box, which applies pressure to the shaft in a transverse orientation (perpendicular to its axis). the shaft develops bending moments as a result of these transverse forces, necessitating a consideration of the stress from bending. because shear stresses and regular stresses from bending occur at the same time in these shafts, integrated stress analysis is actually necessary. where, (r1and r2) or (fm)= the ground reaction due to the sum of machine weight, and weight of seeds carried by the ground wheel. fm = 12kg + 10kg = 22kg or 215.82n ff= force driving the wheel, equals13.75n, we found it figure 13: load distributions on the driving shaft by eq.8 rwh = wheel reaction at one end in the horizontal direction. rwv= wheel reaction at other end in the vertical direction. rh(a,b,c)= weight of seed hoppers including the seed at full load at point here, we established the ideal shaft diameter and used the following procedures to determine the forces acting on the shaft and how much of each force they depend on: finding the load exerted on the shaft the seed hoppers are what put pressure on the shaft. the following formula can be used to determine the weight coming from the seed hoppers; (since the seed box stands on the shaft with four foot, the load should be divided in to four). as stated above, it was made to hold 6 kilogram of rice seed. wha=whb=whc= whd=0.25[seed weight at full load + hopper weight]…………………………………..19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 20 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 = 1/4(6kg + 5kg) x 9.81 = 26.98n forces exerted on the shaft in the vertical direction (yz) finding the forces acting vertically on the shaft was the second stage, as demonstrated above. considering the sum of the forces, that is ∑f = 0, we can get the following: –rwv–wha–whb–whc-whd=0 ……......………20 from the equation 20 the only unknown is rwv, it can be rearranged in to eq.2.21 below –rwv= wha + whb + whc + whd fm……… 21 = 44.15 + 53.96 + 53.96 + 44.15 215.82 = 19.6n rwv= -19.6n, (this result shows that the assumed direction is correct), so reducing this value, i.e. 𝑭 = f_m + rwv = 196.22n (net upward force). forces exerted on the shaft in the horizontal direction (xz plane) considering summation of forces, ∑f = 0, we found equation 2.22 below; ff – rwh = 0 ………………………....…....…22 from equation 3.8 we found that ff = rwh = 13.75n, (ff was found by eq.2.8 above) thus, all forces acting in the horizontal direction become zero, and we draw the conclusion that neither a shear stress nor a bending moment exist. determining the maximum bending moment finding the product of the above-found vertical and horizontal seconds was the next stage. consequently, we can apply the following formula to this: mmax=√(mh 2+m2)……….....................................23 ma=√(02+4.422 ) =4.42n.m mb=√(02+9.812 ) =9.81n.m mc=√(02+26.252 ) =26.25n.m md=√(02+12.022 ) =12.02n.m mw=√(02+6.622 ) =6.62n.m therefore, from the results of equation 23 at each point a, b, c, d, and w we found that the maximum bending moment occur at point c. the torque on the shaft the power transmitted from the driving wheel to the shaft with 1:1 ratio, i.e. directly, hence torque produced at the wheel and the shaft are equal, 1.925n.m or we can also calculate using the following formula: p=t1 n1=t2 nn………………………….24 where, p = power transmitted t1 = torque produced at the wheel, equals 1.925n.m (which was found by eq. 24 above) t2 = torque produced at the shaft, which is equal, 1.925n.m n1 = angular rotation of the driving wheel, =1.136 rev/s or 68.2 rev/min (taken from the initial mentioned parameters above) n2 = angular rotation of the shaft, 1.136 rev/s or 68.2 rev/min (because of 1:1) design of ground wheel the ground wheel is the power transmission device to provide motion to the ground wheel shaft and rotating metering shaft. the seed hoppers were made fixed on the shaft by using bushing and keys. lug type wheel was used for designing of the ground wheel because of its suitability to use under wet or sticky soils; whereas pneumatic wheels fail to work. ground wheel of 280 mm diameter was selected for the designing of the wheel. the wheel is made of m.s. rod (1.5 mm diameter) and width is kept 60 mm. the spokes were made up of mild steel flat iron of 1.5 mm thickness 6 spokes were provided on each wheel extended 130 mm towards centre and maximum width at the both ends was kept 45mm and welded with the bush having diameter of 42 mm and the length of bush is 100 mm. disk plates having 47mm and 4mm diameter and thickness respectively and also lugs are provided on the ground wheel for better traction of machine on the field the lugs are made of g.i. sheet of 6 gauge thick. figure 14: ground wheel determination of seeder performance and capacity field capacity and efficiency were determined in accordance to the recommendation made by kepner (1978) and using relevant parameters that included effective operation time, turning time and time losses due to obstructions on the field. from the data gathered working speed (km/h), effective field capacity (ha/h) and field efficiency (%) were estimated using the expressions below (kepner1978); v=d/ta …………….................................……25 where: v = working speed, d = distance of run (m) ta= average time of each pass (second) e=100*te/tt …………................................….26 where: e = field efficiency (%). te = effective operating time (sec.) tt = total time (effective operating time +time lost for turning) ce=(we*smf*e)/10……………....................…27 where: ce= effective field capacity (ha/hr) we= implement effective width/inter row spacing (m) smf = mean forward speed (km/h) e = field efficiency (decimal value) https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 21 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 figure 15: pulling beam figure 16: seeder supporting frame figure 17: handle holding bushing figure 18: handle figure 19: hitch figure 20: hopper and cut-off support figure 21: rear wheel shaft figure 22: shaft and furrow opener holder figure 23: seed cut-off controller figure 24: seed covering mechanism https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 22 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 figure 25: spokes and hub figure 26: overall assembly of manually operated four rows rice seeder manufacturing process this chapter covered a detailed explanation of how each machine component of the seeding machine was made. this stage of the manufacturing process aids in producing the machine locally using materials that are readily available. the appropriate machinery and tools are utilized as needed. manufacturing process of component table 10: selected manufacturing process of the main seeder components s.no seeder components required material required tools and activity/ process 1 handle eucalyptus tree measuring, cutting, milling, smoothening, and drilling 2 pulling beam eucalyptus tree cutting, milling, measuring, smoothening, and drilling 3 hitch mild steel sheet metal cutting, measuring tool, drilling, and bending 4 frame mild steel sheet metal cutting, milling, measuring , drilling, and bending 5 metering shaft mild steel turning, facing, boring, cutting, and milling 6 hopper mild steel sheet metal cutting, measuring tool, drilling, welding, grinding, and bending 7 furrow opener mild steel flat iron cutting, measuring tool, boring/ slotting, and bending tools 8 ground wheel mild steel rod cutting, measuring tool, drilling, welding, grinding, and rolling 9 seed cover mild steel angle iron cutting, and drilling main technical specifications for manually operated four rows rice seeder table 11: specifications of main parts of four rows rice seeder no products specification 1 number of hoppers 04 2 number of furrow openers 04 3 number of shafts 01 4 width of ground wheel 02 5 height of the seeder 95.0 cm 6 approx. weight 12 kg materials used for seeder construction table 11: list of materials used for construction of the seeder machine no components material 1 main shaft mild steel 2 seed hopper mild steel sheet metal 3 bushing bronze 4 seed covering mild steel angle iron 5 furrow opener mild steel flat iron 6 beam and handle eucalyptus tree cost estimation and cost of operation by figuring out the cost of various components, the unit cost of a manually operated four-row rice seeder was established. cost analysis is a crucial component of technology design and production that helps ensure the dependability and affordability of the technology. individual components or functional groups can be used to determine the cost of a subsystem for a given system (carrying out a single function). the overall system expenses are calculated by adding these expenses collectively. the cost estimation method begins with a set of technical drawings for the assembly’s component parts and figures out the price of each activity related to component manufacture, assembly, and finishing. eliminating pointless processes has a significant impact on reducing manufacturing process costs. this can be accomplished through careful planning, operating in succession, and grouping individual activities or groups of operations. the following benefits of grouping operations; https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 23 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 o reduced fixed cost o reduced labour cost o less handling o reduced setup time o smaller in process inventory depending on the types of manufacturing process, total cost of the designed machine was determined by considering the following. the main elements of cost analysis includes o direct material total cost o standard items cost o direct labour cost o operation cost direct material total cost to determine the total cost of direct materials used in the manufacture of the manually operated four rows rice seeder a material balance and flow sheet should be developed. once the materials balances established, raw material prices must be assessed and identified. therefore the materials and their current cost needed to manufacture the seeder were studied from the current markets. cost summary of the manually operated four rows rice seeder table 13: total cost summary of the construction of the seeder r aw m at er ia l c os t (b ir r ) m at er ia l w as ta ge 2. 5 % o f 1 ( b ir r ) m ac hi ne c os t (b ir r) la bo r c os t( b ir r) o ve rhe ad c os t 5 % o f 3 & 4 pr od uc tio n co st (1 + 2+ 3+ 4) b ir r 3400.6 85.015 11.754 20.249 1.600 3,519.218 recommendations > there is need to create awareness among the farming communities on adoption of newly designed technologies to increase and improve their agricultural production. > there is need for development of low cost animal operated or tractor mounted high efficiency rice seeder for farmers for more mechanization of their agriculture. > the row planter prototype is needed to be fabricated, tested and demonstrated in the farmer’s field. > promotion and dissemination of the technologies has to be done to end users. > adjustable seed metering mechanism should be used to use the planter for different rice varieties and crops. conclusion in ethiopia, rice is one of the targeted agricultural products that has received adequate attention in the promotion of agricultural output. it is regarded as the “millennium crop” and is anticipated to help ensure food security in the nation. as a result, over the past few years, its production has increased. despite the growth, there are still a lot of production system issues that need to be resolved, with planting technique leading the list. the farmers continued to use timeand labor-intensive traditional seed-broadcasting techniques, which led to a sharp reduction in output due to an unfavorable plant population. therefore, attempts were undertaken to design a suitable planting machine for rice in order to address the issues with the conventional method of spreading the seed on the farm and maintain the ideal plant density. the binary dominance matrix determines it was determined that the novel constructed seeder outperformed the manual approach in all aspects. traditional seeding techniques (broadcasting), manual row planting technique, and the newly created manually operated four rows rice were all assessed. the machinability aspect, which comprises installation, simplicity, durability, choice of material, machine, low pricing, and prolonged life span when operated with high utilization with minimal downtime, was properly taken into account in order to achieve this design target and goals. the designed machine “manually operated four rows rice seeder machine” can help to substantially reduce the human labor involved in planting and also reduces the time used for seeding operation on small farms. the designed seeder was easy to operate and repair, applicable for different sizes of grains according to their physical properties, do not break the rice grains during seeding process. design permits fabrication from locally available materials. references csa, (2009). central statistical agency agricultural sample survey csa, (2014). central statistics agency. agricultural sample survey time series data for national & regional level from 1995/96 – 2014/15. report on area and production of major crops (private peasant holdings, meher season). addis ababa, ethiopia. dawe d., (2005). increasing water productivity in ricebased systems in asia-past trends, current problems, and future prospects. plant prod sci, 8: 221–230. de datta s k., (1986). technology development and the spread of direct-seeded flooded rice in southeast asia. exp agric, 22: 417–426. devnanai, r.s., (2002a).technology for pre-germinated paddy seedling. j. agric.eng. 39 (2), 1–8. devnani, r.s., (2002b). direct seeding options, equipment developed and their performance on yield of rice crop. agric. mech. asia africa latin america 33 (4), 27–33. fao-food and agriculture organization (2009). faostat database fao, rome, www.faostat.fao.org fao (2008). rice production report for 2007.food and agriculture organization of the united nations, usa. flinn, j.c., mandac, a.m., 1986. wet seeding of rice in less favored rainfed environments working paper. agricultural economics department, international rice research institute, los ban˜os, philippines. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 24 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 10-24, 2022 gebey., 2012. evaluation of new farming technologies in ethiopia using the integrated decision support system (idss), volume 180, part b, 31 january 2017, pages 267279, elsevier. g.v.prasanna kumar, brijeshsrivastava, d.s.nagesh., 2009. modelling and optimization of parameters of flow rate of paddy rice grains through the horizontal rotating cylindrical drum of drum seeder. computers and electronics in agriculture 65, 26-35p. itsi-su, january 26, 2011. mass, volume and density of regularly and irregularly shaped object internet:<http:// www.pdesas.org/module/content/resources/14756/ view.ashx> kepner, r.a., bainer, r., barger, e.l., 1978. principles of farm machinery, 3rd edition. inc. avi publishing company, westport, usa. khurmi, r.s. and gupta, j.k., 2005. a textbook of machine design. eurasia publishing house (pvt.) ltd., ram nagar, new delhi, india. kukal, s.s., aggarwal, g.c., 2002. percolation losses of water in relation to puddling intensity and depth in a sandy loam rice (oryza sativa) field. agric. water manag. 57, 49–59. mathankar, s.k., singh, v.v., 2007. ridge seeding of pre-germinated rice in puddle fields. asae paper no. 078042. asabe, st. joseph, mi. math.com. retrieved 2 july 2012. area formula. internet:http://www.math.com/tables/geometry/areas. htm moard (ministry of agriculture and rural development) (2010). “national rice research and development strategy of ethiopia,” 1-47p. naklang k, shu f, nathabut k. growth of rice cultivars by direct seeding and transplanting under upland and lowland conditions. field crop res, 1996, 48: 115–123. prasanna kumar, g.v., jhonhas, r., obednatso, v., 2004. flow rate of paddy seeds through sharp-edged orifices on the rotating drum of drum seeder. in: proceedings of the international conference on emerging trends in agricultural engineering (etae’04), iit kharagpur, india, pp. 9–15. pandey, s., velasco, l., 2005. trends in crop establishment methods in asia and research issues. in: rice is life: scientific perspectives for the 21st century, proceedings of the world rice research conference, 4–7 november 2004, tsukuba, japan, pp. 178–181. pratley, j.e., flower, r., heylin, e., sivapalan, s., 2004. integrated weed management strategies for the rice weeds cyperusdifformis and alismaplantagoaquatica. a report for the rural industries research and development corporation (rirdc) project no usc 20a. raheman h., singh., 2004.development of a manual drawn multi-crop drum seeder for dry land rice. agric. mech. asia africa latin america 33 (6), 21–33. sharma d.n., and mukesh, s. (2010). farm machinery design principles and problems. new delhi: jainbrothers. sivakumar, s.s., manian, r., kathirvel, k., raghavan, g.s.v., 2005. investigation on the influence of machine and operational parameters for the development of a manually drawn rice seeder for direct sowing.agric. eng. int. cigr e-j. 7, 1–12. surendra, et al., 2001. the effect of seeding and tillage methods on productivity of rice–wheat cropping system. soil till. res. 61, 125–131. tajuddin, a., rajendran, p., 2002. devices for intercropping green manure in wet seeded rice. agric. mech. asia africa latin america 33 (3), 9–10. tesfaye et al., 2005. influence of time of nitrogen application on productivity and nitrogen use effiency of rain fed lowland rice(oryza sativa l.) in the vertisols of fogera plain, northwestern ethiopia. warda (west african rice development association— africa rice center) (2002). ‘‘promising technologies for rice production in west and central africa,’’ 28p. warda bouake, coˆte d’ivoire; fao, rome, italy. ulrich, k. t. (2020). product design and development seventh edition. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 1 pa ge 65 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) heavy metal concentration of okra (abelmoschus esculentus) grown on dumpsite soil in benin city, nigeria godspower oke omokaro1*, mary ganpatei ojujoh2, ikioukenigha michael3, zipporah simiyu nafula1 volume 2 issue 2, year 2023 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i2.2233 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: october 28, 2023 accepted: november 30 2023 published: december 04, 2023 the study investigates the concentrations of heavy metals in okra (abelmoschus esculentus) planted in dumpsite soil obtained from the university of benin and ekosodin in benin city. soil samples were collected before and after planting and analyzed for ph, total nitrogen (n), total organic carbon (c), phosphorus (p), iron (fe), zinc (zn), manganese (mn), and heavy metal concentrations (cu, pb, cd, and cr). the study reveals variations in soil acidity levels across different locations before and after planting. in table 1, soil ph was moderately acidic in farmland (5.61), neutral in market (6.79) and residential (6.76) areas, and slightly acidic in faculties (6.14). in table 2, after planting, the ph remained moderately acidic in market (5.68) and residential (5.80), while becoming strongly acidic in farmland (5.42) and faculties (5.36). total n and p decreased in most dumpsites after planting, while total organic carbon increased. fe, zn, and mn concentration varied between dumpsites and after planting stages. particle size distribution remained predominantly sandy across dumpsites and planting stages. the study suggests that okra plants cultivated in various dumpsite soils showed no toxic levels for the selected heavy metals, with concentrations generally falling within acceptable limits for vegetable consumption. the copper concentration highest uptake observed in okra plants from residential land (36.0 mg/kg) and the lowest in farmland (23.3 mg/kg). lead (pb) uptake varied across dumpsites: market (0.15 mg/kg), farmland (0.10 mg/kg), residential land (0.12 mg/kg), and faculties (0.06 mg/kg). cadmium (cd) uptake was observed at market dumpsites (0.05 mg/kg), farmland (0.02 mg/kg), residential area (0.01 mg/kg), and faculties (0.04 mg/kg). heavy metal concentrations in the soil and okra plants were generally below the permissible limits set by the department of petroleum resources (dpr) for soil and world health organization (who) for vegetables intended for human consumption. keywords heavy metals, okra, dumpsites, soil properties, soil analysis 1 institute of ecology, peoples friendship university of russia, moscow, russia 2 department of soil science and land management, university of benin, ugbowo, benin city, edo state, nigeria 3 department of geography and regional planning, igbinedion university, okada, edo state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: omokaro.kelly@gmail.com introduction earth is very good at recycling waste, but when the amount of wastes generated is far more than the earth can cope with; it poses a big threat to lives, a phenomenon called pollution. pollution occurs at different levels and affects all lives ranging from plants, animals to man (skye, 2006). nearly all human activities generate waste and the way, in which this is handled, stored, collected, and disposed of, can pose risks to the environment and to public health (zhu et al., 2008). the decay of these solid wastes releases substances that can affect the soil nutrients content, increase the concentration of heavy metals in the soil, altering the natural balance of nutrients available for plant growth and development thereby affecting species diversity and agricultural productions. contamination of the environment by heavy metals with their potential effects on human health, agriculture and natural ecosystems has become a subject of worldwide concern. hazards of heavy metal contamination have been reported (chan et al, 1999). wastes found in the dump sites come from municipal, domestic and industrial sources and may contain heavy metals (babatunde et al., 2013). the increase in population coupled with ruralurban drift has increased the quantity of wastes generated in the urban areas and the developing countries are faced with not only the challenge of collecting the wastes but how and where to dispose it without causing further environmental hazard (oguche, 2013). heavy metal contamination of the environment arises at all stages of metal utilization from the mining of metallic ores to the disposal of domestic and industrial wastes. human beings, animals, vegetation and soil are the ultimate receipt of heavy metals in the environment. however, lack of effective waste management in overpopulated cities can have substantial negative effects that include fetid water ways emitting stench from sewage, spreading diseases and harbouring vehicles that spew treaded exhaust into dust filled air. at a time when environmental quality and food production are of major concern, a better understanding of the behaviour of elements in the air-soil-plant system seems to be particularly important. the presence of lead for example has been reported in the bark of trees, in some fauna (ogbonda 1992) and in man (okokoyo and rimrukeh, 2004). heavy metal composition in different food types of various countries have been studied (rashed, 2001). however, such data are not readily available for most foods of less-developed countries such as nigeria (onianwa et al, 1999). okra which grows in wide range of soil is known for its nutrient supply and as a very common vegetable in tropical pa ge 66 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 65-73, 2023 region most especially in the southern part of nigeria. it is widely cultivated and recognized as a fast-growing vegetable; however, this study focuses on the heavy metal content of okro (abelmoschus esculentus) grown on soil of dumpsite obtained in benin city. the specific objective was to ascertain heavy metal concentration of okra raised on dumpsite soil. literature review okra (abelmoschus esculentus) (l) moench origin and geographic distribution okra ablemoschus esculentus l. (moench), a member of family malvaceae, is widely cultivated vegetable of high nutritional values in human diet (dikwahal et al., 2006; jonathan et al., 2011). it is a good source of protein, carbohydrate, vitamin c and calcium (kahlon et al., 2007; arapitsas, 2008). the leaves, stems and fruits are also economically important in paper and pharmaceutical industries (dilruba et al., 2009). the plant is cultivated in tropical, subtropical and warm temperate regions around the world (nrc, 2006). okra can be grown on wide range of soils, but well drained fertile soils with adequate organic matter result to high yield (akinyele et al., 2007). the crop is widely cultivated throughout the year in the tropics. okra is a nutritious vegetable which plays important role to meet the demand of vegetable are scanty in the market (ahmed et al., 1995). botany of okra okra belongs to the family malvaceae and genus abelmoschus (schippers, 2000). it used to be classified within the genus hibiscus, (farooq et al., 2010) from which it has been separated. schippers (2000) reported that the genus abelmoschus has 5-toothed calyx (sepal) which splits longitudinally along a single suture at flowering. after flowering, the whole bloom consists of a calyx, petal, and staminal column, which are fused at the base, drops together, leaving the ovary and the epicalyx segment behind (schippers, 2000). nrc, (2006) reported that abelmoschus is now considered to consist of nine or ten species. five species are in africa, three are indigenous and two were introduced from asia in the distant past. a. ficulneus l. is found in tropical lowland areas with a long dry season, such as parts of the sahel (mali, chad, sudan) and east africa (ethiopia, somalia, tanzania, uganda, madagascar), but more so in south and south-east asia and in australia (nrc, 2006). schippers, (2000) reported that this specie can be strongly branched and short, such as in sudan, or tall with few branches, reaching 2 m in height, such as plants found in the selous game reserve in southern tanzania. it has pink flowers of about 2–4 cm with a distinctly dark centre. its hairy fruit, often with a round rather than a pointed apex, are best recognized by its divided, pear-shaped leaves. it is a wild species and one of the two ancestors of the common okra (schippers, 2000). varieties of okra most plant populations consist of landraces or remnants of earlier introduced varieties such as clemson spineless from the us (nrc, 2006). these can be seen in east and southern africa and remain the most popular cultivars in the forest zone of west africa. they usually take about 10 weeks from sowing to produce the first fruit (early maturing) but are less mucilaginous than the west african okra or common okra (nrc, 2006). the southern asia cultivar pusasawani has been introduced to east africa where it has become very popular. other varieties that have been introduced to africa are green emerald and dwarf long green (nrc, 2006). nrc, (2006) also reported that only minimal research has been undertaken on truly african varieties. in sudan, there are several varieties available from local seed houses which include a spiny one called khartoumia. other local varieties include momtaza, kerrari, kassala, medani, sinnar and others which are named after the location where they are grown. the same applies to kariba from zambia. rechiindia (early maturing dwarf variety) and derererefu (late-maturing tall variety) are widespread (schippers, 2000). soil and environmental requirements of okra according to schippers (2000) and remison (2005), a well-drained sandy loam with ph of 6.0–6.8 is ideal for growing okra. it does not grow well on clay soils, in swampy or areas or on acid soils. okra is moderately tolerant to salinity, particularly a. esculentus, which originated in a semi-arid environment where salt is often encountered at the soil surface, and more so than a. caillei which is found in the humid forest belt (schippers, 2000; remison, 2005). the crop does not grow well when temperatures drop below 20°c, especially a. esculentus, which likes plenty of sunshine and does not do well in the shade. it can tolerate high temperatures, but heat coupled with low humidity slows down growth considerably (schippers, 2000). nutritional/medicinal value of okra the nutritive value of okra/100 g edible portion includes energy, 35kcal; moisture, 89.6 g; carbohydrate, 6.4 g; protein, 1.9 g; fat, 1.2 g; mineral, 0.7 g; phosphorus, 56.0 mg; sodium, 6.9 mg; sulphur, 30.0 mg; calcium, 66.0 mg; iron, 0.35g; potassium, 103 mg; copper, 0.19 mg; riboflavin, 0.01 mg; thiamine 0.07 mg; niacin 0.06 mg; vitamin c 13.1 mg; oxalic acid, 8.0 mg (goppalan et al, 2007). it medicinal value has also been reported in curing ulcers and relief from hemorrhoids (kumar et al., 2010). unspecified parts of the plant were reported in 1898 to possess diuretic properties (kumar et al., 2010) this is referenced in numerous sources associated with herbal and traditional medicine. okra has found medical application as a plasma replacement or blood volume expander (lengsfeld et al., 2004). it is also good source of iodine which is useful in the treatment of simple goiter and source of other medically useful compound (lui et al., 2005). it is very useful genitor-urinary disorders, spermatorrhoea and chronic dysentery (lui et al., 2005). tests conducted in china suggest that an alcohol extract pa ge 67 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 65-73, 2023 of okra leaves can eliminate oxygen free radicals, alleviate renal tubular interstitial diseases, reduce protein urea, and improve renal function (kumar, 2009). dumpsite dumpsite is an old traditional method of waste disposal similar to landfill method of waste management. dumpsites are often established in disused quarries, mining or excavated pits away from residential areas (abduls-salam, 2009). designated government agency, corporate bodies and some individuals collect wastes routinely into these dumpsites (abduls-salam, 2009). wastes found in the dump sites come from municipal, domestic and industrial sources and may contain heavy metals (babatunde et al., 2013).the management of these wastes generated has become a serious problem because; little efforts have been made in order to improve on the wastes collection and disposal facilities. this is not without their consequence such as deteriorating soil quality (obute et al., 2010). in benin city and in nigeria in general, modern landfill facilities are not found in these municipal dumpsites, hence the sortingout of solid wastes into degradable, non-degradable and recyclable precious materials cannot be achieved. poor management of dumpsites could create a number of adverse environmental impacts, including wind-blow litter, attraction of mice and pollutants such as leachate, which can pollute underground soil bed, and / or aquifer (abduls-salam, 2009). landfill gas mostly composed of methane and carbon (iv) oxide is produced through biodegradation of such waste (abduls-salam, 2009). leachate from dumpsites is of particular interest when it contains potentially toxic heavy metals. these metals are known to bio accumulate in soil and have long persistence time through interaction with soil component and consequently enter food chain through plants or animals (dosumu, 2003). household and industrial garbage may contain toxic materials such as lead, cadmium, mercury, manganese from batteries, insect sprays, nail, polish, cleaners, plastics polyethylene or pvc (polyvinyl chloride) made bottles and other assorted products (abduls-salam, 2009). soil microorganisms can degrade organic contaminants, while metals need immobilization or physical removal because metals at higher concentrations are toxic and can cause oxidative stress by formation of free radicals (henry, 2000) and thus may render the land unsuitable for plant growth and destroy the biodiversity. when waste is dumped on land, soil microorganisms including fungi and bacteria, readily colonize the waste carrying out the degradation and transformation of degradable (organic) materials in the waste (stainer et al., 1989). microorganisms in waste dump use the waste constituents as nutrients, thus detoxifying the materials as their digestive processes’ breakdown complex organic molecules into simpler fewer toxic molecules (gimmler et al., 2002). however, municipal solid wastes are known to contain large amount of persistent organic pollutants (minh et al., 2006). the concentrations and transformations of heavy metals in solid municipal wastes lead to accumulation in the food web (gimmler et al., 2002). use of dumpsite as farmland the use of dumpsites as farmland is a common practice in urban and sub-urban centers in nigeria because decayed and composted wastes enhance soil fertility (ogunyemi et al., 2003). these wastes often contain heavy metals in various forms and at different contamination levels. some heavy metals like as, cd, hg and pb are particularly hazardous to plants, animals, and humans (alloway and ayres, 1997). municipal waste contains such heavy metals as as, cd, co, cu, fe, hg, mn, pb, ni, and zn which end up in the sink when they are leached out from the dumpsites. soil is a vital resource for sustaining two human needs of quality food supply and quality environment. plants grown on a land polluted with municipal, domestic or a land polluted with municipal, domestic, or industrial wastes can absorb heavy metals inform of mobile ions present in the soil through their roots or through foliar absorption. these absorbed metals get bioacumulated in the roots, stems, fruits, grains and leaves of plants (fatoki, 2000). heavy metals like iron, tin, copper, manganese, and vanadium occur naturally in the environment and could serve as plant nutrients depending on their concentrations. mercury, lead, cadmium, silver, chromium, and many others that are indirectly distributed because of human activities could be very toxic even at low concentrations. these metals are non-biodegradable and can undergo global ecological circles (adekola et al., 2008). heavy metals heavy metals are chemical elements grouped under the generic name of micro-elements that exhibit metal properties with relatively high atomic weight, density and with a specific gravity of 5.0g/cm3 or greater (ademoroti, 1996). heavy metals occur naturally in the ecosystem with large variations in concentrations. in modern times, anthropogenic sources of heavy metals, i.e., pollution from the activities of humans, have introduced some of these heavy metals into the ecosystem (oluyemi et al., 2008). the presence of heavy metals in the environment is of great ecological significance due to their toxicity at certain concentrations, translocation through food chains and non-biodegradability which is responsible for their accumulation in the biosphere (awofolu, 2005). the presence of very high contents of heavy metals in the soil causes “heavy metal soil pollution”. this indicates that the content of these elements in the soil are higher than the maximum concentration that has a beneficial or harmless effect on vegetation in some areas. the negative effect of heavy metals depends on the concentration as well as on series of physical and chemical soil specific characteristics, such as texture, organic matter content, ph, redox potentials, and hydraulic conductivity etc. (lacatusu, 2001). concern has been expressed regarding pa ge 68 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 65-73, 2023 the accumulation of toxic heavy metal such as cadmium (cd), zinc (zn), copper (cu) and lead (pb) and their potential effect on human health, agriculture and natural ecosystems (adefemi and awokunmi, 2009). the accumulation of the toxic heavy metal in a particular domestic dumpsite is because of indiscriminate dumping of domestic waste, such as decayed food item, rotten eggs, animal slain and bones, useless tin, cans in which heavy metals are found to be mostly trapped. heavy metal on soil due to wastewater from dumpsite streck and richter (1997) reported that movement of heavy metals in soils from dumpsite with wastewater is very slow and more than 90% of cd, ni, and pb accumulated in the 10–15 cm soil depth. wastewaters often contain significant concentrations of organic and inorganic nutrients for example nitrogen, phosphate, (alshammary and qian, 2008) micronutrients and heavy metals (mojiri and amirossadat, 2011). waste waters carry appreciable amounts of toxic heavy metals which vary from city to city. important sources of heavy metals in wastewater are urban and industrial effluents. heavy metals are extremely persistent in the environment; they are non-biodegradable and non-thermodegradable and thus readily accumulate to toxic levels. long-term flow of waste waters from dumpsite on lands often results in the build-up of the elevated levels of heavy metals in soils (tabari et al., 2008). metal absorption and accumulation in a plant depends on many soil factors, such asph, ec, clay content, organic matter content and physical and mechanical characteristics of soil. plant takes heavy metals from soil through different reactions such as: absorption, ionic exchange, redox reactions, etc. (zabalawy et al., 2015). material and methods study area this study will be carried out at the screen house of the department of soil science and land management, university of benin, benin city in edo state, nigeria. the area lies from 6° 23’ 53” 6° 24’ 40” n and 5° 37’ 24” 5° 37’ 34” e. it is the segment of the coastal plain sand commonly referred to as acid sand of nigeria. the soil type in this area is ultisol (rhodic paleudult). this region is within the rain forest zone of nigeria. it has an annual average temperature of about 27°c and an annual rainfall of about 2000 mm. the study area experiences two major seasons namely the rainy season which lasts between march to october and the dry season lasts from november to february (ogeh and ogwurike, 2006). sample collection and planting twelve (12) dumpsites were carefully selected in university of benin, benin city, edo state. the dumpsites were: three (3) each from marketplaces, residential places, learning centers and farmland. soils sample from the market and residential places were collected from ekosodin dumpsites in benin city. from farmland: the faculty of agriculture experimental farm, forestry and wildlife and fisheries dumpsites were selected. learning centers: the faculty of agriculture, faculty of law and faculty of art dumpsites were used. collected soil samples were filled into plastic buckets and placed in the screen house of the department of soil science and land management, university of benin, benin city. seeds of abelmoschus esculentus were planted at a depth of 2cm and 3 seed per bucket. soil samples were taken from the buckets before and after planting, soil samples from the same land use were bucked to make a composite sample. soil laboratory analysis the analysis of the soil physical and chemical properties was carried out at the faculty of agriculture main laboratory. standard laboratory procedures were used in the analysis of the selected physiochemical characteristics selected in this study. the particle size distribution was determined by the hydrometer method (boyoucos, 1951) as modified by gee and bauder (1986). the ph of the air-dried soil was determined using a glass electrode ph meter at ratio 1:1 and (20g soil to 20ml distilled water) and in 1n kcl solution at a ratio of 1:2 soil to water suspension according to mclean, (1982) method. calcium and magnesium were determined volumetrically by the edta titration procedure, and potassium was determined from the filtrate by flame photometry described by black (1965). organic carbon was determined by the chromic acid wet oxidation procedure of walkley and black as described by (black 1965). the available phosphorus in the soil samples was determined using bray and kurtz (1945) solution. the total nitrogen in the filtrate was determined by the alkaline phenate procedure of fiore and o’ brien (1962). analysis for micro-nutrients and heavy metals 1g of the prepared soil samples were weighed into a 100ml of conical flasks. 15ml of concentrated nitric (hno3) acid was added and heated for 30 minutes. 5 ml of perchloric (hclo4) acid was added to the solution and heated further till samples become clear. the samples were cooled and 30ml of distilled water was added. these mixtures were filtered using whatman no 45 filter paper into 100ml volumetric flasks and were made up to 100ml mark. these samples were stored in 100ml plastic reagent bottle for instrumental analysis. these samples where read at recommended wavelength for different elements in an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (aas). heavy metal content in plant were determined with the use of mass spectrometry (ms) usually coupled to liquid (lc) or gas chromatography (gc). statistical analysis data obtained were subjected to analysis of variance using genstat version 8 (2012), while duncan’s multiple range test was used to separate means, at 5% level of significance. pa ge 69 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 65-73, 2023 results and discussion soil physical and chemical properties of dumpsites soils the physical and chemical properties of the soil in university of benin, and ekosodin, benin city are shown in table 1 (before planting) and table 2 (after planting). the table 1 ph of the soils was moderately acidic for farmland with a ph of (5.61) while for market and residential where neutral with ph of (6.79), (6.76) and faculties (6.14) was slightly acidic respectively. for table 2 the ph of the soil were moderately acidic for market and residential with value of (5.68) and (5.80) respectively while that of farmland and faculties were strongly acidic with ph range of (5.42) and (5.36) according to the rating of chude et al., (2011). the total nitrogen (n) in the soil decreased at the various dumpsites; however the highest total nitrogen value (1.13 g/kg) which is considered moderately low and lowest value (0.83g/kg) very low were obtained at the faculties and market dumpsites respectively; while that of table 2 recorded very low in total n for all dumpsite and according to the rating of chude et al., (2011). the total organic carbon (c) in the soils in table 1 increased at various dumpsites. the faculties dumpsites 22.5 g/kg (very high) have the highest carbon (c) whereas market dumpsite had the lowest (16.0 g/kg) and all the other dumpsite values considered (high) according to the rating of chude et al., (2011). in table 2 they all recorded (high) according to the rating of chude et al., (2011) with this range values of (14.6), (14.8), (15.9) and (18.6) in the decreasing order below. the total organic carbon (c) increased in the following order: faculties > residential > farmland > market area table 1 phosphorus content of 13.6 mg/kg, 14.6 mg/kg, 14.0 mg/kg and 12.2 mg/kg were recorded on market, farmland, residential and faculties respectively while that of table 2 contains 9.54 mg/kg in market, 10.8 mg/ kg in farmland, 12.1 mg/kg in residential area and 8.70 mg/kg in faculties which they are considered (moderate) according to chude et al., 2011. the reduction in p content of farmland may be due to the nutrient uptake (yeshanch, 2015). the iron (fe) content in table 1 was highest at the residential land with iron content (102.5mg/kg) and the farmland had the lowest iron (53.8mg/kg) in these dumpsites. while that of table 2, the highest was at the residential land with iron content (89.4mg/kg) and the farm land had the lowest iron (45.8mg/kg); the reduction of these elements in table 2 is due to plant uptake and according to samaranayke et al., (2012) the reduction of iron in farm land may be primarily due to the low solubility of the oxidized ferric form in aerobic environments. table 1 shows that, the highest zinc (zn) value (30.0 mg/kg) was obtained at residential land while the lowest value (25.3mg/kg) was obtained at the farmland. while that of table 2, the highest zinc value (25.3 mg/kg) was obtained at residential land while the lowest value (20.1 mg/kg) was obtained at the farmland and the variations occurs in table 1 and 2 because table 2 shows the report of after planting effect. the lowest value of zinc obtained from farmland in table 2 agrees with the report of brady and weil (2002) indicated that the solubility, availability, and plant uptake of micronutrient cations (zn) are more under acidic conditions (ph of 5.00 to 6.60) which the ph of farmland falls between in table 2. table 1 and 2 falls below the target value set aside by department of petroleum resources (dpr) in 2002 in nigeria. table 1 show that farmland had the least manganese (mn) content (18.4 mg/kg); closely followed by faculties (20.3 mg/kg) respectively. while the highest values (21.6 mg/kg) were recorded on residential land. while that of table 2, follows same pattern in variations but the major difference between table 1 and 2 is that; nutrient reduction occurs most in table 2 due to plant uptake of these nutrient. dumpsite effect on particle size distribution on soils the result of the soil separates under each dumpsite are presented in table 1 and table 2. for table 1 the results showed that the texture of all the dumpsites were predominantly sandy having a sand fraction ranging from 886-852 g/kg; a silt fraction ranging from 80-50 g/kg and a clay fraction ranging from 68-54 g/kg. the similarity in the textural class could be attributed to the fact that soil texture is not readily influenced by soil management (oyedele et al., 2009). for that of table 2, the results showed that the texture of all the dumpsites after planting were predominantly sandy, i.e there was a major increase in sand content of the soil having a sand fraction ranging from 889-878 g/kg; a silt fraction ranging from 69-48 g/kg and a clay fraction ranging from 63-52 g/kg. the reduction in silt and clay could be due to planting effect because, humus is present in silt and cec is high in clay which shows the presence of organic matter. table 1: physical and chemical properties of soils on dumpsites before planting before planting market farmland residential faculties ph 6.79 5.61 6.76 6.14 t.o.c (g/kg) 16.0 17.0 18.8 22.5 total n (g/kg) 0.83 0.85 0.94 1.13 av.p (mg/kg) 13.6 14.6 14.0 12.2 fe (mg/kg) 92.4 53.8 102.5 95.3 zn (mg/kg) 28.6 25.3 30.0 27.2 mn (mg/kg) 20.8 18.4 21.6 20.3 pa ge 70 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 65-73, 2023 heavy metal concentration copper (cu) content in table 3; the highest value (35.2mg/kg) was obtained at residential land while the lowest value (30.9mg/kg) was obtained at the farmland before planting. while that of after planting had highest value (30.2mg/kg) was obtained at residential land while the lowest value (24.6mg/kg) was obtained at the farmland and the difference is due to plant uptake. they both falls below the target value set aside by department of petroleum resources (dpr 2002) in nigeria. lead content in table 3 before planting was highest in dumpsite soils of market (1.66 mg/kg) and lowest at farmland (0.67 mg/kg) and this also have the same highest and lowest value after planting but the difference is observed due to plant uptake of the nutrient in the soil in after planting. the highest value in market dumpsites agrees with the finding of akhilesh et al., 2009, who stated that; most serious source of lead contamination in soil is through direct disposal of different kind of waste in soil. both results fall below the target value set aside by department of petroleum resources (dpr 2002). the concentration of cadmium recorded in dumpsite soils were as follows; residential land (0.45 mg/kg) which is closely followed by market (0.44 mg/kg) and lowest at farmland (0.12 mg/kg) before planting. while in after planting, there was a variation in dumpsite with market having the highest value (0.26 mg/kg) and lowest value in farmland (0.10 mg/kg); the difference in after planting is clear due to plant uptake of the nutrient in the soil. both results also fall below the target range value set aside by dpr (2002). the highest value of cd in market dumpsites after planting may be due to the concentration of biosolids (sewage sludge), the disposal of industrial wastes or the deposition of atmospheric contaminants in open dumpsites which increases the total concentration of cd in soils (weggler, 2004). sand (g/kg) 859 886 852 868 silt (g/kg) 75 50 80 78 clay (g/kg) 66 64 68 54 where n/d: not detected table 2: physical and chemical properties of soils on dumpsites after planting after planting market farmland residential faculties ph 5.68 5.42 5.80 5.36 t.o.c (g/kg) 14.6 14.8 15.9 18.6 total n (g/kg) 0.83 0.80 0.85 0.90 av.p (mg/kg) 9.54 10.8 12.1 8.70 fe (mg/kg) 88.2 45.8 89.4 72.6 zn (mg/kg) 23.4 20.1 25.3 22.5 mn (mg/kg) 18.9 15.2 19.5 17.2 sand (g/kg) 878 889 880 879 silt (g/kg) 64 48 66 65 clay (g/kg) 58 63 54 52 where n/d: not detected table 3: heavy metal concentration in soil before and after planting locations cu (mg/kg) pb (mg/kg) cd (mg/kg) cr (mg/kg) before planting market 34.5 1.66 0.44 0.05 farmland 30.9 0.67 0.12 0.09 residential 35.2 1.15 0.45 0.11 faculties 33.7 1.00 0.14 0.14 after planting market 28.8 1.05 0.26 0.03 farmland 24.6 0.51 0.10 0.04 residential 30.2 0.83 0.22 0.09 faculties 26.3 0.80 0.20 0.10 note: the maximum allowable limit (m.a.l) for heavy metals concentration (mg/kg) use in nigeria soils as set by the department of petroleum resources (dpr) in 1991 for some heavy metals includes: pa ge 71 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 65-73, 2023 table 3 shows the highest chromium value (0.14 mg/ kg) was obtained at faculties land while the lowest value (0.05 mg/kg) was obtained at the market before planting. while that of after planting had the highest chromium value (0.10 mg/kg) at faculties land while the lowest value (0.03 mg/kg) was obtained at the market. the variations occur in because of before and after planting reading. according to (raymond and felix, 2011), chromium mobility depends on sorption characteristics of the soil, including clay content, iron oxide content, and the amount of organic matter present which depict the t.o.c of faculties dumpsites having the highest value. the results actually fall below the target value set aside by department of petroleum resources 2002. heavy metals concentration in okra plants table 5, copper concentration in okra plant varies and the highest uptake is in residential land with value of (36.0 mg/kg) while the lowest is at farmland with value of (23.3 mg/kg). the normal range of cu in plant is given to be (0.4-45.8 mg/kg) according to the rating of singh and steinnes (1994). this shows that there is no toxicity effect on okra plant cultivated in the various dumpsite soils. however, according to who (1996) permissible limits of 10 mg/kg in vegetables, copper content in okra vegetable is considered high. lead (pb) uptake in okra at the various dumpsites studied were given to be market (0.15 mg/ kg), farmland (0.10 mg/kg), residential land (0.12 mg/ kg) and faculties (0.06 mg/kg) and of which market dumpsites uptake recorded the highest value among others. according to the rating of singh and steinnes (1994) the normal plant uptake range of pb is given to be (3 mg/ kg) and the toxicity range is soil of plant (100-400 mg/kg). these values show that pb uptake by okra plant cultivated on the various dumpsites below the normal plant range and agrees with who (1996) permissible limits of 0.30 mg/kg for vegetables. heavy metal uptake of cadmium at market dumpsites is (0.05 mg/kg), farmland value is (0.02 mg/kg), residential area value is (0.01 mg/kg) while that table 4: heavy metal target value & intervention value metals target value (mg/kg) intervention value (mg/kg) cadmium 0.8 17 chromium 100 380 copper 36 190 lead 85 530 zinc 140 720 table 5: heavy metal concentration of okra plants heavy metals market farmland residential faculties cu (mg/kg) 35.8 23.3 36.0 30.4 pb (mg/kg) 0.15 0.10 0.12 0.06 cd (mg/kg) 0.05 0.02 0.01 0.04 cr (mg/kg) nd 0.01 0.01 nd where n/d: not detected of faculties is (0.04 mg/kg); and according to kabata and pendias, (1984) the normal plant range of this element is stated to be (0.2-0.8 mg/kg) while the toxicity range in plant is (5-30 mg/kg). this shows that cd has no toxicity effect on okra plant cultivated on the various dumpsites and the uptake is below the normal range in the plants and agrees with who (1996) permissible limit of 0.1 for vegetables. according to ross (1994), the normal plant range uptake of chromium is given to be (0.006-18 mg/kg) and the uptake of cr in farmland and residential land is given to be (0.01 mg/kg) respectively, while that of market and faculties is not detected. the heavy metal uptake by okra plant cultivated in farmland and residential land falls between the normal ranges, showing that there is no toxicity effect, and this result agrees with the permissible limits 10 mg/kg of who (1996) for vegetables. conclusion the study reveals that dumpsites significantly influence on soil properties, particularly ph, nutrient contents, and heavy metal concentrations. planting also impacts these properties, with changes in nitrogen, carbon, and phosphorus levels. heavy metals in soil raises concerns, but the concentrations generally remain below toxic levels. the particle size distribution remains consistent across dumpsites and planting stages, indicating limited soil management influence. okra plants show variable heavy metal uptake, although concentrations largely adhere to permissible limits for safe consumption. recommendation based on the findings, sustainable soil management practices should be implemented to counter dumpsites’ adverse effects. strategies such as organic matter addition and ph adjustment could be considered to restore soil fertility and structure in farmland soil. continued monitoring of soil properties and heavy metal concentrations is crucial, especially in areas affected by dumpsites. remediation techniques such as phytoremediation to reduce heavy metal concentrations in soil are encouraged. conducting further research to understand the long-term effects of dumpsite soil on plant growth, human health, and the environment is highly suggested. pa ge 72 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 65-73, 2023 references abduls-salem, n. 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(2008). improving solid waste management in india: a sourcebook for policy makers and practitioners. world bank publication. pa ge 1 pa ge 30 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) evaluation of celery juice powder as a natural curing agent for tocino joshua ken j. policarpio1* volume 3 issue 2, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i2.3087 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: june 15, 2023 accepted: july 09, 2024 published: july 12, 2024 artificial food preservatives are a key consideration for consumers purchasing cured meat products, which often contain sodium nitrite, a curing salt known to produce carcinogenic nitrosamines. to address health concerns, ongoing research seeks natural alternatives that maintain product quality. this study investigates the potential of celery juice powder as a natural curing agent for tocino, leveraging its nitrite content. despite vegetables being recognized as natural nitrite sources, their use is limited due to potential impacts on color and flavor. celery juice powder has emerged as the preferred natural nitrite source. according to usda guidelines, celery juice powder can adhere to regulatory limits while effectively curing meat products. a 2k factorial design experiment was conducted, incorporating four treatments generated through yates’ table and the design expert application. analysis of variance (anova) and linear regression were employed to evaluate the significance and relationships of factors affecting nitrite levels in cured tocino. results demonstrate the statistical viability of celery juice powder as an alternative curing substance, contributing valuable insights into its practical application in the food industry. keywords curing, curing salt, celery juice powder or celery powder, nitrite 1 mabalacat city college, philippines * corresponding author’s e-mail: policarpioken1198@gmail.com introduction cured meat products, like sausages and bacon, have always been on top of the most bought food products. the curing of meat is an ancient process initially started by the sumerian culture. people believed that the salt used to preserve meat was contaminated with saltpeter (potassium nitrate) in the early times. as a result, saltpetertreated meat became popular, primarily for its desirable reddish color and longer storage life. consequently, studies conducted in the late 1800s proved that nitrate has favorable properties for preserving meat. subsequent experiments discovered that nitrate-reducing bacteria convert nitrate to nitrite. the united states department of agriculture (usda) has set regulations on the usage of sodium nitrite for different cured products and curingwhich has additional regulations because of other factors for the formulation of nitrosamine. the usda had established standard limits on sodium nitrite 120 ppm (0.012%) for bacon, 200 ppm (0.02%) for dry-cured bacon, less than or equal to 156 ppm (0.0156%) for cured meats like ham, not more than 625 ppm (0.0625%) for dry-cured meat products (sullivan, 2016). additionally, potassium and sodium nitrate/nitrite are approved food additives in the european union, with limits of 150 mg/kg in meat products. adding an extra 50-60 ppm to the meat could ensure longer preservation. as the salt inhibits the growth of clostridium (cl.) botulinum, where nitrite improves the microbial safety of meat products. (siekmann et al., 2021) meanwhile, various reports highlighted concerns about the potential of the curing substance to produce nitrosamines, which are carcinogenic substances. moreover, in recent years, research on the development of curing methods has been ongoing, focusing on eliminating nitrosamines (lijinsky & epstein, 1970). in addition, the world health organization associated carcinogenicity with the consumption of processed meat products and red meat. studies suggested that the intake of 50 grams of processed meat daily heightens the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%. as a result, the belief that organic foods are safer remained in the market. consumers prefer to spend 10% to 40% more to avoid chemical additives, owing to concerns about exposure to synthetic nitrate. as a result of the increased demand for natural alternatives, various studies have been conducted to discover artificial nitrate substitutes. natural nitrate or nitrite sources include various vegetables, although their use is limited due to their colors and flavors attributes. nitrate is abundant in vegetables; however, the amount varies depending on the type (lorenz, 1978). according to sebranek (2006), celery juice powder was the best substitute for curing salt, producing up to 2,114 ppm nitrate. he also noted that is compatible with meat products as it does not affect the desired physicochemical property. the concentration for the use of celery juice powder as a curing substance is only ¼ to ½ of the ingoing sodium nitrite (sullivan, 2016). tocino is a known cured meat product in pampanga, philippines, because of its sweet or sour taste that satisfies the desired taste of the consumers. a kapampangan native, mrs. lolita hizon, was asked by her neighbor, a pa ge 31 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 30-35, 2024 meat vendor, to help cook the unsold meat during the end of market day. as this regularly happens, she eventually came up with the formula in making tocino that caused the birth of pampanga’s best tocino a meat processing company, now known as pampanga’s best, inc a multimillion meat processing corporation. therefore, this paper examined the potential of celery powder as an alternative curing salt for tocino. celery powder solution must be prepared prior to the tocino making process. four treatments were used to identify the effect and interaction between the celery powder and the curing period of the meat. then, the treatments underwent a colorimetric test method to analyze their respective nitrite content. 1. the curing time significantly contributes to the amount of nitrite content of the processed meat. 2. the optimal level of the curing time that produces the acceptable amount of nitrite is the lowest level of the factor to be tested in the experiment. 3. there are interactions between the factors. methodology the study utilized the 2k factorial design as the experimental framework. moreover, during the experiment, the use of the colorimetric test method (aoac official method 935.48, xylenol method) specified the nitrite content of each treatment. (wood et al., 2000) figure 1: experimental procedure problem this paper aims to address the following problems: 1. to what extent does the curing time affect the nitrite content? 2. what level of curing time will produce an acceptable amount of nitrite? 3. what minimum amount of celery powder and curing time is needed to meet the standard nitrite content? the above problems are postulated on the following hypotheses: table 1: factors and levels factors low level high level (a) amt. of celery powder (g) -1 (0.5g) 1 (1g) (b) curing time (days) -1 (1) 1 (2) factors and level experimental procedures and setup the ingredients to be used with their amounts held constant are meat (250 g), salt (8 g), refined sugar (45 g), water (15 ml), and pineapple juice (15 g) (manalo & benedicto, 2014). the amount of celery powder will have two levels based on the total weight of meat low level (0.2% or 0.5 g) and high level (0.4% or 1 g) (sebranek & bacus, 2007). the study will start with the preparation of the celery powder by mixing it with water and salt. moreover, the mixture will then be combined with the meatand added refined sugar and pineapple juice. the curing time will also have two levels at refrigerated temperature – low level (1 day) and high level (2 days) (manalo & benedicto, 2014). table 2: treatments and concentration treatment specifications 1 amt. of celery powder: 0.5g curing time: 1 day 2 amt. of celery powder: 0.5g curing time: 2 days 3 amt. of celery powder: 1g curing time: 1 day 4 amt. of celery powder: 1g curing time: 2 days after the specified curing period, 5g of sample per treatment underwent the colorimetric test method, known specifically as aoac official method 935.48, xylenol method. the nitrite analysis process lasted for six (6) hours. four (4) treatments were made for the experimental runs with two replicates each. pa ge 32 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 30-35, 2024 findings the experiment exhibit eight (8) results of nitrite content from different levels of the two factors. result of experiment table 3: yates table and results std.order run amt. of celery powder (g) curing time (day/s) nitrite content (ppm) 4 1 1 -1 0.2487 6 2 -1 1 0.2421 5 3 -1 1 0.2424 8 4 1 1 0.2440 7 5 1 1 0.2439 2 6 -1 -1 0.2452 1 7 -1 -1 0.2454 3 8 1 -1 0.2487 table 4: anova table source sum of squares df mean square f value prob > f model 4.487e-005 3 1.496e-005 854.67 < 0.0001 signifi cant a 1.300e-005 1 1.300e-005 743.14 < 0.0001 signifi cant b 3.042e-005 1 3.042e-005 1738.29 < 0.0001 signifi cant ab 1.445e-006 1 1.445e-006 82.57 0.0008 signifi cant pure error 7.000e-008 4 1.750e-008 cor total 4.494e-005 7 analysis of variance (anova) the analysis of variance indicates that all the factors are significant in the amount of nitrite content of cured meat. the model fvalue also implies that the model is significant. curing time (b) has the highest effect in the response, followed by the amount of celery powder (a), and then, the interaction of the two factors (ab) based on the half normal plot (figure 5). also, no violations were done on the anova theory based on the results of different studentized diagnostic procedures (figure 6). regression model regression results have confirmed and expound the results in the analysis of variance. the adjusted r-squared decreases from 99.84% to 99.73%. the decrease indicates that the current setup of the model is well-designed, and other inputs will have no value in the model. the linear regression model designed for this experiment is as follows: y = 0.25 + 1.275e-003 * a 1.950e-003 * b 4.250e 004 *a* b where: y = nitrite content a = amount of celery powder b = curing time the coefficients in the regression equation indicate that (a) is directly proportional to the resulting factor (figure 2). on the other hand, as (b) will increase, the nitrite content will decrease (figure 3). conclusion this study statistically proved that the factors used significantly affect the nitrite content in tocino using a natural substance the celery juice powder. nitrite is a time-dependent variable that depletes quickly, upon use, for the next 24 hours and depletes slower the succeeding time before the standard curing time is met (merino et al., 2015) that, causes (b) to have the highest effect on the response. this also causes the interaction of the two factors to be indirectly proportional to the response. it was also showed that the celery juice powder is rich with nitrite based on the results of the experiments. it is significant to consider the study, stated in the introduction, to use only ¼ to ½ concentration of celery juice powder based on the standard of ingoing nitrite to meet the regulatory limit on the use of nitrite in curing meat products. pa ge 33 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 30-35, 2024 figure 2: one factor plot – amount of celery powder figure 3: one factor plot – curing time figure 4: interaction graph pa ge 34 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 30-35, 2024 figure 5: half normal plot figure 6: diagnostics (studentized) pa ge 35 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 30-35, 2024 references djeri, n., & williams, s. k. (2014). celery juice powder used as nitrite substitute in sliced vacuum packaged turkey bologna stored at 4°c for 10 weeks under retail display light. journal of food quality, 37(5), 343-350. https://doi.org/10.1111/jfq.12103. gipe mckeith, a. (2014). alternative curing. pork information gateway. retrieved from https:// porkgateway.org/resource/alternative-curing/ manalo, m., & benedicto, a. (2014). effects of different humectants in the physico-chemical properties of ready-to-eat (rte) tocino. dlsu research congress. retrieved from https://www.dlsu. edu.ph/conferences/dlsurc/proceedings/2014/ microbiology-biotechnology/mbt-1.pdf merino, l., dernerud, p. o., toldrá, f., & ilbäck, n. (2015). time-dependent depletion of nitrite in pork/ beef and chicken meat products and its effect on nitrite intake estimation. food chemistry, 176, 77-84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2014.12.001 pampanga’s best, inc. (n.d.). history. retrieved from https://www.pampangasbest.com/history/#. yu12o7gzaul ramachandraiah, k., & chin, k. b. (2021). antioxidant, antimicrobial, and curing potentials of micronized celery powders added to pork sausages. food science of animal resources, 41(2), 293-302. https://doi. org/10.5851/kosfa.2021.e22 siekmann, l., plötz, m., & krischek, c. (2021). alternative curing methods. topical collection on bacteriology. retrieved from https://link. springer.com/journal/11356/topicalcollection/ ac_75b1e36c5a2517590124c98e1e2f36f6/page/1 sindelar, j., & milkowski, a. (2011). sodium nitrite in processed meat and poultry meats: a review of curing and examining the risk/benefit of its use. american meat science association. retrieved from https:// meatscience.org/docs/default-source/publicationsresources/rmc/2011/sodium-nitrite-in-processedmeat-and-poultry-meats.pdf sullivan, g. a. (2016). a comparison of traditional and alternative meat curing methods. american meat association. retrieved from https://www. meatassociat ion.com/docs/defaul t -source/ education/amif/technical-resources/2016/curingmethods.pdf wood, r., foster, l., damant, a., & key, p. (2004). analytical methods for food additives. woodhead publishing in food and science technology. yong, h. i., kim, t.-k., choi, h. d., jang, h. w., jung, s., & choi, y.-s. (2021). clean label meat technology: pre-converted nitrite as a natural curing. food science of animal resources, 41(1), 1-13. https://doi. org/10.5851/kosfa.2020.e97 pa ge 1 pa ge 30 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) food waste and loss management causes, effects and possible solutions from a nigeria context eucharia chisom nnoli1, ugochukwu jones ibeneme2, godspower oke omokaro1*, itohanosa omolara osarhiemen3 paul obokparo ewubare4, sarah onosteike aliyu4, ndubuisi louis james5 volume 3 issue 1, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i1.2744 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: april 15, 2024 accepted: may 13, 2024 published: may 17, 2024 food waste and loss present significant challenges globally, with nigeria being particularly affected. this study comprehensively analyzes the causes, effects, and potential solutions to food waste within the nigerian context. drawing on extensive research and secondary data sources, the study highlights the pervasive nature of food waste, focusing on key sectors such as tomato, onion, and chili production. it identifies critical factors contributing to food waste, including inadequate infrastructure, pests and diseases, transportation constraints, and policy gaps. the socioeconomic impacts of food waste, such as increased food prices, exacerbated poverty, and environmental degradation, underscore the urgency of addressing this issue. however, amidst these challenges lie opportunities for intervention. nigeria can significantly reduce food waste, enhance food security, and promote economic development by implementing a holistic approach that encompasses infrastructure development, sustainable agricultural practices, and supportive policies. additionally, individual actions, such as meal planning and supporting local farmers, play a crucial role in mitigating food waste at the grassroots level. through collaborative efforts involving governments, businesses, civil society, and individuals, nigeria can pave the way towards a more resilient and sustainable food system, ensuring equitable access to nutritious food while preserving the environment for future generations. the methodology employed in this study entailed data collection primarily from prior research and secondary sources such as published studies, newspapers, articles, and relevant materials. the study’s focal point centered on food waste and loss, with a specific focus on vegetable waste within the nigerian context. keywords food waste, food loss, food security, nigeria, vegetable waste, organic waste 1 institute of ecology, people friendship university of russia, moscow, russia 2 madonna university nigeria, akpugo campus, enugu state, nigeria 3 school of public health, i.m. sechenov first moscow state medical university, moscow, russia 4 university of benin, benin city, edo state, nigeria 5 national research university higher school of economics, moscow, russia * corresponding author’s e-mail: omokaro.kelly@gmail.com introduction food wastage, both in nigeria and worldwide, presents a significant challenge impacting economies, food security, and the environment. food waste refers to the reduction in the quantity or quality of food due to actions by food suppliers, including retailers, consumers, and food service providers (food and agriculture organization, 2020). this wastage adversely affects the utilization of crucial resources such as water, energy, climate, biodiversity, and land (food and agriculture organization, 2013), resulting in widespread concern among the public, governments, educational institutions, companies, and non-governmental organizations (ngos) due to its detrimental impact on environmental sustainability (kummu et al., 2012; licciardello, 2017). according to data from the food sustainability index 2017, countries like australia, the united states, turkey, spain, and japan are the highest contributors to food waste generation, producing 361kg, 278kg, 168kg, 165kg, and 157kg per capita respectively. in contrast, greece, china, india, russia, and colombia exhibit lower levels of food waste creation, with figures ranging from 44kg to 63kg per capita (magnet, 2018). despite efforts to address this issue, the household sector remains the primary source of food waste in the supply chain, accounting for 43%, followed by restaurants (18%), farms (16%), groceries and distribution (13%), institutional and food service (8%), and manufacturers (2%) as of 2015 (gunders & bloom, 2017). however, there has been a notable lack of research focusing on the household segment’s contribution to food waste, with only limited attention paid to consumer-related factors such as packaging, as highlighted in helen williams’ work on household food waste causes (schanes et al., 2018). thus, there remains a gap in understanding the primary drivers of household food waste within society (schanes et al., 2018). however, the growing population presents challenges, including food insecurity. a considerable number of nigerians struggle to provide adequate meals for their families due to living below the poverty line. it’s not uncommon to witness people scavenging for leftovers at events to feed their loved ones. despite the prevalence of hunger in nigeria, the wastage observed in marketplaces nationwide is alarming, with substantial quantities of fresh produce like tomatoes and fruits left to spoil. this pressing issue calls for immediate and strategic intervention. one such intervention involves implementing an efficient food waste management pa ge 31 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 30-41, 2024 system to support nigeria’s burgeoning population and secure the well-being of future generations. the research outlined in this paper aims to investigate the root causes, impacts, and potential remedies for effective food waste management in nigeria. literature review global food waste is staggering, estimated at usd 750 billion annually, excluding additional social costs of usd 900 billion and environmental costs valued at usd 600 billion (un, 2015; fao, 2014). despite this, 870 million people globally suffer from undernourishment (un, 2015). on a national level, 40% of nigerians live below the poverty line, earning less than 137,430 naira ($381.75) per year (nbs, 2020). moreover, research suggests that nigerians allocate over 56.4% of their income to food expenses (wef, 2016). with nigeria’s population estimated at 213 million in 2021, the country struggles to provide for its growing populace. the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao) indicates that 690 million people experienced hunger in 2019, a figure expected to rise significantly during and after the covid-19 pandemic, with an astonishing 3 billion people unable to afford a nutritious diet (fao, 2020). given the escalating global population, food waste and food security have become focal points for both researchers and policymakers across developed and developing nations (chalak et al., 2019). farmers engage in agriculture for various reasons, including catering to the needs of the rapidly expanding global population. food is a basic human necessity crucial for survival, yet our consumption habits, disposal practices, and wastage profoundly impact both us and the environment we inhabit. according to national estimates, nigeria generates approximately 32 million tonnes of waste annually, encompassing all stages of vegetable production (lantz, 2021). research indicates that the most prevalent form of food waste and loss occurs in perishable goods such as vegetables. figure 1: vegetable waste in nigeria source: yemisi odusanya, the guardian nigeria, 2017 food waste: definition and effects food waste is commonly defined as “food, which was originally produced for human consumption but then was discarded or was not consumed by humans” (thyberg & tonjes, 2016). narvanen et al. (2020) characterize food waste as a complex, multifaceted, and persistent challenge, noting its unstructured nature due to difficulties in defining the problem. they also highlight its moral dimension, particularly regarding disparities between the wealthy and the impoverished. some scholars emphasize the importance of understanding the intricate interactions between human and non-human factors in the conversion of food to waste (evans, 2018; hebrok & heidenstrøm, 2019). factors contributing to waste vary depending on material types, production methods, and management approaches (fao, 2013). with the food and agriculture organization (fao) projecting a 60% increase in food demand to accommodate a population of 9.3 billion by 2050 (da silva, 2021), concerns about the extensive impacts of food waste on society, the economy, and the environment are escalating. consequently, various local, national, and international institutions are implementing programs and policies to tackle this issue (thyberg & tonjes, 2016). empirical evidence suggests that food waste comprises a significant portion of global food production, estimated at about one third annually by weight (hamilton et al., 2005; hebrok & boks, 2017). while more prevalent in highly developed economies, food waste is becoming a concern worldwide with increasing economic development, urbanization, and affluence (gustavsson et al., 2015; baig et al., 2018; koch et al., 2018). the detrimental impacts of escalating food waste on the environment and society are widely recognized and extensively discussed in the literature (park & lah, 2015; secondi et al., 2015). these impacts span various levels of analysis, from individual pa ge 32 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 30-41, 2024 consumers to national and international food systems, leading to heightened environmental concerns, resource sustainability challenges, and potential future food scarcity (gustavsson et al., 2011). causes, environmental and health implication of food waste and loss the causes of food waste are diverse and extensively discussed in literature (oelofse & nahman, 2013; neff et al., 2019). conversely, food loss can occur due to various factors, including inefficiencies in harvesting, transportation, storage, and processing, as well as issues like pests, diseases, and adverse weather conditions. upstream processes such as crop losses due to disease, pest infestation, and weather fluctuations, combined with strict quality standards in food production, contribute to 54% of food loss and waste, while the remaining 46% arises from processing operations, distribution, and consumption patterns (mebratu, 1998). in a study conducted in ireland, major causes of food waste were identified as expired food, waste from served meals, and spoilage or odor issues (flanagan & priyardarshini, 2021). drivers of food waste in the food service sector have been examined and categorized into various types, including organizational, internal, external, business, and market-specific factors (hennchen, 2019; kasavan et al., 2019). within kitchens, food waste can be generated due to equipment malfunctions, excessive ordering, standards of fine dining, rejection of “ugly” produce, inadequate handling by suppliers, poor sanitation, or excessive planning for business requirements (pinto et al., 2018; papargyropoulou et al., 2019; shao et al., 2020; filimonau et al., 2021). figure 2: stages of food waste globally source: oguntade (2014) food systems contribute significantly to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for approximately one-third of the world’s total emissions (crippa et al., 2021). additionally, food waste disposal leads to environmental impacts such as the release of pollutants into the atmosphere and water bodies through dumping and incineration. in landfills, for instance, decomposing food waste generates organic pollutants in landfill leachate, posing contamination risks to surrounding water sources (ma et al., 2022). moreover, food waste in landfills contributes to the production of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that exacerbates climate change and serves as a breeding ground for disease vectors. research by peter et al. (2010) illustrated that one ton of food waste could generate a carbon impact equivalent to over 3.8 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. therefore, diverting food waste from emission-generating sources presents an opportunity for countries to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (thi et al., 2015). methodology the methodology for this study involved gathering data primarily from previous research, secondary sources such as published studies, newspapers, articles, and other relevant materials. the main focus of the study was on food waste, with a particular emphasis on the nigerian context streamline to vegetable waste. data collection primarily utilized the google search engine, employing specific queries such as ‘food waste in nigeria,’ ‘causes of food waste in nigeria,’ and investigating three common types of food waste in nigeria: causes, effects, and possible solutions. additionally, relevant literature and reports were reviewed to provide comprehensive insights into the topic. results & discussion food waste in nigeria food waste poses a significant challenge in developing nations like nigeria, primarily due to the substantial pa ge 33 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 30-41, 2024 proportion of organic waste, particularly from vegetables, in municipal solid waste, especially from households (oyelola, 2013; lawma, 2015). this organic content tends to be three times higher compared to developed economies. national estimates indicate that nigeria generates approximately 32 million tonnes of waste annually, with a significant portion comprising vegetable waste (lantz, 2021). over the past two decades, urban centers in nigeria have experienced a rapid increase in the volume and complexity of solid waste, including food waste, attributed to factors such as population growth, rising living standards, increased consumption patterns, urbanization, and inadequate environmental management policies (rathi, 2007). this surge in food waste coincides with reported cases of hunger, malnutrition, and poverty across various socioeconomic classes, leading to food insecurity within the population (ojo and adebayo, 2012). findings from the 2013 food and agriculture organization (fao) fact sheets and surveys conducted by the nigerian stored products research institute (nspri) estimate postharvest food losses at 51.3 million tonnes across all crops, valued at $8.9 billion. however, statistics on food waste at the retail/consumer level are not readily available, except for occasional estimates provided by individual or private corporate organizations. for example, at the unveiling of danfoss company in february 2016, it was suggested by the business development manager that approximately 80% of food, equivalent to $750 billion, is wasted in nigeria, underscoring the magnitude of the issue. addressing food waste is crucial for developing a sustainable food system. akerele et al. (2017) reported that households in nigeria waste approximately 3–7% of the food consumed per month, amounting to an average monthly value of ₦1500, with root and tubers and cereals accounting for the largest percentage of total food waste. common food (vegetables) waste/loss in nigeria research indicates that the most prevalent form of food loss and waste in nigeria pertains to major vegetables. market areas often exhibit piles of vegetable waste nearby or within nearby dumpsites. storage challenges, pest and disease infestations, delays in transportation to sales points, and fluctuating temperatures, depending on weather conditions, are among the key factors contributing to this vegetable waste. a value chain study conducted by the central bureau of investigation (cbi) in 2021 highlighted tomatoes, onions, and chili peppers as the primary sources of food waste among vegetables. the table below illustrates the production of these vegetables in nigeria from 2015 to 2019, measured in tonnes, according to data from the food and agriculture organization (fao). figure 3: nigeria field survey on tomato production source: knowledge transfer, 2023 the brief explanation to the table 1 below suggests that, from 2015 to 2019, nigeria witnessed fluctuations and changes in the production of various vegetables. in 2015, the country harvested 4,083,500 metric tonnes of tomatoes, 235,000 metric tonnes of green onions, 985,400 metric tonnes of dry onions, 741,260 metric tonnes of green chili peppers, and 60,299 metric tonnes of dry chili peppers. moving to 2016, there was a slight increase in tomato production to 4,229,330 metric tonnes, while the production of green onions remained relatively stable at 235,276 metric tonnes. however, there was a notable increase in the production of dry onions to 997,900 metric tonnes. similarly, the production of green chili peppers increased to 745,855 metric tonnes, and dry chili peppers saw a slight rise to 65,004 metric tonnes. transitioning to 2017, there was a decline in tomato production to 3,412,650 metric tonnes, which could be attributed to various factors such as weather conditions, pest infestations, or fluctuations in agricultural practices. however, the production of green onions and dry onions pa ge 34 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 30-41, 2024 remained relatively stable compared to the previous year. in contrast, there was a slight decrease in the production of both green and dry chili peppers. by 2018, nigeria experienced a rebound in tomato production, reaching 4,100,000 metric tonnes, which might be attributed to improved agricultural practices or favorable weather conditions. the production of green onions remained stable, while there was a slight decrease in the production of dry onions. additionally, there was a slight increase in the production of both green and dry chili peppers compared to the previous year. in 2019, although tomato production decreased slightly to 3,913,993 metric tonnes, the production of green onions and dry onions saw a marginal increase. similarly, both green and dry chili peppers witnessed a slight rise in production compared to the previous year. furthermore, the fluctuations in vegetable production from 2015 to 2019 could be influenced by various factors such as weather patterns, changes in agricultural practices, pest infestations, market demand, and government policies. additionally, challenges such as inadequate infrastructure, access to quality inputs, and post-harvest management practices could have also contributed to the observed variations in production levels across the years. table 1: production (tonnes) of tomatoes, onions, and chilli pepper for 5 years in nigeria vegetables 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 tomatoes 4,083,500 4,229,330 3,412,650 4,100,000 3,913,993 onions (green) 235,000 235,276 243,195 243,544 245,201 onions (dry) 985,400 997,900 1,014,810 971,110 938,417 chilli peppers (green) 741,260 745,855 744,064 745,715 747,367 chilli peppers (dry) 60,299 65,004 67,197 69,034 70,871 source: cbi, 2021 brief history of tomato, onion, and chili pepper in nigeria tomato nigeria holds the position of the 14th largest tomato producer globally and the 2nd largest within africa. the primary tomato-producing regions are kaduna and kano states, jointly responsible for over 50% of the country’s total tomato output (nbs, 2010-2011). nevertheless, tomatoes are cultivated across nearly all states in nigeria, with 24 out of the 36 states, including the federal capital territory (fct), engaging in their production. cultivation practices often involve intercropping and rotation with other vegetables like onions, peppers, lettuces, carrots, cabbages, and peas to mitigate susceptibility to pests and diseases. despite significant domestic production, nigeria ranks as the 13th largest importer of tomato paste globally and the 2nd largest within africa. in 2019 alone, nigeria produced over 3.9 million tonnes of tomatoes. however, the tomato production sector faces numerous challenges, including pest and disease outbreaks such as the notorious tuta absoluta, extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change, market price fluctuations leading to reduced demand, encroachment by herders resulting in delayed harvesting and potential food loss due to cattle damage, insecurity and armed robbery along transport routes, and transportation delays caused by truck stoppages and extortion by law enforcement officers. these issues collectively pose significant obstacles to the tomato industry in nigeria. onions nigeria holds the distinction of being the largest onion producer in west africa, with a total production exceeding 1.1 million tonnes. onions are exclusively cultivated in the northern states of nigeria, with kaduna, kano, and sokoto being the predominant states involved in onion production. over the past five years (2015–2019), onion production has remained relatively stable, with the green onion segment experiencing growth while the dry onions segment has witnessed a slight decline in the last three years. the reasons behind this trend would be further explored through engagement with sector experts during the field research phase. the onion producers and marketers association of nigeria (opman) asserts that onion cultivation in the country has the potential to generate approximately usd 420 million annually. however, onion farmers encounter storage challenges, leading to the loss of approximately 50% of harvested onions due to inadequate storage systems. in 2019, many farmers suffered substantial losses of onion crops due to a fungal infection known as purple blotch. similar to the tomato industry, onion production in nigeria faces comparable threats, with the exception of pest and disease incidents. notably, a fungal infection, purple blotch, caused severe crop destruction in 2019, highlighting the vulnerability of onion cultivation to such diseases (cbi, 2021). chili pepper nigeria ranks as the 7th largest producer of chili peppers globally, with peppers cultivated in over 80% of the country. the states of kaduna and kano contribute significantly to the production of peppers, tomatoes, and onions, accounting for 36%, 43%, and 50% respectively (christine et al., 2019). chili pepper production volume stands at approximately 818,000 tonnes and has exhibited steady growth over the past five years. industry experts anticipate this upward trajectory to continue, attributing the sector’s boost in 2018 to the introduction of a new pepper species known as yellow pepper, locally referred pa ge 35 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 30-41, 2024 to as ose nsukka, which is exclusive to the soil of nsukka in the northern zone of enugu state. this particular pepper species has garnered high demand from buyers across the country. despite its promising outlook, the chili pepper industry in nigeria faces similar challenges to those encountered in the production and supply of onions and tomatoes. these challenges include storage difficulties, market price fluctuations, transportation delays, security concerns, and the threat of diseases such as the aforementioned purple blotch fungal infection. therefore, while the chili pepper sector shows considerable potential for growth, it remains vulnerable to various risks and uncertainties inherent in agricultural production and trade in nigeria. food waste in nigeria food waste, as defined by parfitt et al. and lipinski et al. (2013), refers to food that is still of good quality and suitable for human consumption but is discarded at the distribution and consumption stages of the food chain. in contrast, food loss refers to the reduction in edible food mass occurring at various stages such as production, post-harvest, and processing of vegetables like tomatoes, onions, and chili peppers before reaching the consumer (vilariño et al., 2017). for countries in sub-saharan africa, including nigeria, the issue of food waste and loss signifies a squandering of scarce natural resources, which can exacerbate food and nutrition insecurity and deepen poverty. according to research by the food and agriculture organization (fao, 2015), approximately 690 million people worldwide suffer from hunger, comprising 8.9 percent of the global population. fao projections suggest that by 2030, this number may rise to 890 million, affecting around 9.8 percent of the global population. depending on economic growth scenarios, fao estimates that between 83 and 132 million more individuals could be undernourished globally. addressing food loss and waste is therefore crucial for tackling food insecurity and promoting sustainable development in regions like sub-saharan africa. figure 4: classification of food waste & loss source: wrap (2009) the issue of food waste remains a significant challenge for nigeria, with reports indicating that the country generates approximately 32 million tonnes of waste annually across all stages of vegetable production to consumption. various factors contribute to this problem, particularly in the production and processing of key vegetable products such as tomatoes, onions, and chili peppers. these sectors lack advanced techniques, equipment, technology, and governance structures, hindering their efficiency and productivity. additionally, there is a dearth of enabling policies to stimulate the development of these essential food products. stakeholders and influencers in the vegetable supply chain have often failed to take a holistic approach when proposing interventions or solutions to address food loss. for instance, the tomato growers association of nigeria (togan) reported that its members lose approximately 40 percent of their total annual production, leading to significant economic losses. in 2018 alone, tomato farmers suffered losses exceeding usd 10 billion due to market challenges and the absence of guaranteed off-takers. calls have been made for the federal government of nigeria to implement the tomato policy outlined in 2017. this policy aims to promote local production and processing by increasing tariffs on tomato concentrate imports, introducing additional levies, classifying greenhouse equipment as agricultural equipment to attract zero import duty, and implementing restrictions on tomato paste imports and other related measures. however, despite these efforts, the full implementation of the tomato policy has yet to be realized. in summary, addressing food loss in nigeria requires comprehensive strategies encompassing improved production and processing techniques, supportive policies, and effective implementation mechanisms to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of the vegetable supply chain. pa ge 36 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 30-41, 2024 major causes of food waste in nigeria lack of quality inputs the absence of good quality seeds, fertilizers, and agrochemicals is a primary cause of food losses in nigeria’s vegetable production. for instance, around 80% of tomato seeds planted by farmers are generic varieties of low quality with limited post-harvest shelflife (technoserve, 2020). similarly, onion farmers often cultivate local landrace varieties with low shelf-life, leading to losses (world vegetable center, 2018). low skills in crop management a majority of smallholder farmers lack adequate skills in crop management and handling during and after harvesting. capacity building and training in these areas are crucial for enhancing product yield and reducing losses at production and harvesting stages. diseases, pests, and rodents frequent pest and disease outbreaks in the tomato, onion, and chili pepper sectors result in significant harvest losses. for instance, the devastating pest, tuta absoluta, led to the loss of up to 80% of tomato yields in 2015/2016 (sanda et al., 2018). additionally, rodents and insects contribute to postharvest losses in onion production. poor crop handling and storage inadequate technical knowledge in crop handling during harvesting and rudimentary storage techniques lead to spoilage and losses. drying and storage facilities are often insufficient to preserve crops, resulting in spoilage and wastage. security incidents incidents of violence and insecurity, particularly in the northern regions of nigeria, disrupt farming activities and lead to on-farm and post-harvest losses. these incidents include herdsmen encroachment on fields and armed robberies during transportation. poor vehicle condition and road conditions overloading of trucks and poor packaging materials during transport contribute to food waste and loss. additionally, the poor condition of roads, especially during the rainy season, exacerbates transportation challenges, affecting product quality. lack of efficient refrigeration inadequate refrigeration facilities during transport and at marketplaces result in spoilage and rotting of perishable goods. the absence of efficient cold chains leads to the deterioration of fresh produce before reaching points of sale. traffic constraints and rough offloading in major vegetable markets like mile 12 in lagos, rough offloading and traffic congestion lead to significant losses. the lack of proper waste disposal systems exacerbates environmental challenges in these markets. other causes of food waste in nigeria food gets lost when production exceeds demand this occurs when farmers produce more food than is needed or consumed by the population. when there’s an oversupply, food may not be harvested in time, leading to spoilage in the fields or during transportation. additionally, excess food often ends up in landfills, contributing to environmental issues like greenhouse gas emissions. this inefficiency in distribution exacerbates food waste problems. premature harvesting of crops sometimes, crops are harvested before they reach their optimal ripeness or maturity due to various reasons such as labor shortages, weather concerns, or market demands. premature harvesting not only affects the quality and taste of the produce but also reduces its nutritional value. consumers may reject such produce, leading to further waste along the supply chain. poor storage facilities inadequate storage facilities can result in food spoilage due to factors like temperature fluctuations, pests, and improper handling. this is particularly problematic in regions with high temperatures or humidity where perishable items deteriorate quickly. proper storage infrastructure, such as cold storage units or warehouses with controlled atmospheres, is essential to minimize food losses during storage. purchase and preparation of too much food individuals, households, and businesses often purchase or prepare more food than they can consume. this can occur due to bulk buying habits, improper meal planning, or misjudgment of portion sizes. leftovers from oversized portions may end up being discarded, contributing to food waste at the consumer level. lack of appropriate planning (e.g., food timetable) without proper planning, individuals and institutions may struggle to manage their food resources efficiently. a lack of meal planning, both at the household and institutional levels, can lead to excessive purchasing, cooking, and subsequent waste. implementing food timetables or meal plans helps in organizing food consumption, reducing impulse buying, and ensuring that perishable items are used before they spoil. over-preparation of food in restaurants, hotels, and the food service industry food establishments often prepare more food than necessary to meet potential demand, especially during peak hours. while this practice aims to avoid shortages and maintain customer satisfaction, it often results in surplus food that goes unsold. over-preparation contributes significantly to food waste in the hospitality sector. pa ge 37 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 30-41, 2024 over-merchandising and over-ordering in food stores and supermarkets food retailers may overstock their shelves or order excessive quantities of perishable goods to attract customers and meet potential demand. however, this can lead to food spoilage and waste if products remain unsold past their shelf life. additionally, marketing strategies such as bulk discounts or “buy one, get one free” offers can encourage consumers to purchase more than they need, contributing to food waste at the retail level. food waste effects food waste has multifaceted implications, extending beyond mere economic loss. firstly, it represents a substantial monetary loss. secondly, its social impact is profound, contributing to the escalation of food prices and exacerbating food inaccessibility, particularly for the most vulnerable populations, thus increasing the prevalence of malnutrition (graham-rowe et al., 2014; stuart, 2009). thirdly, food waste is a significant contributor to the degradation of natural resources, thereby amplifying greenhouse gas emissions (fao, 2013 and 2014; wrap, 2011). moreover, food loss exacerbates poverty, particularly in developing countries like nigeria. studies indicate that the deterioration in the quality of food products results in reduced quantities available for sale, leading to diminished economic gains, especially for millions of smallholder families and lowincome farmers in these regions. the world bank (2013) highlights that in sub-saharan africa, a mere one percent reduction in postharvest losses could save $40 million annually, which could be redirected towards addressing various dimensions of poverty. by mitigating post-harvest losses, income opportunities could be amplified for 470 million smallholder farms globally, representing a significant stride towards global poverty alleviation, food security, and sustainability. to catalyze action towards reducing food waste and achieve sustainable development goal (sdg) 12.3, it is imperative to accurately assess the extent of food waste. such measurement not only provides insights into the magnitude of the problem but also delineates the scope for intervention, thereby offering a baseline against which progress can be gauged (fao, 2024). environmental and health problems associated with food waste resource depletion: both food loss and food waste represent a significant waste of resources, including water, land, energy, and agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides. this wastage contributes to environmental degradation and resource depletion. greenhouse gas emissions when food is lost or wasted, it rots in landfills, releasing methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. additionally, the production, transportation, and disposal of food generate carbon dioxide emissions, further exacerbating climate change. health risks rotting food can attract pests such as rodents and insects, which can spread diseases. additionally, food waste in landfills generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and contributes to environmental and air pollution. land use agriculture is a major driver of deforestation and habitat destruction. food loss and waste intensify the pressure on land resources as more agricultural land is required to produce food that ultimately goes unconsumed. water scarcity and contamination agriculture is a significant consumer of freshwater resources. food loss and waste exacerbate water scarcity by increasing the demand for irrigation and processing water, leading to over-extraction of water from rivers and aquifers. food waste dumpsite can bring about water contamination and even leachate. according to omokaro et al. (2024a), waterborne diseases like cholera and dysentery which can spread through contaminated water sources, impacting communities relying on them for drinking and sanitation. biodiversity loss deforestation and habitat destruction associated with agriculture contribute to biodiversity loss. food loss and waste further exacerbate these impacts by increasing the demand for agricultural land, leading to the conversion of natural habitats into farmland. food security food loss and waste reduce the overall availability of food, exacerbating food insecurity and malnutrition, particularly in regions where food availability is already limited. this can have profound health implications, including stunted growth, micronutrient deficiencies, and increased susceptibility to diseases. economic costs food loss and waste represent a loss of economic value throughout the food supply chain, from farmers to consumers. this has economic implications for both producers and consumers, as resources invested in producing food that goes unconsumed are wasted, and consumers may face higher prices due to decreased supply. possible solution it should be known that, there exists significant potential for job creation, particularly for millions of nigerian women and youth, within the production, processing, and trade of tomato, chili, and onions. in nigeria, these sectors are predominantly operated by women and youth. for instance, the nigerian government envisions that a wellimplemented policy aimed at boosting local production and processing of fresh tomato could potentially reduce tomato wastage by 40 percent and generate 60,000 direct employment opportunities (nipc, 2017). this underscores the pivotal role that targeted policies and interventions pa ge 38 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 30-41, 2024 can play in harnessing the economic potential of these agricultural value chains while simultaneously addressing the challenge of food waste and enhancing livelihoods. to address food wastage and loss in nigeria, there needs to be concerted effort (supporters and influencers) and a holistic strategy. for instance, intervention to curb food loss in nigeria should include action on all of the following, amongst others: • financial support to improve roads, energy infrastructure as well as the machinery used in the food production and supply sector, • institutional arrangements and reforms to facilitate access of private sector investment for improved production and value-added processing in the food production and supply sector and introducing government actions and policies to discourage food loss, • circular economy approach: focus on the causes of food loss as well as the consequences, regional and country differences; ideas and solutions as well as the stakeholders and actors involved, and • communication and education campaigns targeted to reduce food loss particularly at farm level, processing sites as well as during transport and distribution. reduce your personal food waste, the change should start from you individuals can make a significant impact by being mindful of their food consumption habits. this includes planning meals, buying only what is needed, properly storing perishable items, and consuming leftovers before they spoil. by taking responsibility for their own food waste, individuals contribute to reducing the overall amount of food that ends up in landfills. take part in food waste challenges both online and offline participating in food waste challenges encourages individuals to actively engage in reducing food waste. these challenges often provide practical tips, recipes, and resources to help participants minimize waste in their daily lives. by joining such initiatives, individuals become more conscious of their habits and learn new strategies to prevent food waste. start a food waste campaign in your community launching a food waste campaign in the community can raise awareness and foster behavior change on a larger scale. by educating neighbors about the consequences of food waste and providing practical tips to reduce it, individuals can inspire others to adopt more sustainable practices. over time, the ripple effect of this campaign can lead to widespread awareness and action within the community. plan your meals instead of buying whatever you see on the shelves and stalls meal planning is an effective strategy to minimize food waste. by carefully planning meals based on what is already available and what needs to be purchased, individuals can avoid overbuying and ensure that all purchased food items are used efficiently. this not only reduces food waste but also saves money and time spent on grocery shopping. start composting composting food scraps, such as fruit and vegetable peels, is an eco-friendly way to divert organic waste from landfills and create nutrient-rich soil for gardening. even individuals with limited space can engage in composting using smallscale methods like vermicomposting or composting bins. by composting food waste, individuals contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting soil health. establish a food bank setting up a food bank in the neighborhood provides a platform for redistributing excess food to those in need. when individuals realize they have surplus food that may otherwise go to waste, they can donate it to the food bank instead. this ensures that edible food is utilized to its fullest potential and helps address food insecurity within the community. volunteer and organize small farmers collaborating with local farmers to educate them about food waste prevention techniques can have a significant impact on reducing losses at the production level. by organizing workshops, training sessions, or farm visits, volunteers can share best practices for harvesting, storing, and transporting crops to minimize spoilage. empowering farmers with this knowledge not only improve their efficiency but also contributes to a more sustainable food supply chain. further interventions • composting offers a promising solution to address food waste by converting it into valuable organic manure for agricultural production in nigeria. the nigerian government should initiate a systematic food waste collection process across each state and establish organized landfills dedicated to composting food waste. this initiative will promote the widespread use of organic manure throughout the country. research conducted by omokaro et al. (2023; 2024b) on the perception of organic manure by local farmers in two nigerian states revealed that approximately 80% of farmers prefer using organic manure over inorganic alternatives. however, the availability of organic manure was cited as a challenge, leading some farmers to resort to inorganic options. by implementing a robust composting infrastructure for food waste, the supply of organic manure can be significantly increased, meeting the demand expressed by farmers and fostering sustainable agricultural practices nationwide. • engaging the nigerian government to address some of the challenging political economy issues, to ensure a better enabling environment for the farmers and traders to operate in. such as: support the nigerian government to develop a central strategy on food loss from agri-food productions; provide financial and technical support to strengthen tomato, onion and chili associations or groups (cbi, 2021). pa ge 39 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(1) 30-41, 2024 financial support and infrastructure improvement providing financial support to improve roads, energy infrastructure, and machinery used in production can enhance efficiency and reduce losses during transportation and processing. access to finance for smes by ensuring access to finance and offering financial capacity development programs for small and medium enterprises (smes) in vegetable production can make them investment-ready, fostering growth and sustainability in the sector (cbi, 2021). promotion of circular economy stimulating the adoption of circular economy principles within the food value chains can help minimize waste by repurposing by-products and promoting resource efficiency. communication and education campaigns launching communication and education campaigns aimed at raising awareness about food loss and waste reduction practices among stakeholders, including farmers, processors, retailers, and consumers, can foster behavioral change and promote best practices. national hackathon organizing a national hackathon focused on developing innovative solutions to tackle food losses in vegetable production can leverage the creativity and expertise of diverse stakeholders to generate actionable ideas and initiatives. support for local initiatives providing support for the scale-up or further development of existing local initiatives aimed at reducing food losses can facilitate knowledge sharing, collaboration, and the implementation of proven strategies and technologies. conclusion food waste and loss represent complex challenges with profound implications for nigeria’s economy, food security, and environmental sustainability. this study has thoroughly examined the causes, effects, and potential solutions to food waste within the nigerian context. various factors contribute to the pervasive problem of food waste across the country, from inadequate infrastructure and transportation constraints to socioeconomic disparities and policy gaps. however, amidst these challenges, there are clear opportunities for intervention. by adopting a holistic approach that addresses the root causes of food waste and promotes sustainable practices throughout the food supply chain, nigeria can make significant strides towards reducing food waste, enhancing food security, and fostering economic development. additionally, individual actions, such as prudent consumption habits and support for local farmers, are integral to mitigating food waste at the grassroots level. it is imperative that governments, businesses, civil society, and individuals work together collaboratively to implement innovative strategies and policies that promote a more resilient and sustainable food system in nigeria. by doing so, nigeria can not only alleviate food insecurity and poverty but also contribute to global efforts towards building a more equitable and sustainable future for all. references adekoya, f. 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(2011). new estimates for household food and drink waste in the uk. retrieved from http://www. wrap.org.uk/content/new-estimateshousehold-foodand-drink-waste-uk (accessed 20.03.24). artical 1503 copy.indd pa ge 1 pa ge 1 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) design and development of an engine driven onion grading machine wabi tafa1*, adesoji m. olaniyan2 volume 2 issue 2, year 2023 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v2i2.1503 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: april 03, 2023 accepted: may 30, 2023 published: august 21, 2023 onion (allium cepa, l.) is one of ethiopia’s highly cultivated vegetable crops. farmers across the country sell their onions without grading them, which results in post-harvest losses during packing and transporting. as a result, modern technologies like engine-operated grading systems are essential. so, the design and development of an onion grading machine was undertaken at asella agricultural engineering research center (aaerc). the physical and mechanical properties of the selected onion bulb variety were considered during the design. the developed grader consists of the mainframe, feeding hopper, grading unit, outlets, power source, and power transmission system. the cost of the grader was estimated to be 20,880.99 etb and believed that it is simple in design, easy in operation, and found to be suitable for small and medium-scale farmers. design, development, onion, onion grader, manufacturing process 1 oromia agricultural research institute, asella agricultural engineering research center, asella, oromia, asella, ethiopia 2 department of agricultural and bioresources engineering, faculty of engineering ikole-ekiti campus, ikole-ekiti 370001, ekiti state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: wabitafa@gmail.com introduction onion (allium cepa l.) is a member of the allium genus of the alliaceae family. it is thought to have originated in southwestern asia, which was the center of domestication and variability. it is from this place that it spread worldwide and has been cultivated annually for bulb production for over 4700 years (brewster, 2008). the introduction to africa in general, and ethiopia specifi cally, was not well-known. however, it has been suggested that as introduced by foreigners in the early 1970s and by now produced widely in many parts of the country than the traditionally grown shallot (adgo, 2008). in ethiopia, onion is one of the most important vegetable crops grown on a small scale. it is also one of the most economically important vegetables in the country. the area under onion is gradually rising, owing to its high profi tability per unit area and ease of production, and the expansion of small-scale irrigation regions (nigussie et al., 2015). it ranked second in the production of all vegetable crops next to tomato, which has been concentrated in the central rift valley of the country, particularly in the upper awash and lake batu areas (bossie, 2009). in ethiopia, the crop is used extensively in food fl avoring and everyday stews, as well as in various vegetable food preparation uses. despite its year-round production settings, the crop’s yield and productivity are much below (10.02 t/ha) the world average (19.7 t/ha) (fao, 2012). because of the lack of improved cultivars, the use of inappropriate agronomic practices such as pre-harvest and post-harvest management practices, and a lack of attention/awareness about the benefi ts of intensive production, the low yield results indicate that there is a huge gap in production and productivity in the country. in onion production, postharvest losses are widespread due to the perishable nature of the onion and the lack of proper postharvest practices and processing technology, which is a major production restriction that reduces productivity. the major causes, according to the fi ndings, are primarily related to technical limitations in harvesting techniques, handling, conveying, packing, storage, and cooling facilities in diffi cult climatic conditions, infrastructure, and marketing systems (gebru, 2015). similarly, several studies identifi ed the most common causes of postharvest losses as a lack of sorting and grading to eliminate defects before storage. demand for onion has increased over the years and so is its quality. after the harvest of onions, their quality is important to the fi nal consumer. damage-free post-harvest handling is regarded as a necessity for increasing the farmer’s profi t margin in in-freshly eaten commodities like an onion.grading is the process of classifying materials into various homogeneous groups based on specifi ed qualities such as size, shape, colour, and quality (londhe et al., 2018). it lowers handling losses during transport and saves time and energy in various processing procedures. grading also facilitates packing, marketing, and other post-harvest procedures. grading agricultural products, particularly fruits and vegetables, according to their size is an important value-adding technique that increases the market value required for cross-border trade (charles and etiese, 2020). according to the world trade organization (wto), new marketing trends need high-quality graded items. uniformity in size makes the product more attractive to consumers and also improves its processing qualities. in a developing country, most fruit and vegetable growers grade their products by hand. grading by hand is expensive and the operation is hampered by labour shortages during high seasons. human operations can be ineffi cient, inconsistent, and time-consuming. farmers are hoping for suitable agricultural product grading equipment to help ease labour shortages, save time, and improve the quality of graded products (mostafa, 2004). keywords pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 1-13, 2023 in ethiopia, onion growers are the major actors who perform most value chain functions from farm inputs preparation to post-harvest handling and marketing (agidew, 2018). farmers sell their onion produce without grading which leads to post-harvest losses during packing and transporting. also, they receive a lower price for their produce. however, manual size grading of onion crops is practiced by whole-sellers and retailers thereby, they make a higher profi t than farmers. manual grading is laborintensive, inconsistent, time-consuming, less effi cient, and not standardized. to achieve a uniform size of onion bulbs proper grading mechanism is required, and with the aid of a grading machine, that goal can be achieved (aher et al., 2019). different fruit and vegetable grading machines have been developed worldwide. divergent roller type, expanding pitch type, inclined vibrating plate, and counter-rotating roller with inclination type graders are developed for grading fruit and vegetables depending on size basis(charles and etiese, 2020). in ethiopia persons engaged in postharvest handling of crops have no chance to use imported high-cost size separation and grading techniques. such high-grading equipment is not useful to small-scale farmers because of the high cost of the machine, high cost of operation, and more maintenance cost. small-scale farmers and wholesalers are in crucial need of low-cost graders. various types of onion grading machines suitable for small-scale farmers were developed using different design approaches. however, these machines are with some limitations related to functional requirements, safety aspects, portability, and ease of operation which affects the performance of the machine. mainly, the problem observed with those machines were a high percentage of onion bulb damage, low capacity, the rigidity of the design, and also the power source they used is not suitable for the farmers in our country who mostly have no access to electricity. in order to solve this, the present study work was carried out to design and develop an onion grading machine while taking into account the needs of the local market and the lack of suitable low-cost onion grading equipment for small and medium-scale farmers. materials and methods description of experimental site to fulfi ll objectives, the designing and manufacturing of the onion grading machine prototype was conducted in the asella agricultural engineering research center (aaerc) which is located in oromia national regional state, ethiopia. it is located at 6° 59’ to 8° 49’ n latitudes and 38° 41’ to 40° 44’ e longitudes, having an elevation of 2430 meters above sea level. design principles and considerations to design and fabricate a suitable machine, machine design parameters were considered before the design and fabrication of the machine. therefore, designs parameters consider to be important were as follows (khurmi & gupta, 2005); the kinematics of the machine: the successful operation of any machine depends largely upon the simplest arrangement of the parts which give the motion required. selection of materials: a designer must have a thorough knowledge of the properties of the materials and their behavior under working conditions. some of the important characteristics of materials are strength, durability, fl exibility, smoothness, weight, resistance to heat and corrosion, ability to be casted, welded, or hardened, machinability, electrical conductivity, etc. design and analysis of machine components the machine was designed to grade onion bulbs into three distinct size ranges small (<40 mm), medium (40-60 mm), and large-sized (>60 mm) bulbs according to the size of onion bulbs with three rotating cylinders having parallel bars spacing of different dimensions. these categories of size were made based on international standards of the marketable size of onion bulbs suitable for commercial applications (ashraf, 2007). the main components of the onion bulbs grader prototype designed and developed were: feeding hopper, concentric cylindrical grading unit, pulleys and belts, bearings, power source, and supporting frame as shown below in figure 1. 1-feeding rate; 2-top cover; 3-rotating shaft; 4-pulley; 5-belt; 6-engine; 8-speed reduction pulley; 9-ground wheel; 10-collection outlets; 11-grading unit; 12 mainframe; 13handle figure 1: pictorial view of the fabricated onion grading machine prototype. figure 2: exploded view of the various components of an onion grading machine. pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 1-13, 2023 a = base width (m) b= length of the hopper (m) the designed volume of the hopper is 0.09 m3 is greater than the theoretical volume (0.073 m3) determined by equation 2. therefore, the designed dimensions of the hopper are valid. main frame the frame is the skeletal structure of the grader which forms the platform on which other components are mounted. the total weights carried by the frame are; the weight of the feed hopper, weight of the grading unit, weight of the collection tray, weight of the shaft, the weight of bearings, pulleys, and the belt. the two design factors considered in determining the material required for the frame were weight and strength. the machine frame was constructed from steel angles and rectangular pipe of 50×30×3 mm. two rubber wheels were provided on one end to simplify the transportation of the machine. the frame and other parts of the grading machine were connected using appropriate sizes of bolts and nuts and the welding process. design of feeding hopper the hopper was designed using a mild steel sheet with a 1.5mm thickness. the size of the hopper was determined on the basis of mass and volumetric capacity of the maximum feeding rate and average bulk density of ungraded onion bulbs. the inclination of the hopper was designed based on the angle of repose of onion bulbs (ukey & unde, 2010). a trapezoidal shape of the hopper was used for the machine due to consideration of the free fl ow of onion bulbs. the bottom of the hopper is slightly tilted downwards to enhance the fl ow of onion bulbs directly to the center of the rotating cylinder. the hopper has a sliding gate to control the feed rate. the following parameters were considered for the design of the hopper; angle of repose = 46.30, bulk density of onion bulbs = 549.7 kg/m3. then theoretically, it was assumed to hold at least 40 kg onion bulbs as the maximum feeding rate of the machine was 35 kg/min and the volume of the hopper was calculated by the following formula according to begum (2018). vh=1.1vo (1) vo=wo/ρbulk (2) vh=1.1((40 kg)/(549.7 kg/m3 ))=0.073 m3 where: vh = volume of hopper, (m3) vo= volume of onion bulbs, (m3) wo= weight of onion bulbs, (kg) ρ_bulk= bulk density of onion bulbs, (kg) therefore, the required volume of the hopper is 0.073 m3 figure 3 show the shape of the hopper was designed in a trapezoidal shape and we can get the practical dimensions by assumptions. hence, here also it was assumed that the hopper has a square in size with base width (a) =0.3 m, length of the hopper (b) =0.5 m, and height (h) =0.45 m, and its volume was calculated by equation 3 (charles and etiese, 2020); vdh=1/2 (a+b)×h×b (3) =1/2 (0.3+0.5)×0.45×0.5=0.09 m3 where: vdh = the designed volume of the hopper, (m3) h = height of the hopper, (m) figure 3: isometric view of the hopper (all dimensions are in mm) grading unit the grading unit was designed using a mild steel rod, mild steel fl at bar and mild steel shaft consisting of three cylindrical sieves having parallel bars cells. the rotating cylinders are arranged one inside the other according to the size (the larger spacing being internal, while the smaller one being external) and shown below in figure 4. the ungraded onion bulbs are directed to the internal cylinder and the larger size bulbs are graded directly and collected at the end of the internal cylinder, while the medium and smaller size bulbs are dropped down to the second cylinder for further grading and the medium bulb size onion bulbs are left on this second cylinder collected at the end. finally, the bulbs with smaller sizes are going to the third sieve or cylinder and are collected at its end. the cylindrical sieves are fi xed on the driveshaft and fi xed with the machine frame. the volume of the rotating cylinders can be determined based on the fl ow of granular material through a circular shape. many researchers suggested that the diameter of the rotating cylinder could be varied between 200 and 550 mm depending on the size range of the fruits and vegetables, volume, and desired capacity of the grading unit (dereje, 2019; charles and etiese, 2020; hegazy and mady, 2018; gunathilake et al., 2016). for this design, the dimensions of the internal cylinder were 850 mm long and 250 mm in diameter with a spacing of 60 mm. the middle cylinder has 650 mm long and 350 mm in diameter with a spacing size of 40 mm, and the external cylinder has 450 mm in length and 450 mm in diameter with a spacing size of 20 mm. the length of the rotating cylinders was decided by considering the previously developed rotating type graders and by assuming that the dimensions can provide enough path and time of retention for onion bulbs to be graded. pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 1-13, 2023 kg=5.76 kg by using the same procedure we have used above we can compute the mass of rods on the middle cylinder; where: the density of the rod, ρ=7850 kg/m3, the radius of a rod, r = 0.005 m, length of the medium cylinder, h = 0.65 m, the diameter of the middle cylinder, dmc=0.35 mm, spacing between rod on the cylinder, s=0.05 m, and number of rods required = 22 m=22(ρ×v)=23(ρ×πr2 h) =22(7850×π(0.005)2×0.65) =22×0.40075 kg=8.813 kg mass of rods on the external cylinder, where: ρ=7850 kg/m3, the radius of a rod, r = 0.005 m, length of the external cylinder, h = 0.45 m, the diameter of the external cylinder, dec=0.45 mm, spacing between rod on the cylinder, s = 0.03 m, and number of rods required = 50 m=47(ρ×v)=47(ρ×πr2 h) =47(7850×π(0.005)2×0.45) =47×0.2774 kg=13.04 kg mass of rolled flat bar according to charles and etiese, (2020) the mass of rolled fl at bar used for each rotating cylinder was calculated; mfb=ρ×v (7) where: mfb= mass of rolled fl at bar (kg), ρ = density of the fl at bar (kg/m3) =7850kg/m3, and v = volume of rolled fl at bar (m3). but, v=πr2 h where: v = volume of the rolled fl at bar (m3), r= radius of the rolled fl at bars used for each rotating cylinder (0.125 m, 0.175 m, and 0.225 m for the internal, middle, and external cylinder respectively), and h = thickness of the fl at metal bar (m) = 3 mm=0.003 m v=πr2 h = 2 ( π × 0 . 1 2 5 2× 0 . 0 0 3 ) + 2 ( π × 0 . 1 7 5 2× 0 . 0 0 3 ) + 2 (π×0.2252×0.003) =0.001826 m3 mfb=ρ×v=(7850 kg)/m3 ×0.001826 m3=14.33 kg also, the mass of the bushing and round bar used to attach the cylinder with a rotating shaft is 1.467 kg. so, the total mass of the rotating cylinder (mrc), was estimated as; mrc=msr+mfb=5.76+8.813+13.04+14.33+1.467 =43.41 kg and the weight (w) of the grading unit is also determined from eqn. (8). w=mrc g (8) = 43.41 kg x 9.81m/s = 425.85 n where: w = weight of the grading unit (n), mrc = mass of rotating grading cylinder (kg), and g = acceleration due to gravity (9.81m/s2). figure 4: the grading unit: (a). front; (b). right; (c). bottom; (d). isometric view (all dimensions are in mm) weight of grading unit the mass of the rotating cylindrical grading unit was determined from the volume and density of the mild steel rod and rolled mild steel fl at bar materials used to manufacture the grading cylinder (charles and etiese, 2020). based on previous work recommendations related to material selection to minimize bulb damage the mild steel rod having a diameter of 10 mm was used for all cylinders and arranged with different spacing and lengths as mentioned above. also, the rolled fl at bar with different diameters was welded with the steel rods and constitutes the overall mass of the rotating cylinders. mass of mild steel rod the mass of rods on the internal rotating cylinder was determined using eq. (4) (charles and etiese, 2020). m=ρ×v (4) where: m=mass of mild steel rod (kg); ρ = density of mild steel rod (kg/m3) = 7850 kg/m3; and v =volume of mild steel rod (m3) but, v=πr2h (5) v=πr2h=π(0.005)2×0.85=0.000066758 m3 m_sr=ρ×v=7850×0.000066758=0.524 kg where: v = volume of the rotating cylinder (m3) r= radius of the rod (m) = 0.005 m h = length of the internal cylinder (m) = 0.85m also, the number of rods required for each cylinder was estimated by using equation (6)(kankal, 2013); ns=(πdrc)/s (6) where: ns = numbers of mild steel rods per segment drc= diameter of the internal rotating cylinder (0.25 m) s = spacing between rod on the cylinder (0.06+0.01= 0.07) number of rods required for the cylinder, n=(π(0.25))/0.07= 11 therefore, the mass of rods on the cylinder, m=11×0.524 pa ge 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 1-13, 2023 theoretical analysis of the grading unit to determine the power required to move onion bulbs through the rotating grading unit it is important to consider the process by which ungraded onion bulbs are delivered from one end of the inclined rotating cylinder and try to reach the other end of the cylinder. during this process, onion bulbs at the lower portion of the cylinder are lifted upward by the screen surface, after which they are again lifted along with it and slide down. they gradually move toward the opposite end of the cylinder. the bulbs are in contact with only a part of the cylindrical surface with no relative movement with respect to it during their lifting. the nature of the motion of onion bulbs over the surface of the cylindrical sieve depends upon the coeffi cient of friction on the given surface. the kinematics operating condition is governed by centripetal acceleration (rω2), the initial conditions of motion of the bulbs, the point at which they are delivered onto the grading surface (grading cylinder), and their initial velocity. depending upon the relationship between the above factors, the bulbs in the cylinder may slide along with it, separated from its surface, and perform a free fl ight or may move with the surface being at rest relative to it. in the last case, the bulbs are not graded (bosoi et al. 1991). neglecting the sliding motion of the onion bulbs inside the cylinder, the release of onion bulbs through the cylindrical grader depends upon the relative velocity and the forces acting on each bulb. the weight of onion bulbs is directed downward and the centrifugal force is given below (abd el-tawwab et al., 2012). wo=mg (9) fc = m r ω2 (10) where: wo = weight of the onion bulbs (n), m = mass of the onion bulbs (kg), fc= the centrifugal force (n), g = acceleration due to gravity (9.81m/s2), r = the radius of the internal cylinder to which ungraded onion bulbs were applied fi rst (0.125 m), ω = the angular speed of the rotating cylinder (s-1). the motion of the bulb on the cylinder surface is not determined by the tangential forces alone. but, if the resultant of the normal forces (nf) is not directed towards the cylinder surface, the bulb will lose contact with the cylinder. to fi nd the equation that describes the motion of the onion bulbs through the rotating cylinder (figure 5), it can be found: nf=mrω2+mgcosά…… in the normal direction (at ӯ ӯ) (11) mg sin ά=μnf ………… in the tangential direction (at ẋ ẋ) (12) where: nf = normal force (n), ά = is the angular position of the onion bulb on the cylinder surface measured from the horizontal axis in the direction of rotation (degree), μ= coeffi cient of friction between the onion bulb and the cylindrical surface, by substituting (nf) from equation (11) into equation (12) according to abd and magda (2011) then: mg sinά =μ(mrω2+mg cosά ) (13) (mg sinά )/μ=m(rω2+mg cosά ) (14) μrω2= g sinά -μ g cosά (15) ω2=(g sinά -μ g cosά )/μr (16) ω2=g/μr (sinά -μ cosά) (17) ω=√(g/μr (sinά -μ cosά ) (18) but, ω=(2πnc)/60 (19) where (nc) is the number of revolutions of the rotating cylinder. from equation (18) and equation (17) we get: nc=60/2π √(g/μr (sinά -μ cosά) (20) at, α’=90^0 nc=60/2π √(g/rμ) or nc=30/π √(g/rμ) (21) figure 5: the forces acting on the onion bulbs situated on the internal cylinder surface. the behavior of an onion bulb depends on the cylinder’s angular speed at a given radius with other factors such as onion bulb layers and internal friction that affect the performance of a grading machine. let us determine the above factors as a certain value of (k) that ranged from 0.33 to 0.40 according to abd el-tawwab et al., (2012). then equation (21) may be equal to; nc=30/π k√(g/μr) (22) given that, g = 9.81 m/s2, r = 0.125 m, μ = 0.29 (the measured static friction angle was 16.25 degree), and let k=0.40 (the maximum value from above range) and by substituting in equation (22). the number of rotations per minute (nc) found above is the critical speed at which falling ends and onion bulb remains in constant grading cylinder contact, held there by centrifugal force. the rotating cylinders are set inclined to the horizontal plane, to improve the internal pressure forces during the rotation of the mass of the onion bulbs. in this study, the slope angle of the rotating cylinders on the horizontal plane (6°) was selected according to charles & etiese (2020). pa ge 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 1-13, 2023 also, the normal force, torque, angular speed, and power required to move onion bulbs in rotating cylindrical surfaces were found by using eqns. (11), (23), (24), and (25) (khurmi and gupta, 2013). t=nf r (23) ω=(2πnc)/60 (24) =(2π×62.95)/60=6.60 rad⁄s , so t=541.03×0.125=67.63 n.m po=tω (25) =67.63×6.6=446.35 watts where:po = power required to move the onion bulbs through the rotating cylinder (watts), t = torque required to drive grading cylinder (nm), ω = angular velocity (rad/s), nc = rotational speed of the grading cylinder (62.95 rpm), and r = radius of grading cylinder (0.125 m). rotational torque of the rotating cylinder the torque developed by a rotational body was estimated by multiplying the force (fc) causing the motion by the radius of rotation (r) of the rotating cylinder (hannah and stephens, 2006). t=fc×r (26) where: fc = centrifugal force required to produce acceleration (n) and r = radius of rotation (radius of the rotating cylinder). but, fc=ma=mω2 r (27) where: m = mass of the rotating cylinder (kg), ω = angular speed (rad/sec), nc = rotational speed of the rotating cylinder (62.95 rpm) based on the value from equation (21), and r = radius of rotational cylinder = 0.125 m. ω=(2πnc)/60=2π×62.95/60=6.60 rad/sec so, fc=mω2 r=43.41×(6.60)2×0.125=235.80 n the torque on the rotating cylinder was; t=fc×r=235.80×0.125 =29.48 nm the power required by the rotating cylinder was determined using the equation below as developed by khurmi and gupta, (2008). pc=(2πnc t)/60 (28) =(2π×62.95×29.48)/60=194.30 watts the power required to overcome air resistance was determined by eqn. (29) (sale et al., 2016). par=kf×fr×vt 2 (29) where: par= power required due to air resistance, (watts), kf= constant which is equal to 0.06 (sale et al., 2016), fr= feed rate, 35kg/min = 0.5833 kg/s, vt 2= peripheral or tangential velocity of the grading mechanism (m/s) nc = rotational speed of the grading cylinder (62.95 rpm), and r = radius of cylinder (0.125mm). vt=nc×π/30×r (30) vt=62.95×π/30×0.125 m vt= 0.83 m/s then, the power requirement due to air resistance par will be; par=0.06×0.5833kg/s ×(0.83 m/s)2 par= 0.0238 kw = 23.80 watts power transmission and drive system selection of pulley and speed reduction the pulleys used in the drive system were groovetype pulleys made of cast iron. pulley diameters were selected based on the need to reduce the engine speed to the required one. the power transmission system was designed to reduce the engine output shaft speed from 1400 rpm to 87.5 rpm of the grading unit rotating shaft. during the test, the engine throttle valve was used to adjust the rotating speed to an optimum level. the power reduction was designed in 2 stages and fi nally, the pulleys shown in figure 6 were selected. two-speed reduction stages are given below: the speed ratio was calculated by using eqn. (46) (khurmi and gupta, 2005). speed ratio= n1/n2 =d2/d1 (31) where: d1= diameter of the driving pulley on the engine shaft(m), d2= diameter of the driven pulley on the speed reduction shaft(m), n1= speed of the engine pulley (1400 rpm), and n2= speed of the driven pulley on the speed reduction shaft (rpm) first stage speed reduction in the fi rst stage of reduction, the driving and driven pulley has been selected. assume the diameter of the driving pulley with a speed ratio of 3.33: 1. from eqn. (31) the diameter and speed of the driven pulley were computed as follows. d2/d1 =3.33=d2/0.075= d2=0.249 m, an available pulley of 250 mm diameter was selected. so, the speed of the counter pulley on the speed reduction system was calculated using the following formula (khurmi & gupta, 2005). n1/n2 =d2/d1 =n1 d1=n2 d2, n2=n1*d1/d2 =(1400*0.075)/0.25= 420 rpm, hence, in the fi rst reduction stage engine speed was reduced from 1400 rpm to 420 rpm. second stage speed reduction in the second stage, speed was reduced by using a small size pulley mounted on the freely rotating shaft with a speed ratio of 4.8:1. then, the diameter and speed of the pulley mounted on the rotating grading cylinder shaft were calculated as follows (khurmi and gupta, 2005). d4/d3 =4.8 =d4/0.075= d4=0.36 m = 360 mm. also, the speed of the driven pulley was calculated as follows. n3/n4 =d4/d3 =n3 d3=n4 d4,n4=n3*d3/d4 =(420*0.075)/0.36= 87.5 rpm, in the second stage of speed reduction speed was reduced from 420 rpm to 87.5 pa ge 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 1-13, 2023 rpm. where: d3= diameter of the driving pulley on the speed reduction shaft (m), d4= diameter of the driven pulley on the grading unit rotating shaft (m), n3= speed of the driving pulley on the speed reduction shaft (420 rpm), and n4= speed of the driven pulley on the grading unit rotating shaft (rpm). therefore, in power transmission, engine speed was reduced by two stages from 1400 rpm to 87.5 rpm for grading operation. further material selection and design calculation related to the driving pulley on the speed reduction shaft and driven pulley mounted on the grading unit rotating shaft used for the grader power transmission system was computed as follows. the width of the pulley (face width) “b” is usually considered to be 25% greater than the width of belt (b) and eqn. (32) (richard and nisbett, 2011) can be used to estimate the width of the pulley. according to is:24941974 top width of an “a” type v-belt for a 75 mm pulley diameter is 13 mm. so, b=b+0.25b=1.25b =13+0.25×13=16.25 mm the thickness (t) of the driving and driven pulley rim for a single v-belt can be determined using eqn. (33 or 34) (richard and nisbett, 2011). t1=d3/300+2mm (33) =75/300+2mm=2.25 mm=0.00225 m t2=d4/200+3mm (34) =360/200+3mm=4.8 mm=0.0048 m where: b = width of pulley (mm), b = width of belt (mm), t1 = rim thickness of the driving pulley on the speed reduction rotating shaft (mm), t2 = rim thickness of the driven pulley on the grading unit rotating shaft (mm), d3 = diameter of driving pulley on the speed reduction rotating shaft (m) = 0.075 mm, and d4 = diameter of driven pulley on the grading unit rotating shaft (m) = 0.360 mm the weight of the pulley was computed using the following equations (thet et al., 2019). wp=m×g (35) m=ρ×v (36) v=ap×t (37) where: wp= weight of the pulley (n), m = mass of pulley (kg), g = acceleration due to gravity (9.81 m/s2), ρ = density of the cast iron pulley (kg/m3) = 7,200 kg/ m3, v = volume of the fl at bar (m3), ap= area of pulley material (m2) = (πd2/4), d= diameter of pulley (m), and t= rim thickness of the pulley (m). so, for a driving pulley; v=(πd2/4)×t=(π×0.0752)/4×0.00225=9.94×10-6 m3 m=ρ×v=7200×9.94×10^(-6)=0.0716 kg wp=m×g=0.0716 ×9.81=0.7021 n also for the driven pulley, we have; v=(πd2/4)×t=(π×0.362)/4×0.0048=4.88×10-4 m3 m=ρ×v=7200×4.88×10(-4)=3.5 kg wp=m×g=3.5 ×9.81=34.5 n the velocity ratio between two pulleys transmitting torque is given as: ω3/ω4 =n3/n4 =d4/d3 (38) where: ω3= angular velocity of the driving pulley, ω4 = angular velocity of the driven pulley, n3= rpm of a driving pulley (420 rpm), n4 = rpm of the driven pulley, d3 = diameter of a driving pulley (75 mm), and d4 = diameter of driven pulley (360 mm). n3/n4 =d4/d3 ,n4=(n3×d3)/d4 = 87.5 rpm ω3/ω4 =n3/n4 , ω3=(2πn3)/60=(2×π×420)/60=43.98 rad⁄s ω4=(ω3×n4)/n3 =(43.98×87.5)/420=9.16 rad⁄s figure 6: detail dimension and isometric view of smaller and larger pulley. selection of the belt classical v-belt and groove-type pulley arrangements were used in this work to transmit the power required by the grading machine (figure 7). the main reasons for using the v-belt drive are its fl exibility, simplicity, and low maintenance costs. additionally, the vbelt can absorb shocks thereby mitigating the effect of vibratory forces (khurmi and gupta, 2005). determination of belt contact angle the belt contact angle(φ) is given by the following equation(khurmi and gupta, 2005). φ=sin-1((d4-d3)/2x) (39) where: φ = belt contact angle (rad), d3 = diameter of driving pulley on the speed reduction rotating shaft (m) = 0.075 m, d4 = diameter of driven pulley on the grading unit rotating shaft (m) = 0.36 m, and x = distance between the pulleys from center to center. the distance between the pulleys from center to center was determined by using eqn. (40) (khurmi and gupta, 2005). x=((d4+d3)/2)+d3 (40) pa ge 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 1-13, 2023 figure 7: geometry of v-belt drive =((0.36+0.075)/2)+0.075=0.2925 m hence, the belt contact angle (φ) is computed as; φ=sin-1(d4-d3)/2x) =sin-1(0.36-0.075)/(2×0.2925)=29.150=29.15×π/180=0. 5 rad the wrap angle on the smaller pulley is determined using eqn. (56) while that of the larger pulley was determined by using eqn. (41) (akintunde et al., 2005). θ1=180-2 sin-1(d4-d3)/2x) (41) θ1=180-2 sin-1(0.36-0.075)/(2×0.2925))=121.69o =121.69×π/180=2.12 rad θ2=180+2 sin-1)(d4-d3)/2x) (42) θ2=180+2 sin-1(0.36-0.075)/(2×0.2925))=238.3o =238.3×π/180=4.16 rad where: θ1= angle of wrap of a belt on driving pulley (rad) and θ2 = angle of wrap of a belt on driven pulley (rad) determination of belt length the nominal pitch length of the belt from the speed reduction shaft to the grading cylinder was determined to know the actual belt size needed to transmit power the reduced power to the grading cylinder. therefore, according to khurmi and gupta (2005) the nominal pitch length (l) was determined using eqn. (43). l=π/2 (d3+d4 )+2x+(d4-d3 ) 2/4x (43) l=π/2(0 .075+0.36)+2×0.2925+(0.36-0 .075) 2/ (4×0.2925)=1.330 m hence, according to is: 2494-1974, the belt of the nearest standard pitch length (1331 mm) was selected. where: d3 = diameter of a driving pulley (mm), d4 = diameter of driven pulley (mm), and x = center distance between the motor pulley and rotating cylinder shaft pulley (mm) determination of belt tensions the driving pulley was considered for the calculation of tensions in the v-belt because the pulley of a smaller diameter governs the design. according to is: 2494-1974 dimensions of “a” type v-belt for 75 mm pulley diameter is; top width, b = 0.013 m, thickness, t = 0.008 m, bottom width, w = 0.011 m, length of the belt, l=1.331 m, the density of rubber belt, ρ=1140 kg/m3, coeffi cient of friction, μ = 0.25 and the allowable stress, σa= 2.5 mpa (khurmi and gupta, 2005). the peripheral velocity, v of the belt on the driving pulley is: v=r×ω3 (44) v=0.0375×43.98 =1.65 m/s where: v= the peripheral velocity of the belt on the driving pulley (m/s), r = radius of the driving pulley, and ω3= angular velocity of a belt on the speed reduction driving pulley (rad/s). the mass of the belt, m was given by; m=cross sectional area ×length×density (45) m=b×t×l×ρ (46) m=0.013 m×0.008 m×1.331 m×1140 kg/m3= 0.1578 kg where; m is the mass of the belt. the centrifugal tension, tc between the contact pulley face and belt is given by; tc=mv2 (47) =0.1578 kg×(1.65 m/s)2 = 0.43 n the maximum allowable tension in the belt was determined as; tmax=σa×a (48) =2.5 n/mm2 ×104 mm2=260 n therefore, the tension in the tight side of the belt, t1 was computed as; t1=tmax-tc (49) t1=(260-0.43)n=259.57 n where: t1 = tension in the tight side (n), tc and tmax = the centrifugal and maximum tension of the belt (n) respectively, a = cross-sectional area of a belt (mm2), m = mass per unit length of a belt (kg/m), and σ = maximum allowable stress of belt (mpa). tension in the slack side of the belt, t2 was calculated as follows (khurmi and gupta, 2005). ln(t1/t2 )=μ×θ1×cosecβ (50) where: t1 = tension of the belt on the tight side (n), t2 = tension of the belt on the slack side (n), μ = coeffi cient of friction between the belt and the pulley (0.25), θ1 = lap angle on driving pulley (2.12 rad), and β = groove angle (18o). ln(t1/t2 )=0.25×2.12×cosec18 (259.57 n)/t2 )=e1.715 ((259.57 n)/t2 )=5.557 5.557 t2=25 t2=46.77 n design of grading unit driving shaft the shaft transmitting power under various operating and loading conditions can be designed based on the strength or rigidity principle (richard and nisbett, 2011). the shaft would be subjected to fl uctuating torque and bending moments during operation under load conditions. shock and fatigue factors were therefore taken into consideration. to determine the diameter of pa ge 9 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 1-13, 2023 the grading cylinder shaft; all forces acting on the shaft (weight of grading cylinders, weight of maximum feeding rate of onion, tight side and slack side tensions of the belt, and weight of pulley) were considered. from eqns. (8, 9, 35, 49, and 50), the weight of grading cylinders, the weight maximum feeding rate of onion bulbs, the weight of the pulley, and the tight side and slack side tensions of the belt were determined as 425.85 n, 343.35 n, 259.57 n, 46.77 n, and 34.5 n, respectively. shear force and bending moment diagrams on the vertical and horizontal planes were determined by considering the inclination of the rotating grading unit shaft to the horizontal plane. for rotating shafts, where the load is suddenly applied (minor shock) the combined shock and fatigue factor applied to the bending moment is given as 1.20 to 2.00 while the combined shock and fatigue factor applied to the torsional moment is given as 1.00 to 1.50 (asme, 1995). the diameter of the rotating shaft was determined by computing the force acting on the shaft in a vertical and horizontal direction as shown below in figure 8. figure 8: free body diagram of all forces acting on the shaft. where: rah = horizontal bearing reaction force at a (n), rav = vertical bearing reaction force at a (n), rbh = horizontal bearing reaction force at b (n), rbv = vertical bearing reaction force at b (n), wp = weight of pulley (n), wgc = weight of grading cylinder (n), wo= weight of onion bulbs (n), and tb = total belt tension (n). figure 9: free body diagram forces on the shaft on the vertical plane. forces acting on grading unit driving shaft on vertical (yz) plane analysis of vertical forces acting on the shaft as shown in figure 9below. the reactions, r_av and r_bv were determined by taking moment about a; ∑ma=0 1.35×340.8n1.1×rbv+0.425×168.67n+0.325×162.6 n+0.225×144.3 n=0 1.1×rbv=1.35×340.84 n+0.425×168.67 n+0.325×162.6 n+0.225×144.3 n rbv=617.13/1.1=561.03 n also, the summation of all vertical forces is; ∑fv=0 rav-167.75 n-161.71 n-143.51 n+rbv-338.97 n=0 rav+rbv= 167.75 n+161.71 n+143.51 n+338.97 n rav+r_bv=811.94 n, but, rbv=561.03 n rav=(811.94 -561.03)n=250.91 n the shear force and bending moment diagram on the main shaft due to loading is shown in figure 10. figure 10: shear force and bending moment diagram in the vertical plane. forces acting on grading unit driving shaft on horizontal (xz) plane analysis of horizontal forces acting on the shaft as shown in figure 11. figure11: free body diagram forces on the shaft on the horizontal plane. the reactions, rah and rbh were determined by taking moment about a; ∑ma=0 1.35×340.84 n-1.1×rbh+0.425×197.34 n+0.325×208.58 n+0.225×173.61 n=0 1.1×rbh=1.35×340.84 n+0.425×197.34 n+0.325×208.58 n+0.225×173.61n rbh=650.85/1.1=591.68 n also, the summation of all horizontal forces is; ∑fh=0rah-20.74 n-26.15 n-33.52 n+rbv-35.63 n=0 rah+rbh= 20.74 n+26.15 n+33.52 n+35.63 n rah+rbh=116.04 n, but, r_bh=591.68 n rah=(116.04 -591.68)n=475.64 n downward based on the magnitude and location of all horizontal forces acting on the shaft of the rotating grading unit, the shear force and bending moment diagram on the horizontal plane (figure 12) was drawn. the resultant bending moments on the shaft were determined using eqn. (51). mb=√((mv )2+(mh )2 (51) =√((89.63)2+(8.91)2 =90.07 nm pa ge 10 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 1-13, 2023 where: mb = resultant bending moments (nm), mv = maximum bending moments on a vertical plane ((89.63) nm), and mh = maximum bending moments on a horizontal plane (8.91 nm) according to khurmi and gupta (2005), torque on a shaft can be calculated using eqn. (52). t=(t1-t2 )×d4/2 (52) =(259.57 n-46.77n)×0.36/2=38.30 nm the power required to rotate the grading cylinder shaft will be determined from the equation below. psh=2πnt/60 (53) psh=(2π×62.5×38.30)/60=252.48 watts where: psh= power required to rotate the grading unit shaft (watts) t = torque on the shaft (nm), t1 = tight side tension of a belt (259.57 n), t2 = slack side tension of a belt (46.77 n), d4 = diameter of the driven pulley on the grading unit rotating shaft (0.36 m), and n= rotational speed of rotating shaft (62.95 rpm). for a solid shaft with little or no axial load, the diameter of the shaft that can withstand the applied loads can be determined using eqn. (53) (asme, 1995; khurmi and gupta, 2005). d3=16/πτ √((kb ×mb ) 2+(kt×mt )2 (53) =16/(π×45) √((1.3×90.07×1000)2+(1.2×38.30×1000)2 d3=14,236.29 mm3 d=24.24 mm therefore, the diameter of the driving shaft was taken as 25 mm. where: d = diameter of the shaft (mm), mb = bending moment (90.07nm), mt = torsional moment (38.30 nm), and the values of combined shock and fatigue factor applied to bending moment(kb) and combined shock and fatigue factors applied to the torsional moment(kt) were taken as 1.3 and 1.2 respectively for the gradually applied load on the rotating shaft and the allowable shear stress of the shaft (τ) as 45 n/mm2 based on the asme code. the amount of twist permissible depends on the type of load application and varies between 2.5 to 3.00 degrees per meter for line shafting. therefore, the angle of twist (for the solid shaft) can be determined using eqn. (54) khurmi and gupta, (2005). θ=(t×l)/(j×g) (54) =(38.30×1.35)/(3.8×10-8×80×109 )= 0.01685 rad or 0.96o the maximum twist on the shaft was found to be 0.96o/m. the calculated angle of twist was less than the permissible angle of twist (3˚/m). so, the shaft design based on the torsional rigidity is safe. where: θ= torsional defl ection, or angle of twist ( radians or o/m), l = length of the shaft (1.35 m), ј = polar moment of inertia for a cross-sectional area about the axis of rotation (3.8×10-8 m4), t = torsional moment (38.30 nm), g = torsional modulus rigidity (80 x 109 n/m2), and d = diameter of the shaft (0.025 m). 2.3.6. bearing selection a bearing is a machine element that supports another moving machine element (known as a journal). it permits a relative motion between the contact surfaces of the members while carrying the load (khurmi and gupta, 2005). bearing size can be selected by determining the maximum resultant force on it, bore size, and desire maximum lifespan. r=(√(rbh 2+rbv 2 ) (55) =(√(591.68)2+(561.03)2 =0.82 kn the design load of a bearing can be calculated using the following formula (robert et al., 2018). pd=vr (72) =1×0.82 =0.82 kn where: pd= load of the bearing (n), v= rotation factor 1.0 if the inner race of the bearing rotates and 1.2 if the outer race rotates, and r = radial load (n) for a specifi ed design life in hours and a known speed of rotation in rpm, the number of design revolutions, l_d for the bearing would be estimated using eqn. (56) (robert et al., 2018). ld = hm×n×(60 min)/hr (56) =(6,000 hr)×(62.95 rpm)(60min/hr)=2.3×107 rev. dynamic load rate can be determined by using eqn. (57) (richard and kelth, 2011). c=pd (ld/106 )(1/k) (57) =0.82((2.3×10^7)/10^6 )^(1/3) =1.08 kn where: c= basic dynamic load rating, rbh = maximum resultant force acting on a bearing at point b on the horizontal plane (kn), rbv = maximum resultant force acting on a bearing at point b on the vertical plane (kn), r = maximum resultant reaction force on the bearings at point b (kn), figure 12: shear force and bending moment diagram in the horizontal plane. pa ge 11 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 1-13, 2023 n = rotational speed of the rotating the shaft (rpm), ld= the number of design revolutions, hm = according to robert, (2018), the desired maximum life span of the bearings for agricultural equipment was 6,000 hours, and k= 3 for ball bearings and 10/3 for roller bearings. since the diameter of the shaft has been determined to be 25 mm, the bearing number 205 by the bore of 25 mm with a width of 15 mm was selected according to khurmi & gupta, (2005)(figure 13). consequently, the basic dynamic load rating of the bearing was estimated using eqn. (57) and found to be 1.08 kn. since the basic dynamic load rating of the bearing selected is less than the dynamic load rating by the manufacturers (i.e. 1,080n < 11000 n), the bearing selected was safe. figure 13: isometric view and detail dimensions of bearing. estimation of power required to operate the grading machine the power required to operate the grading machine is the total sum of the power required to move the onion bulb inside the cylinder (po), the power required to drive the grading unit (rotating cylinder) (pc), the power required to overcome air resistance (par), and the power required to rotate the grading unit shaft (psh), based on equations (25), (28), (29), and (53). the total power (pto) required for grading and overcoming friction was determined using eqn.58 (nduka et al., 2012). pt=po+pc+par+psh (58) =446.35+194.30+23.08+252.48=916.21 watts pto=pt+0.10pt (10% is possible power loss due to friction drive) (59) =916.21+0.10(916.21 )= 1007.83 watts = 1.35 hp where: pt = power required by the machine (watts), pto= total power required for grading machine and overcome loss due to friction, (watts) pc = power required to rotate grading cylinder (watts), psh= power required rotating the grading cylinder shaft (watts) po= power required to move the onion bulb inside the cylinder (watts), and par = power required to over-come air resistance (watts). therefore, a 3 hp honda diesel engine with the desired crank speed of 1400 rpm was selected to drive the grading machine during the performance evaluation of the prototype. manufacturing process of the machine components constructional materials the selection of a proper material for a machine part or structural member is one of the most important decisions the designer is called on. the main factors considered while selecting materials were the availability of the materials, suitability of the materials for the working conditions in service, and the cost of the materials. the important properties, which determine the utility of the material, are physical, chemical, and mechanical properties (khurmi and gupta, 2005). this chapter will cover a detailed description of the manufacturing process of each machine part of the grading machine manufacturing can be defi ned in two ways; technologically and economically. manufacturing from the technology point of view can be defi ned as the application of physical and/or chemical processes to alter the geometry, properties, and/or appearance of a given starting material to make parts or products. then these multiple parts may be assembled to make fi nished products. economically manufacturing is the transformation of materials into items of greater value by means of one or more processing and /or assembly operations, i.e. manufacturing adds value to a starting material by changing its shape or properties, or by combining it with other materials that have been similarly altered. the material has been made more valuable through the manufacturing operations performed on it (groover, 2020). the step of the manufacturing process helps to produce the machine locally using available material. required tools and machines are used as per necessity. the processes to accomplish manufacturing of the machine involve a combination of machinery, tools, power, and labor to give the fi nished part as summarized in table 1below. machines used in the manufacturing of the grader components are: 1. lath machines 2. welding machine 3. bending machine 4. manual rolling machine 5. grinding machine 6. hand drilling machines measuring, cutting, holding and other tools used: 1.turning tool and drill bits 2. measuring tape and caliper 3. steel rule, try square, screwdrivers 4. grinder discs and cutter discs 5. metal sand paper, scriber (pencil), and center punch 6. vice gripper, bench vice, and c-clamp 7. hammer (plastic and metal), compass, and protractor 8. paints and paint brushes. the above parts of an onion grading machine are those that can be manufactured with the tools and machines available at asella agricultural engineering research pa ge 12 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 1-13, 2023 center (aaerc) workshops and tools that can be purchased easily from local markets. however, bearings, belts, and pulleys are directly purchased from the market based on the design requirements and dimensions. conclusion and recommendation by utilizing materials found on the local market, an onion grading machine’s design and construction were completed. the machine, which has wheels for transporting it from one location to another, weights 125 kg. the developed grading device had a 1488.43 kg/ hr grading capacity and a 96.04% grading effectiveness. by adding additional feeding mechanisms and using manufacturing materials appropriate for grading other crop types, the design can still be enhanced to increase the capacity and effi ciency of a grading operation. in areas with access to electricity, using a variable speed motor for straightforward control of the grading unit cylinder speed is recommended. it is advised to investigate the possibility of enhancing the design and fabrication in order to put the product into mass production, which can also open up the possibility of income generation. references abd el-tawwab, i.m., owies, t.r. and kaddour, u.a., (2012). design and performance evaluation of multigerm beet-seeds grading machine. journal of soil sciences and agricultural engineering, 3(4), 519-536. adgo, t.m., (2008). farmers’ evaluation and adoption of improved onion production package in fogera district, south gondar, ethiopia. msc thesis (agricultural communication and innovation), haramaya university, haramaya, ethiopia. agidew a., (2018). review on onion value chain analysis in ethiopia. nutrition and food science international journal, 6(5), 555698. aher, d., dabhade, a., desai, p., waghmare, g., and suryawashi, p. k., (2019). the onion grading machine, 624–631. akintunde, b. o., oyawale, f. a., and tunde-akintunde, t.y., (2005). design and fabrication of a cassava peeling machine. nigerian food journal, (23), 1-8. ashraf, m., muhammad, s.s., manzoor, a., and muhammad, y., (2007). design, development, and performance evaluation of fruit and vegetable grader. pakistan journal of agricultural science., 44(4). asme., (1995). american society of mechanical engineers, “design of transmission shafting”, asme paper no. b106.1m. begum, f., (2018). development and testing of a gherkin grader. master of technology in agricultural engineering (processing and food engineering), acharya ng ranga agricultural university), 79. bosoi, e.s., verniaev, o.v., smirnov, i.i., and sultanshakh, e.g., (1991). theory construction and calculations of agricultural machines, mashinostroenie publishers, 2. bossie, m., tilahun, k. and hordofa, t., (2009). crop coeffi cient and evapotranspiration of onion at awash melkassa, central rift valley of ethiopia. irrigation and drainage systems, 23(1), 1-10. brewster, j.l., (2008). physiology of crop growth, development, and yield. onions and other vegetable alliums, (ed. 2), 85-170. charles, k. d., and etiese, i., (2020). development and performance evaluation of manually operated onion grading machine. journal of agriculture and food research, 3(2), 100070. dereje a.a., (2019). design, manufacturing, and performance evaluation of potato grading machine. msc thesis (agricultural machinery engineering), haramaya university, haramaya, ethiopia. fao, (2012). major food and agricultural commodities and producers -countries by commodity”. food and agriculture organization of the united nations www.fao.org. gebru, h., (2015). a review of the comparative advantages of intercropping to the mono-cropping system. journal of biology, agriculture and healthcare, 5(9), 1-13. groover, m.p., (2020). fundamentals of modern manufacturing: materials, processes, and systems. john table 1: selected manufacturing process of the grading machine’s main components serial no grader components required material required tools and activity/process 1 handle galvanized iron pipe measuring, cutting, rolling, welding, grinding, drilling, and painting 2 top cover mild steel sheet metal measuring, cutting, rolling, welding, grinding, drilling, and painting 3 frame mild steel angles and rectangular pipe measuring, cutting, drilling, welding, and grinding 4 driving shaft mild steel turning, facing, cutting, and milling 5 hopper mild steel sheet metal measuring, cutting, bending, welding, grinding, drilling, and painting 6 rotating cylinder mild steel fl at iron and round bar measuring, cutting, rolling, welding, grinding, and painting 7 outlet chutes mild steel sheet metal measuring, cutting, bending, and welding pa ge 13 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 2(2) 1-13, 2023 wiley & sons. gunathilake, d.m.c.c., wasala, w.m.c.b. and palipane, k.b., (2016). design, development, and evaluation of a size grading machine for onion. procedia food science, 6, 103-107. hannah, j., and stephens, r.c., (2006). mechanics of machines (advance theory and examples).new delhi: second edition, published by vinod vasishtha for viva books private limited, new delhi 110002, india. hegazy, k.e.s. and mady, m.a.a., (2018). development and performance evaluation of olive grader. misr journal of agricultural engineering, 35(1), 19-38. kankal, u.s., (2013). design and development of selfpropelled weeder for fi eld crops. international journal of agricultural engineering, 6(2), 304-310. khurmi, r. s., and gupta, j. k., (2005). a textbook of machine design. s.i. units. eurasis publishing house (pvt) limited, new delhi. (i). hurmi, r.s., and gupta, j.k., (2008). a textbook of machine design, new delhi. khurmi, r.s. and gupta, j.k. (2013). design of machine elements. chand and company pvt. ltd., new delhi. 509-557. londhe, d.h., nalawade, s.m., pawar, g.s., atkari, v.t. and wandkar, s.v., (2013). grader: a review of different methods of grading for fruits and vegetables. agricultural engineering international: cigr journal, 15(3), 217-230. mostafa, h.m. (2004). developing an appropriate system for onion grading. m.sc. thesis. agricultural engineering department, at moshtohor, zagazig university\ benha branch, egypt. nduka, n.b., okay, o.a. and jonah, a.c., (2012). design, fabrication, and evaluation of palm nut-pulp separator. journal of emerging trends in engineering and applied sciences, 3(1), 144-151. nigussie, a., kuma, y., adisu, a., alemu, t. and desalegn, k., (2015). onion production for income generation in small-scale irrigation users agropastoral households of ethiopia. journal of horticulture, 2(3), 1-5. richard g.b., and nisbiett j. k., (2011). shigley’s mechanical engineering design, mcgraw hill 9th edition, isbn: 978-0-07-352928-8. robert l. mott, edward m. vavrek, jyhwen wang., (2018). machine elements in mechanical design, sixth edition, pearson, ny. sale, n.a., muhammed, u.s., dalha, i.b. and idris, s.i., (2016). an improved iar sorghum thresher. agricultural engineering international: international commission of agricultural and biosystems engineering (cigr) journal, 18(3), 119-126. thet, w.w., kyaw, s. and sein, m.m., (2019). design of threshing cylinder for a combine paddy harvester (kubota). iconic research and engineering journals, 1701716. ukey, p.d., and unde, p.a., (2010). design and development of sapota fruit grader. international journal of agricultural engineering, 3(1), 35-39. pa ge 1 pa ge 88 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) the street food microenterprises in bangladesh: situational analysis based on the trends and needs md. abu shehen1* volume 3 issue 2, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i2.2792 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: april 06, 2024 accepted: may 08, 2024 published: november 21, 2024 this paper tried to explore the current conditions and future needs of the street food microenterprises in bangladesh. this paper is entirely shaped by a qualitative approach based on where kii and fgd methods were used for data collection. however, the study reveals that most street food vendors are male proprietors from small and nuclear families, operating self-owned restaurants, fast foods, and taverns. these businesses are predominantly non-ac conditions, with ten to thirty customer capacities. they are located on roadsides, crowded places, and commercial areas, with poor infrastructure and weak plinth conditions. most enterprises have five to fifteen carts and more than two hundred customers regularly buy food. entrepreneurs typically get lease permission from landowners, market management, and city corporations, most renting from different authorities. most entrepreneurs pay a mentionable amount of taka as rent per month. most entrepreneurs contribute to monthly savings, with ninety percent savings. most enterprises lack government-registered legal status, but sixty percent are members of homogenous associations. training initiatives for employees are underrated, and the working environment is unhygienic, unsafe, and not environmentally friendly. the study suggests prioritizing financial assistance, business expansion, and training for the betterment of the enterprises. keywords bangladesh, enterprise, food, hygienic, street 1 university of rajshahi, bangladesh * corresponding author’s e-mail: shahen.sw@gmail.com introduction similar to their informal sector counterparts, street food enterprises are small-scale, dependent on conventional food processing techniques, and have minimal initial startup costs, making them accessible to newcomers (tinker & fruge, 1982). most people in this field are urban poor, and some have found innovative ways to deal with their inability to enter more formal job structures. however, as atkinson (1992) points out, this viewpoint was formed amid an economic boom in the 1970s; the macroeconomic climate of the 1990s is much different, and assistance to the unorganized sector shouldn’t be seen as a panacea for the urban poor (draper, 1996). in contrast to formal dining places or well-known restaurants, street food refers to the range of cuisines that are frequently found in public spaces like streets or neighborhood cafes. the fao idea, wfocus highly focus on-site preparation and selling, is reminiscent of this strategy. in 1989, the food and agriculture organization defined street meals as prepared foods and drinks that are served by street vendors and hawkers, usually in streets and similar public areas. the fact that street foods are sold “on the street” is their most notable feature as noted here (draper, 1996). food from “pushcarts, baskets, or balance poles, or from booths or stores with less than four fixed walls” (tinker, 1987) is required to be sold on the street in order to differentiate street sellers from formal sector food facilities such as restaurants. the food industry’s centrally processed products may be used by street food vendors or other small-scale processors, or they may process the items directly on the spot. the prepared food items that local bangladeshi sellers sell on the streets or in public areas are referred to as “street food” in this paper. moreover, a universally accepted definition of a microenterprise does not exist. microenterprises are small firms run by a family, a single self-employed person, or a very small number of employees (less than five) (terry, 1999). according to jayachandran (2020), a microbusiness is “loosely defined as those with fewer than five employees or none at all.” he called the owners of these companies’ micro-entrepreneurs and these companies microenterprises. microenterprises are defined by the adb’s microenterprise development project as commercial entities that invest between tk 40,000 and tk 1.5 million, excluding the land and structures that are used for the enterprise. microenterprises are defined by the bangladesh bureau of statistics as companies with 10–24 people or fewer, or fixed assets worth between tk 0.5 million and tk 5 million, excluding land and buildings (adb, 2018). businesses that employ one to five persons full-time are referred to as micro-enterprises (business finance for the poor in bangladesh, 2017). according to alam et al. (2010), micro-entrepreneurship is defined as entrepreneurship that falls under the informal sector and is characterized by low-level, labor-intensive technology, small-scale operation, ease of entry, family ownership and control, and the acquisition of skills outside of formal education in an environment with an unregulated competitive market structure. mes are the individuals that create and market street food in the study region. in addition, they focus on labor-intensive but low-level technology, run the company on a small scale, are its owners and managers, acquire skills outside of the conventional education system, and operate in an pa ge 89 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 88-98, 2024 unregulated, competitive market structure. food safety and health issue of street food today, food-related disorders affect millions of people globally, and thousands of them pass away as a result (pilling et al., 2008). according to canet and n’diaye (1996). the rise in street food appeal has increased the urgency of health and safety concerns. in addition to being erratic, street food has been linked in a number of nations to food-borne illnesses (biswas et al., 2010; omemu and aderoju, 2008; nunes et al., 2010; mamun et al., 2013). one of the things causing food-borne illness outbreaks is street food sellers’ poor knowledge of food safety (ceyhum & sanlier, 2016). moreover, a number of studies conducted in different nations discovered deficiencies in the laws governing food safety, food preparation procedures, street food vendors’ expertise, and standards for hygiene and sanitation. in addition to the fact that street food is not governed by laws, other factors that raise the risks associated with food safety include inadequate sanitation, difficulties obtaining clean water, failing to remove waste, and other environmental issues (rheinlander et al., 2008); (abdalla et al., 2009); fao, 2011; who, 2010; kealesitse & kabama, 2012; choudhury et al., 2011). depending on the type of food, foodborne illnesses are regarded as a health concern during the food preparation and protection stages. food processing companies, restaurants, food vendors, schools, and families are all connected to the rise in foodrelated illnesses, claim abibo and lowatt (2015). street food safety is also influenced by other factors, such as the quality of the raw materials, food preparation and storage, and other process processes. these goods are stored in hazardous and unclean conditions in addition to being manufactured using inferior raw materials. for street food vendors, there is insufficient infrastructure for waste management, chilling ice cream, hand washing, disinfection, and safe drinking water (ceyhum & sanlier, 2016). water storage is usually required because water does not always flow from the tap. ceyhum and sanlier (2016). state that this type of water is not suitable for drinking, cooking, or dishwashing. it has issues with pollution as well. furthermore, street food is exposed to several environmental factors as air pollution, pests, rodents, pets, and other animals (hanashiro et al., 2005; lucca & torres, 2006). muyanja et al. (2011) reported that 87.6% of the 225 street vendors in uganda were women without formal education. they washed items with soap and cold water on a regular basis and served food in non-recyclable plates and glasses. the bulk of street food vendors (54 percent), according to choudhury et al. (2011), had meagre daily revenues and prepared food for small cafes. only 8–11 percent of them were aware of food contamination, according to ceyhum and sanlier’s (2016) research, whereas 30–37 percent were aware of the need of using hygienic practices when preparing meals. a different study conducted in china found that as the threat to food safety has grown, so too have consumers’ concerns about the safety and quality of food. the main concerns of customers are attitude, behaviour, and accurate information regarding food safety. it was also discovered that, despite their awareness of food safety, consumers did not closely read labels and had a limited comprehension of the topic. the tags’ descriptions of safe foods were insufficient. furthermore, it was shown that consumers were willing to pay more for food goods that were safe (liu et al., 2013). additionally, a research (buscemi et al., 2011) found that street food has social and cultural implications because it represents historical origins. it is also emphasised that, despite the fact that fast food consumption is rising in the present era. the relationship between their intake and health, obesity, and related illnesses is yet unclear. a number of epidemiological studies involving street food and conditions have been related to (bryan et al, 1997; fao, 2010; muinde & kuria, 2005) because a number of hazardous bacteria were removed from samples of food served on the streets. inadequate storage (50 percent), reheating and storing under unsanitary conditions (45 percent), and cross-contamination (39 percent) are the main causes of the rise in foodborne illness rates (bean & gryphon, 1990). it’s well knowledge that the circumstances surrounding the production, presentation, and consumption of street food serve as ideal habitats for contamination (muinde & kuria, 2005). between 1983 and 1992, street snacks were connected to 691 incidents of food illness and 49 fatalities in china (rane, 2011). research revealed that food sources were linked to 14 deaths in malaysia and 300 illnesses in hong kong following street food consumption (fao, 1990). people who ate tainted street food got pathogen microorganisms, which caused serious illnesses like cholera to develop (abdussalam & kaferstein, 1993). to keep out flies and other insects that can spread illness, a lot of food served on the streets isn’t refrigerated. time and temperature are two other essential elements in the development of harmful bacteria and the generation of toxins. the failure to consider the pathogen microorganisms that could have contaminated these foods during preparation, cooking, and other procedures, as well as the storage temperatures of these foods prior to sale, puts public health at risk (ceyhun & şanlıer, 2016). salmonella typhi, bacillus cereus, staphylococcus aureus, clostridium per fringe, e. coli, and pseudomonas species have all been identified in street food items, according to several studies on the hygiene quality of this food (ghosh et al., 2007; harvani et al., 2008; abdallah & mustafa, 2010; gordon, 2011). it was discovered that bacteria, including s. typhi and ecoli, were present in more than 70% of the indian street meals, including ragda-petis, bhel, and panipuri (garode & waghode, 2012). biswas et al. discovered e. coli infection in 37 out of 50 food samples (74%) (2010). vegetable-containing foods had the highest percentage of contamination (91%) of any type. these microorganisms were also discovered in fish, meat, and cereal samples, indicating that food sellers might be pa ge 90 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 88-98, 2024 harbouring illnesses that have food-related causes. according to liu et al. (2015), outbreaks of vibrio parahaemolyticus disease were common in china. lucca and torres (2006) found that the processing of fries, chicken meat, and beef constituted a major health risk, and that 30% of sao paulo establishments providing hotdogs lacked basic hygienic measures. inadequate hygienic conditions impact public health problems during food preparation and a lack of basic knowledge about food processing. walker et al. (2003) found that only 16 percent of 444 food processors knew that refrigerators should be kept at 180 degrees celsius or lower, despite the fact that 57% of them were aware that food might be contaminated with bacteria that cause food poisoning, odour, and taste problems. concerns over the safety of the food are heightened by the fact that most street food sellers operate in unclean conditions and do not receive enough hygiene and sanitation training (mensah et al., 2002; lues et al., 2006). in addition to their disdain for sanitary regulations, street vendors are also to fault for food poisoning since they fail to put the knowledge they have learned into practice (ehiri & morris, 1996). research has indicated a correlation between inadequate attitudes towards food hygiene and insufficient understanding of food hygiene (luby et al., 1993; howes et al., 1996). only 31% of street food vendors in nigeria possess a valid annual medical health certificate, according to research by omemu and aderoju (2008). just 12% of the participants had received university instruction in food preparation (omemu & aderoju, 2008). chukuezi (2010) discovered that while street food is necessary for urban dwellers to achieve their nutritional needs, it also poses a variety of health hazards, with 23.8% of female street vendors preparing food in an unsanitary manner. furthermore, he stated that food safety and health education for street sellers must be completed. according to ackah et al. (2011), sales made up eighty percent of the income for eighty percent of street food sellers in accra, ghana, who were primarily between the ages of twentyfive and fifty. furthermore, according to ceyhun and sanlier (2016), the bulk of the vendors lacked a health certificate and had insufficient competence with food processing applications. according to rahman et al. (2012), street merchants in malesia were experiencing issues with applications and a lack of information. the street vendor needed to be educated on food safety, hygiene, and foodborne illnesses. according to research by sani and siow (2014), the majority of the 112 employees in malaysia kebangsaan university’s food services department were ignorant of the right storage temperatures for the food they produced as well as the specifics of disease-causing bacteria. according to ceyhun and sanlier’s (2016) research, staff personnel in the food service division should receive continuous, highquality training in order to ensure food safety. according to liu et al. (2015), 171 food processors who worked at 22 food facilities along the coast were oblivious to the disease agent that is frequently present in seafood as well as the maximum amount of time food could be kept at room temperature. moreover, they noticed that the food processor mixed the raw and cooked ingredients in the same containers (ceyhun & sanlier, 2016). choudhury et al. (2011) reported that after completing their education, the average knowledge level of 80 indian street food vendors rose from 24.4 percent to 66.2 percent. they showed an increase in responsiveness to hygiene applications, going from 37.5 to 50.8 percent. during the production and distribution of food, food processors are essential in preventing food poisoning (ceyhun & sanlier, 2016). these people have the potential to contaminate both raw and processed foods as a result of poor food preparation and storage (abdulla et al., 2009; ehiri & morris, 1996). food sellers can lessen the spread of bacteria that cause foodborne illnesses by keeping themselves clean and using appropriate food applications (evans et al., 1998; medeiros et al., 2004). the face, skin, and faces are important places for the transmission of germs in addition to hands, which are important in disease infections. when it comes to the formation of foodborne hazards, salmonella, tembekar et al. (2011), e. coli, shigella, campylobacter, and s. aureus are a few of the bacteria that are crucial for consumers. to reduce the risk of cross-contamination, food processors should get training on proper handwashing, cleaning, and sanitation techniques (sneed et al., 2004). a study conducted in haiti by samapundo et al. (2015) found that 65% of foodborne illnesses were caused by a lack of safe drinking water, while 60% of them were caused by flies and other animals. additionally, they discovered that 70% of vendors served food with their bare hands, did not freeze prepared food, and did not wash their hands after handling cash. according to silva et al. (2014), 22.6 percent of street food vendors in brazil did not wash their hands after working, and 80.2 percent of them handled money and food at the same time. as they noted in their study, many street vendors operate in filthy conditions, and the street food industry is important socioeconomically (silva et al., 2014). furthermore, newspapers, nylon bags, and aluminium covering are commonly used in the sale of food and drinks that are produced on the streets (adiloglu, 2009). according to muinde and kuria (2005), equipment and raw materials from kenya were not regularly sanitised. prepared food was stored in pitchers, buckers, and open plastic cases. according to ceyhun and sanlier (2016) and muinde and kuria (2005), they also noted that food vendors disregarded the hygiene of their staff, that food containers were dirty, that 85% of food serving locations were close to trash cans, and that food servers did not wear gloves, aprons, or caps. in recent years, street food has become an unlawful sector in some countries due to factors such as urbanisation and population growth (omemu & aderoju, 2008; chukuezi, 2010). food contamination can occur throughout the manufacturing, processing, and preparation stages. several nations’ national authorities have passed legislation to limit contamination during the food manufacturing and pa ge 91 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 88-98, 2024 processing stages, according to (ceyhun & sanlier, 2016). furthermore, there are no explicit legal requirements for those who sell these goods (muinde & kuria, 2005; omemu & aderoju, 2008). nguyen et al. (2010) found that 88% of street food manufacturers used ineffective food safety procedures, and 95% of them lacked access to adequate information. furthermore, additional research revealed that food merchants lacked sufficient knowledge on illnesses (askarian et al., 2004; gomes et al., 2011). according to liu et al., inefficient audits, lowquality raw materials, inadequate infrastructure at areas where street food is sold, and street food sellers’ ignorance of hygienic practices are among the issues related to food safety (2014). the need for a nationwide initiative to increase street food vendors’ knowledge of food safety was underlined. to assist local governments, the food and agriculture organisation (fao) published an extensive report on the safety and quality of street food (ceyhun & sanlier, 2016). fao steps in because a lot of street vendors operate in filthy, hazardous environments and lack even the most basic understanding of food hygiene and sanitation. it was discovered that these folks were receptive to learning (ceyhun & sanlier, 2016). in an effort to support these efforts, fao and who have implemented safety guidelines (who, 1996), the five standards for safe food (who, 2007), haccp-based sanitation solutions (fao, 2009), and educational programmes (who, 2010). in addition, the fao has launched several programmes to strengthen local governments’ capacity to control food quality (fao, 2011). however, the purpose of this paper is to examine the project’s potential and current business model, as well as the product’s accessibility, people’s perceptions of it, the technical know-how of its workers and producers, the current state of the environment and health issues, and the opinions of the mes regarding the project. the availability of safe drinking water, raw materials, ppe, and appropriate food covering and storage at the proper temperature were all specifically examined in this paper. other topics included the environmental and hygienic conditions of the currently available street foods, including the personal hygiene of street food vendors, and the state of waste management and occupational health and safety facilities. street food microentrepreneurs street food microentrepreneurs play a significant role in various economies, particularly in developing countries. studies have highlighted the challenges and success factors faced by street food vendors. for instance, research in malaysia emphasizes the importance of supporting traditional street food businesses through guidelines to enhance hawkerpreneurship (chong & stephenson, 2020). additionally, studies in south africa suggest that providing training, microfinance, and promoting food safety can improve the business skills of street food vendors (mahopo et al., 2022). furthermore, the impact of street food vendors goes beyond economic considerations. street food vending can serve as a strategic tool to create a destination image and attract tourists, as seen in india (gupta et al., 2019). however, challenges such as poor hygiene practices and a lack of sanitation knowledge among vendors have been identified, emphasizing the need for interventions to ensure food safety (soon, 2019; el-latief & abouelenein, 2020). furthermore, the socioeconomic significance of street food enterprises is notable, with their contributions to household income being substantial in some regions (mahopo et al., 2022). understanding street food enterprises’ operational characteristics and value chain analysis can provide insight into the actors involved in these businesses and their interactions (mahopo et al., 2023). despite the benefits, street food vendors face various challenges, including hygiene maintenance, as highlighted in studies focusing on dhaka and cairo (habib, 2016; rifaat et al., 2022). addressing these challenges is crucial to ensuring the safety of street food consumers and preventing the transmission of diseases. additionally, initiatives often overlook the unique obstacles posed by the informal nature of street food vending (arifen, 2023). specifically, street food microentrepreneurs are vital components of urban economies, providing livelihoods for many individuals. while they offer economic opportunities and contribute to local cultures, addressing challenges such as hygiene, training, and infrastructure support is essential to sustaining and enhancing the street food sector. in bangladesh, street food microentrepreneurs face significant challenges in terms of food safety and hygiene. studies have highlighted the manual preparation and processing of street foods in bangladesh, often leading to microbiological contamination (noor, 2016). research has shown that there is a lack of knowledge and awareness among street food vendors regarding food safety practices (abid et al., 2022). this emphasizes the importance of improving the operating conditions of street food stalls, including access to clean water and proper waste disposal systems (mamun et al., 2020). the presence of enteric bacteria in street foods poses a significant risk to consumers, particularly in densely populated areas like dhaka city (tanjia et al., 2019). studies have indicated a high prevalence of antibioticresistant bacteria in the hands of street food vendors, highlighting the need for better hygiene practices and education (hassan et al., 2018). furthermore, hossain et al. (2019) have linked the consumption of street foods to foodborne illnesses, highlighting a pressing public health concern. furthermore, shaibur et al. (2021) have identified inadequate water quality in food stalls as a contributing factor to food contamination in bangladesh. the socioeconomic impact of street food vendors, especially during crises like the covid-19 pandemic, has been a subject of study, shedding light on the challenges faced by these microentrepreneurs (janah & adinugraha, 2021). however, addressing the food safety and hygiene practices of street food microentrepreneurs in bangladesh is crucial to safeguarding public health. improving pa ge 92 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 88-98, 2024 knowledge, providing training, and implementing better infrastructure are essential steps to enhance street food safety and protect consumers from potential health risks. socio-economic and environmental problems the studied areas’ mes dealt with a variety of environmental and socioeconomic issues. it was noted that there was a negative social attitude towards street food vendors. many of the street food vendors were unable to attend the social functions that the affluent members of society were able to. the street food merchants’ financial situation was precarious. many of the street food vendors were unable to adequately support their families. because of their high living expenses and the price of necessities, they were unable to save a significant portion of their income. in addition, a sizable percentage of the mes struggled with maintaining the high quality of raw materials, high transportation costs, and fair pricing for raw materials. in addition, they had to deal with a lack of adequate demands, fluctuating market demand, difficulties gaining access to the credit market, unfavorable attitudes, and slow service provider responses. customers consumed more unclean food because there was a severe lack of a preservation mechanism in place in street food and restaurant businesses. it was noted that the proprietor of the fast-food restaurant planned to repurpose leftover food and ingredients from unsold goods and foods in the research regions. environmental restrictions included bad weather, difficulties from natural disasters including heat waves and cold waves, and a lot of rain. the survey also discovered that mes had to deal with a lack of support for natural catastrophe mitigation and undue pressure from the government. in addition, market management challenges like a lack of distributors and buyers, unlawful occupancy, and high production costs were faced by mes in the research area. specifically, a significant percentage of street food and restaurant proprietors experienced harassment from local government members and political pressure from the community. it was observed that a relatively small percentage of mes obtained certificates of registration to conduct business in the studied locations. the mes also pushed for measures to lessen harassment when obtaining pourashava and city corporation certification for their businesses. they further accused the responsible personnel of being corrupt and of putting off the process of obtaining certificates from pourashava, the city corporation, and government offices. materials and methods the author developed a qualitative approach to address the objective of this paper. the following research steps were followed during the development of this article: a) literature compilation and desk review (for secondary data collection); b) focus group discussions in targeted communities; c) interviews with key stakeholders; and d) in-depth interviews. precisely, five kis were interviewed, and two fgd sessions were conducted to collect the qualitative data. moreover, twenty in-depth interviews with microenterprises were conducted. to maintain the reliability of the data, the authors followed ethical principles during data collection and analysis. results and discussion nature of microenterprise and food items based on the food products they manufacture, it is discovered that there are several types of street food vendors. the variety of teas, along with parata, singara, samucha, piyaju, jilapi, jhalmuri, chhola, bundia, rice, curry, and juice; additionally, there are the various varieties of kebab, spiced fruit, kotkoti, fuchka, chatpati, burgers, french fries, and pickles. the bangladesh food safety authority’s food safety officer states, “there are many kinds of street food vendors or businesses. these businesses manufacture various food products. they make pickles, spicy fruits, french fries, chinese food, fast food, and more.” “street food includes the spicy food items such as fuchka, chatpati, chap, jhalmuri, samacha, puri, jilapi, kebab, fruit juice etc.” said another ki from the bangladesh food safety authority, bogura. however, based on the food items they create, fgd data revealed that different types of street food businesses exist. they consist of several tea varieties, as well as parata, singara, samucha, piyaju, jilapi, jhalmuri, chhola, bundia, rice, curry, and juice, as well as various kebab, spiced fruit, kotkoti, fuska, chatpati, burgers, and bakery biscuits. according to the report, the majority of street food vendors worked only on their businesses. a small percentage of entrepreneurs spend the initial part of the day working in another industry. they essentially work as day laborers in building sites or agricultural fields. legality and growth a company’s legal standing is crucial, but it’s especially critical for food manufacturers. because of this, the entrepreneur can be held accountable for guaranteeing the standard of food and raw materials, as well as for maintaining sanitation, environmental policies, labor benefits, and a wide range of customer services. in addition, entrepreneurs can support the nation by paying vat according to their legal standing. but in the case of street food businesses, it appears that nobody is officially registered with the government. most powerful people give them permission to conduct business. in certain instances, they honor the local government. entrepreneurs that own restaurants and sell street food have their own organizations in various locations. “to operate an enterprise, every me should follow different rules, laws, and implications provided by the government, environmental authority, and others related to the sectors,” said a kii participant on this topic. however, a tiny percentage of business owners might be registered with the government. additionally, some people who belong to their own association have a maximum rate of 30 to 40 percent. moreover, taste, pricing, and attraction are the main factors influencing the growth rate of various kinds pa ge 93 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 88-98, 2024 of street food enterprises. the kii respondents claim that the growth rate of items like fuchka, chatpati, chap, kebab, etc. has increased significantly. because it is cheaper to establish a business, great food can be found, there are more customers, raw materials are easily found, and businesses are more profitable. a bsti participant named ki said, “in actuality, the rate of growth of street food businesses differs from location to location. however, it is a well-known fact that chatpati and fuchka businesses always have a high rate of growth. i believe that the test, spiciness, appealing appearance, and accessibility of these food items are the main causes of this.” furthermore, the fgd data showed that the people’s priority choices, tests, prices, and appearances all influence how quickly these street food businesses flourish. people like to eat tasty cuisine and light snacks on a daily basis, according to fgd. these consist of chotpoti, fuchka, spiced fruit, tea, and biscuits. these are growing at a far faster rate. thus, these are more favored by the public. ownership and workers the paper found that the ownership status of restaurants and street food businesses is diverse. for instance, food carts, mobile food stores, and tea stalls are all owned and operated by single people. in certain cases, hotel and restaurant operations are managed through sole ownership or shared ownership. many street food shops are run by women, the study also found. both men and women are employed by these street food vendors and eateries. there are both independently and collectively run street food companies there, according to ki participant from bsti. while some of these carts or stores are stationary, the bulk are movable. additionally, the results of the fgd showed that street food and restaurant businesses have a mixed ownership structure. a single proprietor is in charge of the tea stall, food stalls, mobile food shops, etc. businesses of the hotel and restaurant varieties are sometimes owned by a single owner as well as via shares. the investigation also discovered a large number of street food businesses run by women. the proprietor of a tea and snack stand claimed, “my husband, my son, and i run this family business.” it was noted that these street food and restaurant establishments employ both men and women. impact on family income growing family income is significantly influenced by the enterprise’s earnings. male and female street food vendors and processors send a large portion of their earnings home to support their families. the only source of income for mes who make street food products is their company. they are powerless to assist themselves. the majority of the time, the business helps the owners cover all or some of the cost of their families’ salaries and costs. the bangladesh food safety authority’s food safety officer said, “the enterprise’s profits have a significant impact on their family’s income. they use this income, in my opinion, to support their family; they don’t do it any other way.” the most important factor to take into account when starting a business, according to fgd studies, is increasing revenue so that the enterprise can better manage household expenses. the researcher wanted to know how the mes’ income affected family incomes and expenses, so she asked the baseline survey. the results of the fgd demonstrate that the growth of family income as a whole is significantly impacted by an enterprise’s or job’s earnings. their family’s spending is influenced by the enterprise’s profits. it significantly impacts the rise of household income. they utilize the money to build homes and purchase land. in padma garden, rajshahi, for example, a curt owner said, “i am dependent on this business to meet my needs and the needs of my family, as well as to cover all other expenses.” since i wouldn’t have any other way to make money without it.” training for the mes and employees training is a crucial component that improves expertise in a certain area. it is essential for enhancing one’s ability to carry out specific duties correctly. for street food vendors, certain types of training—such as those covering proper food preparation, waste and pollution control, and health protection—are crucial. workers from several eateries and street food vendors in rajshahi and bogra have received training on hygienic practices, safe food manufacturing, and health. the owners and staff of street food enterprise have received some training from ngos, according to a bangladesh food safety authority officer. but eventually, people stop practicing these trainings, so they have to be done again. more instruction is required, particularly in hygienic practices and safe food preparation. the benefits of providing street food sellers with varied training to advance their businesses and enhance their working environments were also investigated by the fgd data. the training can cover topics such as food processing, food safety, hygiene maintenance, food preservation, environmental protection, sustainable environmental practices, market development, achieving legal status, and more. all of these topics would help them increase their revenue by providing customers with higher-quality services. furthermore, a summary of the kii data showed that the food quality and preservation system’s current state is not suitable. the majority of food stores, according to the key informants, disregard the guarantee of food quality and appropriate storage. “another major reason for the deterioration of food quality is that they do not have a healthy preservation system,” a bfsa food safety officer stated. they store food in hazardous plastic containers that are dangerous for anyone to handle. food that is not sold is preserved in an unhealthy manner and sold the following day, while some business owners now keep food and essential ingredients in refrigerators. the environmental conditions environmental issues are crucial since pollution and pa ge 94 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 88-98, 2024 inappropriate waste disposal contribute to climate change and have a number of detrimental health effects. the results of kiis indicate that mes may not be completely aware of risks to their health and the environment. a ki participant from the bangladesh food safety authority said, “i’ve observed that between 40 and 50 percent of street food businesses use trash cans. food preparation dirty water is poured down open drains, filling the air with unpleasant odors. “the general status of the environment at enterprise in terms of air, water, soil pollution, and waste management is unsatisfactory,” said a second kii participant from the bangladesh food safety authority. they attempt to dispose of their waste in the trash or open sewers, which pollutes the air and water. when discussing their health and cleanliness with the consumer, i have to admit that while many of them observe hygiene regulations, many do not. i have observed employees in numerous grocery stores donning net caps on their heads and hand gloves. this is a very small amount, nevertheless. approximately 50% of store owners don’t follow appropriate trash management procedures. furthermore, fgd research showed that pollution leads to climate change and has numerous detrimental effects on people’s health, making environmental issues essential for any business. the results of focus group discussions (fgds) indicate that the mes are cognizant of health and environmental issues. they reserve safe drinking water for their own health and the safety of the food for customers, utilize dustbins for waste management, and put on hand gloves and a cooking apron. impact of covid-19 on the enterprise the virus known as covid-19 has spread around the world. the government of bangladesh enforced social isolation and a lockdown to stop the virus from spreading. consequently, many microbusinesses have suffered severe economic harm. the purpose of the study was to determine how the pandemic would impact cash flow, product sales, and employment for mes. in bangladesh’s bogura and rajshahi districts, me earnings, sales, and output have been significantly impacted by the nationwide rise of covid-19. the baseline assessment states that almost every organisation was significantly impacted by the covid-19 virus. “all business activity was halted during the shutdown in bangladesh, and shops and malls remained shuttered,” said a ki participant from bsti. because of this, the company’s product was never sold, and the owner had to cut staff and headcount. in particular, the micro-entrepreneur was severely harmed by the covid-19, and it will be challenging for them to recover from these effects. furthermore, the covid-19 virus has proliferated globally. the government of bangladesh enforced social isolation and a lockdown to stop the virus from spreading. these microbusinesses’ economics have suffered greatly as a result. the goal of the study was to ascertain how the pandemic will affect cash flow, product sales, and employment for mes. me profits, sales, and output have been greatly impacted by the covid-19’s statewide growth in bangladesh’s bogura and rajshahi districts. nearly every firm was found to have been severely harmed by the covid-19 virus during the baseline examination. “our employment and activities were affected by the covid-19 virus and lockdown, but hardly anyone went to buy the food or product from us due to the coronavirus,” said an fgd participant. at the time, we were struggling to keep track of our family’s spending.” covid 19 assistances and supports particularly for those with low incomes, micro-enterprises offer employment possibilities and a more affordable range of goods and services. the vulnerability of microenterprises has increased due to the covid-19 issue. in addition to pandemics, they face operating risks because, in comparison to larger companies, they have comparatively less money. it’s critical in this situation to be aware of the resources for help and support. it has been noted in this study that the only government support that is noteworthy comes from ngos. in order to address the issue posed by a pandemic or economic downturn, the entrepreneur obtains loans or borrows money from many sources. most mes in the research area reported receiving financial and technical help from nongovernmental organizations (ngo), especially esdo. an fgd participant said, “the majority of us did not receive financial assistance or subsidies from government sources. an organization gave us training, knowledgesharing sessions, and—above all—a loan or other form of financial support to enable us to continue operating our street food company during slow times.” problems in the credit market without sufficient funds, it is challenging to launch or grow any business or enterprise. it is too crucial for microbusiness management. in this study, researchers used kiis to try and identify the problems inside the credit business. it has been shown that the mes have trouble getting loans from financial organizations. the main problem is the highest interest rate. the second most significant problem is the drawn-out process of applying for and receiving a loan from the banks. compared to loans from other institutions, loans from ngos are simpler to get. an bfsa officer stated, “getting a loan from a bank is a hard and time-consuming process. they demand a high output level, which is initially unattainable for a small business owner. “the bank wants them to provide a ton of evidence and papers, which takes a lot of time and makes it seem like they are only applying for a large loan,” stated an additional kii member. this made it impossible for mes to get a loan for an unforeseen need. when working with non-governmental organizations, bear in mind that their protocols are less complicated than those of banks. future needs the need analysis is essential to the company’s potential pa ge 95 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 88-98, 2024 growth and productivity. finding out more about the evolving needs and future development of mes was the aim of the study. the results show that trade licenses, a fixed site supplied by a city or municipality authority for setting up their stand or shop, and large-scale financial help with minimal service charges are the top requests made by the mes. additionally, they asked for numerous sources of training on food preparation and safety issues for both owners and employees. additionally, a rajshahibased fgd participant said, “we require a permanent location for opening our stores. we are unable to set up our businesses properly without this certification that this space is designated for my shop, and the authority has the right to expel us at any time and without warning.” the need analysis is essential to the growth and development of the company in the future. the purpose of this study was to learn more about the needs for future expansion and development of the mes. the results indicate that trade licenses, a fixed location approved by the city or municipality authorities for setting up their stall or shop, and large-scale financial assistance with affordable service fees are the main requests made by the mes. further providing owners and employees with training on many food safety and food preparation topics. conclusion the street food industry in bangladesh is expanding rapidly. the street food business owners operated various grocery stores, including restaurants, hotels, street food sellers, etc., according to the data. singara, mocha, chap, burgers, lassi, tea, coffee, and cold drinks are among the light snacks that they sell. burgers are the most easily accessible cuisine, with the dominance of heavier fastfood items coming in second. the restaurant and street food vendors offered a selection of pre-made items, based on the field data. food grains and cereals made about 14% of these. the majority of the food stores and restaurants, based on the field data, were situated along the side of the road, indicating that this was where they were most frequently found. the businesses’ plinth conditions were subpar, and the majority of food establishments had subpar infrastructure, including filthy floors and automobile fume-filled interiors, according to this survey. field statistics showed that fully terraced storefronts and terraced with tin roofs made up the majority of food stores. of those surveyed, over half indicated their enterprises were run independently, and the other half said they recruited staff on a contract basis. the legal statuses of the enterprises were not particularly noteworthy, as almost two-thirds of them lacked either government registration or vat registration. however, a sizable portion of the participants lacked a comprehensive comprehension of environmental contamination. it was concerning how little the responders adhered to good hygiene management practices. the findings showed that only slightly more than two-thirds of respondents claimed they were indifferent to maintaining a clean and safe environment. most respondents ensured that generated food was covered and that food and raw materials were kept apart. field data showed that over 70% of supermarkets stocked plastic, which harmed the environment. generally, the majority of respondents stated that they made sure their stores were cleaned on a regular basis and that they had efficient trash disposal procedures in place. calculated statistics indicate that at least some respondents claimed to wear face masks every day. according to estimates, 90% of businesses were affected by the covid-19 pandemic. the majority of them acknowledged that, throughout the covid-19 outbreak, they did not receive any government assistance. the survey also determined that in order for their businesses to thrive now and in the future, they would require grants, loans, financial aid, and infrastructural upgrades. publisher’s note all claims expressed in this article are solely of the author and does not necessarily represent those of his affiliated organization, or of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. references ababio, p. f., & lovatt, p. 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(2010). basic steps to improve safety of street-vended food. fao, international food safety authorities network (infosan), infosan information note no. 3/2010-safety of streetvended food. https://www.who.int/foodsafety/fs_ management/no_03_streetfood_jun10_en.pdf pa ge 1 pa ge 68 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) iodine fortification from sargassum sp. on the quality of iodized consumption salt firda rosa afila1, sri subekti2, mochammad amin alamsjah2* volume 3 issue 2, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i2.3389 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: august 31, 2024 accepted: october 01, 2024 published: october 04, 2024 iodized consumption salt is salt intended for consumption purposes that has been enriched or fortified with potassium iodate (kio3) to meet iodine requirements. one type of seaweed known for its high iodine content is dried sargassum sp., which ranges from 0.2-0.5% in 2 grams. samples of coarse salt, to be purified into pure salt, will be treated with 2n naoh to increase nacl content and fortified with sargassum sp. iodine extract. this research method involves using iodine extract from sargassum sp. as a compound to replace kio3 in the process of iodizing consumption salt. the study aims to determine the optimum concentration of sargassum sp. iodine for fortification in consumption salt according to sni 3556:2016. the quality of iodized consumption salt is analyzed using parameters such as moisture content, nacl content, insoluble matter content, iodine content, heavy metal contamination, and sample surface analysis. the results indicate that the best treatment to increase iodine content in consumption salt is p3 with the addition of 80 ppm sargassum sp. iodine concentration and to ensure sustainable fisheries that are environmentally friendly. keywords fortification, iodized consumption salt, sargassum sp. iodine, sustainable fisheries 1 fisheries product technology, faculty of fisheries and marine, universitas airlangga, surabaya, 60155, indonesia 2 department of marine, faculty of fisheries and marine, universitas airlangga, surabaya, 60155, indonesia * corresponding author’s e-mail: alamsjah@fpk.unair.ac.id introduction minerals are essential components required by all living organisms, known as inorganic substances or ash content. minerals are divided into two groups based on quantity, namely macro minerals and trace minerals. iodine is one of the trace minerals. iodine is abundant in marine fish, shellfish, crabs, squid, and salt intentionally mixed with iodine compounds (arifin, 2008). consumption salt has long been used as a medium for the eradication of iodine deficiency disorders (idd) (sasmi, 2022). the iodine compound fortified in consumption salt is in the form of kio3 (potassium iodate), which easily dissolves in water and is susceptible to degradation when exposed to light and heat. kio3 is a strong oxidizing agent, hence prone to converting into volatile iodine (subhan, 2014). seaweed is a local food source that can serve as an alternative for daily fiber intake and contains high levels of iodine (anggraini, 2018). seaweed with high iodine content, such as dried sargassum sp., ranges around 62.3 mg/100 g dry weight (nunes et al., 2019). due to the high iodine content in sargassum sp., it has the potential to be used in iodine-fortified consumption salt. therefore, research is needed to assess the impact of adding iodine from sargassum sp. on the quality of iodine-fortified consumption salt. literature review salt salt is a compound formed from the reaction of acids and bases. nacl is the main element in salt with sodium (40%) and chloride (60%) (dawa et al., 2021). salt is classified as consumption salt and industrial salt, this is based on the chemical content contained in the salt (wibowo, 2020). iodized consumption salt is salt for consumption purposes that has been enriched or has undergone fortification with 30-80 ppm of potassium iodate (kio3) (hartati et al., 2014). iodine iodine is a mineral that is needed by the body in relatively small amounts, but has a very important role in the formation of the hormone thyroxine (sugiani et al., 2015). it is necessary to add iodine to salt in the form of kio3 to meet the human body’s need for iodine, disorders due to iodine deficiency can result in goiter (sugiani et al., 2015). sources of food that contain a lot of iodine are all foods of marine origin such as seaweed, fish, shellfish and the like (mutalazimah et al., 2021). seaweed is also a source of dietary fiber and a good source of iodine for the body with an iodine content of 54.59 ppm (astawan et al., 2005). seaweed sargassum sp. sargassum sp. is a type of brown algae (phaeophyta). sargassum sp. has characteristics such as the shape of the thallus, generally cylindrical, lush branches resembling trees on land, the leaves are wide, oval or sword-like, have air bubbles (bladder) which are generally solitary, the length of the thallus can reach seven meters and is brown in color (pamungkas et al., 2013). this type of seaweed has high economic value because it contains alginate and iodine which are used in the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and textile industries (fitriani et al., 2023). iodine content of sargassum sp. dry during the process of making and serving tea amounting to 2,742.91 µg/g bw (nurdayat, 2005). addition of sargassum sp. cakes can increase the iodine content by 0.16 mg/100 g (darmawan et al., 2004). pa ge 69 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 68-74, 2024 fortification fortification is the process of enriching a food ingredient with certain substances (edam, 2016). the government’s response to iodine deficiency is through iodine fortification of table salt in the form of kio3. salt fortification with iodine is mandatory in indonesia (novitriani, 2015). seaweed, which has a fairly high iodine content, can be used as a fortifying ingredient in food and has been proven to increase iodine levels (zava and zava, 2011). iodide in seaweed functions as an antioxidant that protects the apoplast (cell wall space) in the cortex cell layer (küpper, 2015). banu’s (2015) research shows that the addition of sargassum cristaefolium to cereal flakes can increase the iodine content which ranges from 9.07 ppm to 16.42 ppm. materials and methods materials and tools the materials needed are sargassum sp., krosok salt, distilled water, chloroform, naoh, nacl, h2so4, ki, agno3, k2cro4, na2s2o3.5h2o, starch indicator. the tools used are digital balance, beaker glass, vacuum pump, erlenmeyer, oven, rotary shaker food processor, hotplate, sem edx. seaweed extraction the seaweed is cleaned and sorted from sand and foreign objects by washing. the sargassum sp. that has been washed is then soaked in lime water, followed by drying under sunlight at 45°c for 3 days. once dried, the sargassum sp. is cleaned from lime residue through washing and then dehydrated using a dehydrator at 50°c for 4-5 hours. subsequently, it is ground finely with 150 grams using a grinder. maceration is carried out using 300 ml of chloroform at a ratio of 1:2 (w/v) in a rotary orbital shaker for 72 hours at 120 rpm. the filtered solution is then dried in an oven at 44°c for 48 hours, covered with aluminum foil (arisandi et al., 2023). the results of iodine extract from sargassum sp. weighed according to the treatment, namely concentrations of 60 ppm (0.0189 g), 70 ppm (0.0220 g), and 80 ppm (0.0252 g). krosok salt purification krosok salt was weighed as much as 315 grams, dissolved in 1 liter of distilled water and then heated at 70oc for 15 minutes. after a temperature of 25oc-30oc, 90 ml of 2n naoh was added and allowed to settle for 45 minutes then filtered with a vacuum pump. then the recrystallization stage was carried out using a hot plate at a temperature of 250oc to form crystals (rahem and kartika, 2020). after that, the iodization process was carried out by dripping sargassum sp iodine solution. with various treatments, namely 0 ppm, 60 ppm, 70 ppm, and 80 ppm then stirred with a food processor for 5 minutes (manek et al., 2022). water content measurement analyze the levels using a moisture analyzer by adding 2 grams to the aluminum base and then closing it, the tool will heat the product and the results will be printed on the tool (kumalasari, 2012). sodium chloride measurement determination of nacl levels in salt according to sni 3556:2016 is carried out by weighing 10 grams of salt samples. dissolve in 40 ml of distilled water, stir, and filter into a 100 ml measuring flask. rinse with distilled water until it reaches the flask line (solution a). add 1 ml of 5% k2cro4 solution to the sample solution and titrate with 0.1 n agno3 solution until a brick red color forms. measurement of the insoluble part in water testing for the water insoluble part according to sni 3556:2016 is carried out by drying the filter paper and porcelain cup at a temperature of (105 ± 2)oc for one hour, then weighing (w0). a 4 gram salt sample was dissolved in 100 ml of distilled water, heated for 30 minutes, then filtered. the filter paper and porcelain cup were dried again at the same temperature, cooled, and weighed to obtain a constant weight (w1). iodine measurement determination of iodine levels according to sni 3556:2016 is carried out by weighing 25 grams of salt sample and dissolving it with 75 ml of distilled water. add 3 ml of 2n h2so4 and 7.5 ml of 10% ki solution, then let the reaction take place in a dark place for 10 minutes. next, titrate the salt solution with na2s2o3 until a straw yellow color appears, add 2 ml of starch indicator to change the color to blue, and continue the titration until the solution is clear again. metal contamination measurement test for heavy metal contamination using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (aas). the standard sample solution is put into an aas test tube. the system is regulated via computer, the flame and aas cathode lamp are turned on to achieve maximum absorption. the standard solution was absorbed in an arsitelin air flame, and the atomic absorption results were recorded to determine the metal concentration in the sample based on the aas calibration curve (warni et al., 2017). sample surface structure testing this test was carried out using a sem tool, which is an electron microscope used to investigate the surface of solid objects directly, with a magnification of up to 3,000,000x, a depth of field of 0.4 4 mm, and a resolution of 1 10 nm (walewangko et al., 2021). analysis of the synthesized solid zsm-5 using sem-edx was carried out to evaluate its morphology and element content. the solid was placed on a carbon tape base and coated with pd/au for 15 minutes at a pressure of 6 x 10-2 mbar (dismayanda and prasetyoko, 2015). pa ge 70 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 68-74, 2024 results and discussion water content test results the results of the one way anova statistical test on salt consumption showed that there was a significant difference (p<0.05). duncan’s further test showed that the lowest water content value was the addition of 60 ppm iodine (p1) at 1.29% and the highest was the addition of 80 ppm iodine (p3) at 0.55%. according to sni 3556:2016, the maximum allowable moisture content in consumption salt is 7%. the moisture content in purified salt meets the quality standards specified by the sni. table 1: water content test results sample water content (%) information means ± sd sni 3556:2016 p0 0,62ab ± 0,06 maximum 7% comply with sni p1 1,29c ± 0,05 p2 0,73b ± 0,12 p3 0,55a ± 0,11 table 2: sodium chloride level sample sodium chloride level (nacl) (%) information means ± sd sni 3556:2016 p0 94,53a ± 0,112 minimum 94 comply with sni p1 94,46a ± 0,085 p2 94,51a ± 0,090 p3 94,55a ± 0,053 table 3: water insoluble part sample water insoluble part (%) information means ± sd sni 3556:2016 p0 0.034c ± 0.0020 maximum 0,5 comply with sni p1 0.043d ± 0.0020 p2 0.015a ± 0.0046 p3 0.027b ± 0.0020 the level of moisture in salt can be influenced by impurities such as ca and mg compounds, which are hygroscopic and readily absorb water molecules (tobing and dewajai, 2020). increased moisture content also affects the sodium chloride (nacl) content in salt, as higher moisture levels lead to lower nacl content (kurniawan et al., 2019). sargassum sp. seaweed contains alginates or hydrocolloid algin, which are colloid systems formed by organic polymers in water (ode and wasahua, 2014). hydrocolloids can be used as additives to improve the quality of food products. this is due to their ability to easily absorb water and form gels (herawati, 2018). sodium chloride level test results the results of the one way anova statistical test on salt consumption showed that there was no significant difference (p<0.05). nacl levels based on the results of research conducted ranged from 94.36%-94.63%. according to sni 3556:2016, the minimum sodium chloride (nacl) content in consumption salt should be 94%. purified salt meets the quality standards set by sni. the increase in nacl content after purification with 2n naoh is due to the precipitation and filtration of impurities during the filtration process (ihsan and jaeni, 2002). the addition of naoh in the purification process is a method to bind impurities, thereby increasing the nacl content. the use of sodium hydroxide (naoh) 2n is particularly effective in enhancing the nacl content (pujiastuti et al., 2018). water insoluble part test results the results of the one way anova statistical test on salt consumption showed that there was a significant difference (p<0.05). duncan’s further test showed that the lowest value of the insoluble part in water was the addition of 60 ppm iodine (p1) of 0.043% and the highest was the addition of 70 ppm iodine (p2) of 0.015%. according to sni 3556:2016, the maximum pa ge 71 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 68-74, 2024 allowable insoluble residue in consumption salt is 0.5%. after purification, the insoluble residue content in salt shows that all samples meet the sni standards. after recrystallization with the addition of naoh, there is a reduction in the insoluble residue content in salt due to the filtration process used to separate impurities. iodine in seaweed exists in the form of inorganic iodine compounds such as iion and io3-, which are fully soluble in water, and low-molecular-weight organic iodine molecules that remain in the insoluble residue (hou et al., 1997). iodine level test results the results of the one way anova statistical test on salt consumption showed that there was a significant difference (p<0.05). duncan’s further test showed that the lowest iodine content value was the addition of 0 ppm iodine (p0) of 20.60 mg/kg and the highest was the addition of 80 ppm iodine (p3) of 39.18 mg/kg. based on sni 3556:2016, the minimum iodine content in consumption salt should be 30 mg/kg. after iodization with iodine from sargassum sp., the iodine content in salt meets the sni standards. table 4: iodine level sample iodine level (mg/kg) information means ± sd sni 3556:2016 p0 20,60a ± 0,99 minimum 30 does not comply with sni p1 33,26b ± 0,66 comply with snip2 35,61c ± 0,31 p3 39,18d ± 1.21 research results have shown a decrease in iodine content in consumption salt compared to the intended formulation. formulation p1, which aimed to add 0.0189 grams of iodine per 315 grams of salt to achieve a iodine content of 60 ppm, yielded an iodine content of only 33.54 ppm. the longer the iodization or mixing process, the lower the iodine content in the salt, although the resulting mixture becomes more homogeneous (manek et al., 2022). storage conditions also affect iodine content in iodized salt. iodine content in iodized salt stored in transparent plastic containers decreases more significantly compared to salt stored in glass containers (aslinda and astuti, 2019). the iodine content from sargassum sp. used in this study resulted in lower iodine content in iodized consumption salt compared to the intended formulation. this is because the sargassum sp. underwent a soaking process using slaked lime or calcium hydroxide ca(oh)2. iodine can react with alkali metals such as calcium. soaking seaweed in a calcium hydroxide solution causes iodine content to decrease because ca(oh)2 is a basic solution that hydrolyzes iodine into hypoiodous acid and iodide, leading to higher ph levels which destabilize iodine (monikasari et al., 2021). metal contamination test results based on the results of testing for metal contamination in consumption salt, it shows that all treatments do not contain metal contamination such as cadmium (cd), lead (pb), mercury (hg), and arsenic (as). the testing results for heavy metal contaminants cd, pb, hg, and as in this study indicate that all samples did not detect any traces of these metals, adhering to the maximum allowable limits according to sni standards: cd ≤ 0.5 mg/kg, pb ≤ 10 mg/kg, hg ≤ 0.1 mg/kg, and as ≤ 0.1 mg/kg. table 5: metal contamination metal contamination test results (mg/kg) sni 3556:2016 krosok salt p0 p1 p2 p3 cadmium (cd) 0,13 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 maximum 0,5 lead (pb) 2,16 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 maximum 10,0 mercury (hg) 0,00012 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 maximum 0,1 arsenic (as) 0,025 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 maximum 0,1 the low levels of heavy metal contamination in the salt from this study are attributed to the filtration treatment, which effectively separates heavy metals in the salt. this is supported by said (2018), who noted that filtration treatments in saline water can reduce levels of heavy metal contaminants and other dissolved metals. sargassum sp. seaweed is rich in minerals such as na, k, ca, and mg. the low levels of cd, pb, hg, and as in iodized salt derived from sargassum sp. indicate that the habitat of sargassum sp. in the waters of kepulauan seribu is not contaminated with heavy metals, making it safe and suitable for use as raw material in consumption salt production. sargassum sp. has the ability to absorb heavy metals and is known for its effectiveness in removing metal ions and polar organic compounds. its extensive and shallow areas provide quick and reversible binding sites for ions (dewinta et al., 2022). pa ge 72 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 68-74, 2024 sample surface structure test results sem is a type of magnification tool that uses a focused electron beam to obtain information. this test is basically used for morphological examination and analysis. sem testing carried out at 2500x magnification and a scale bar of 50 μm, the appearance of the structure and particles in iodized consumable salt looks like solid granules and crystals with various spatial shapes, such as cubes and tubes with a slightly rough texture. increasing magnification indicates that the texture of consumption salt becomes clearer with a surface that is undulating, resembling the crystalline form of salt. the crystal size or particle size significantly influences the crystallinity and dissolution rate of salt crystals. regarding particle size, the size of particles figure 1: sem testing results of consumable salt at 2500x magnification figure 2: sem-edx testing graph affects the surface area of a crystal (sumarmi et al., 2017). from this magnification, the edx test is then continued to determine the chemical content. some of the most abundant elements are cl (chlorine), na (sodium), hg (mercury), c (carbon), as (arsenic), pb (lead), i (iodine), k (potassium), cd (cadmium). the na and cl content dominates the consumption salt formulation. the chemical compounds contained in iodized table salt can be seen in table 6. table 6: the results of edx testing for components in consumable salt element number element symbol element name atomic conc. (at. 100%) weight conc. (wt. 100%) 6 c carbon 11.160 4.012 11 na sodium 19.231 13.240 17 cl chlorine 66.716 70.812 19 k potassium 0.343 0.401 33 as arsenic 0.805 1.805 48 cd cadmium 0.119 0.401 53 i iodine 0.211 0.802 80 hg mercury 1.253 7.523 82 pb lead 0.162 1.003 pa ge 73 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 68-74, 2024 conclusion this study concludes that adding iodine from sargassum sp. impacts the quality of iodized table salt by increasing the iodine content. the optimal concentration for iodine fortification from sargassum sp. regarding the quality of iodized table salt is found in treatments with the addition of 80 ppm iodine from sargassum sp. references anggraini, p. (2018). utilization of seaweed (eucheuma cottonii) for high fiber and iodine bread. jurnal argipa, 3(1), 26-36. arifin z. 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(2020). literature review: quality stability and kinetic reaction calculation of iodine reduction in salt. journal of separation technology, 6(2), 362-372. walewangko, y., bujung, c. a., & rende, j. c. (2021). analysis of element composition and mineral types of soputan volcanic rock using sem-edx and ftir. jurnal fista: physics and its applications, 2(1), 5560. warni, d., karina, s., & nurfadillah, n. (2017). analysis of metals pb, mn, cu, and cd in sediments at meulaboh jetty port, west aceh. scientific journal of marine and fisheries students, unsyiah, 2(2), 246-253. wibowo, a. (2020). potential development of indonesian national standards (sni) for iodized salt products to improve competitiveness. meeting and scientific presentation of standardization. pages 79-88. zava, t. t., & zava, d. t. (2011). assessment of japanese iodine intake based on seaweed consumption in japan: a literature-based analysis. thyroid research, 4(1), 14. pa ge 1 pa ge 31 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) conceptual design of animal feed chopper with medium capacity degefa woyessa1*, geta kidanemariam2 volume 1 issue 1, year 2022 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v1i1.532 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: august 15, 2022 accepted: august 28, 2022 published: september 04, 2022 agriculture is the backbone of ethiopia economy directly or indirectly and most of its population is residing in rural areas. the majority of rural community is engaged in agricultural crop production, cattle farming and poultry production. to prepare feed for animals, the conventional feed cutting machines are intensively used which do not have friendly operation. chopping of animal feed is considered as a labour intensive processing operation in animal production system. traditionally, animal feed, especially crop residue are chopped manually by a sickle in the farms of ethiopia. it is a labor intensive, less efficient and time consuming operation. keeping in view, the drawbacks of the traditional chopping, this study has been carried out for the design animal feed chopper machine in order to reduce the above mentioned. engine operated animal feed chopper has been designed for chopping of crop residue and hay. the machine was designed with the following main components: feeding hopper, feed roller, rotating blade, casing with fixed knives welded on it, a screen and stands. the machine was seated treatment based on the design concepts and designed up to capacity 300 kg /hr. this machine was design keeping in view its multifunctional operation like for the cutting of maize stacks, sorghum stack, agricultural crop biomass etc. the provision was provided to run this machine at variable speeds for different jobs/applications and to achieve variability in particle sizes. the economic production of designed animal feed chopper machine was simple and its cost 10,618.45etbirr. keywords design concept, animal feed, chopper, silage making 1 oromia agricultural research institute, asella agricultural engineering research center, asella, ethiopia 2 bahir dar university, institute of technology, bahir dar, ethiopia * corresponding author’s e-mail: degefawoyessa20007@gmail.com introduction ethiopia has higher livestock population than any other country in africa. according to alemayehu (2002), livestock production contributes up to 80% of farmers’ income and about 20% of agricultural gdp in ethiopia. besides this, the increase in human population and decrease in land productivity results in the increase in demands for arable land. for this reason, scarcity of animal feed and inadequate grazing land are the major problems in the country. it is needless to say in ethiopia, traditionally livestock are mainly dependent on natural pasture and crop residue. therefore grazing is the common practice in the country. the grazing situation is exacerbated by the high density of cattle, with stocking rates of four times the recommended levels being reported in certain areas. this results in the decrease in livestock feed, both in quality and quantity, in the latter part of the dry season. usually residues from cereals are the main sources of feed, but these are low in nutrient content, and have poor digestibility and palatability. for this reason, livestock tend to lose their weight, and this, in turn, leads to the decrease in market value, draft power output, disease resistance and amount of milk from milking cows. in recent years, many farmers are engaged in fattening activities because of the opening of some livestock commercial channels to other countries, and also there is a great demand for local consumption. therefore this activity needs more attention to get a better return from the sector. in addition, in some parts of the country, there is a long dry season, while in the other part there is a bimodal rainfall pattern with two relatively short dry seasons. one of the options to overcome a feed shortage during these dry seasons is to preserve excess fodder grown in rainy season in the form of silage. in ethiopia, fodder making has never become a common practice. this is because without chopping compacting the material is difficult; and chopping is done manually with hand tools and so it consumes more labor. therefore, to make silage making attractive to farmers, chopping should be simple to apply and not too labor-intensive. in addition to assisting compaction during silage making, chopping has a great advantage in silage making to increase the surface area to volume ratio of fodder to facilitate the fermentation process by making free the cell juice and expelling the air. as stated above, farmers in ethiopia use farm residues of cereals as a feed source during the dry season. this residue has low palatability; to increase the palatability, farmers in ethiopia can practice manual chopping, but it is too labor intensive. even though ethiopia has a huge number of livestock population, the economic productivity is minimal than technically possible. among the many factors which contribute to this low economic productivity, feed shortage is the one. whether other factors are favorable or unfavorable for livestock production, the availability of feed greatly affects the livestock productivity. therefore, to increase the productivity of livestock, there has to be a means to alleviate feed shortage during the latter part of the dry season. silage making when fodder is in excess and chopping farm residues to use as a supplement of livestock feed are the options. but the non-availability of an attractive chopping mechanism, for farmers to make https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v1i1.532 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst mailto:degefawoyessa20007%40gmail.com?subject= pa ge 32 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 silage and chop farm residues, poses a challenge. hence the objective of this project was to design of animal feed chopper with the capacity of 300 kg/hr to assist farmers in silage making and chopping farm residues to use as feed for livestock. general objectives > to design of animal feed chopper with the capacity of 300 kg/hr specific objectives > to develop function structure component parts of the chopper > to prepare 3d and 2d drawing of the chopper > to prepare exploded drawing of chopper machine materials and methods design procedure/steps this project study was carried out after studying different research reports. both primary and secondary sources of information have been exploited to conduct the study. the design steps used for animal feed chopper were: > the gathering required information which is associated with agricultural operation for chopping systems. > lists of design requirement > the conceptual design of an appropriate system to meet their needs. > prepare the selection matrix for each concepts > rank the concepts > combine the concepts to make one product concept > select one or more products concept > using objective tree analysis, select one best product concept and analysis for each parts > modeling (using solid work). design aspects the main design aspects considered during chopper development were cost and complexity of fabrication, energy requirement, ergonomic factor, maintainability, material strength, kinematics and style. considering these design aspects tangential feed type chopper (hammer mill), without blowing fan and conveyor, was selected for this project. the machine is based on the principles of hammer mill by which size reduction is accomplished by the cutting effects of rotating knives against small stationary knife plates welded in the casing. since the knives are swinging there is less likelihood of risk even if hard inert material accidentally gets into the chopping chamber. feed enters into the chamber from the top of the chopper, and size reduction is done by the rotating knives; and finally, the output is discharged from the bottom of the machine. the knives cut the stover and other residue until they become small enough to pass through the bottom screen. fineness of chopping is controlled by the screen size. it is obvious that the smaller the screen size, the more work will be required to reduce the particles to the desired size. generally, the technology is simple in construction and easy to manipulate, and the replacement of parts does not cost much. design concept concept generation the concept generation process begins with a set of customers need and target specification and results in a set product concepts from which we make the final specification. introducing low cost automation was to overcome problems with the current manual or traditional method. in this mechanism there are a numbers of uncertain chopping machines such as hand operated chop. the concept of the work is, > observe the manual methods to identify the important process variables. > quantify the important method > investigate all areas of automated forming. > produce a specification for a low cost automated system. > refined design of the machine, as this plays a major role in rural area. the above considering point we can design the semi-automated machine which replace manual process. design requirements the system was more probably chosen search for by fulfilling the following general design requirement. > simplicity of technology > high efficiency with its capacity of 300kg/hr > low maintenance and repair cost > small in size to transport from place to place > less number of component > more accurate system as possible > safe and easy to operation > low manufacturing cost > easy to assemble and maintainability and also power sources concept selection concept selection is process of evaluating concepts with respect to customers need and other criteria, comparing the relative strength and weakness of the concepts for further investigation, testing, or developing. option selection of the concept the following possible alternative options will have deal in the variant evaluation. after constructing the decision tree the system may follow the shaded region as follow. the selection was based on the availability source and simple system. the option selection of the concepts was: > high efficiency, simplicity of technology and economy concept > animal feed chopping techniques (traditional, manual and engine operated chopping system) and > selection of power sources (a= generator, b= solar energy, c= engine and d= manual operation) > power transmission system (vbelt driving, gear driving , chain and sprocket) https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 33 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 table 1: selective system option required power generator solar energy engine manual operation chopping techniques tradition method manual method engine method power supply system chain and sprocket gear driving vbelt driving feeding system belt convey manual feeding gravity and vibration functional structure figure 1: functional structure evaluation of concept of selection design criteria selection of design criteria figure 2: structure of the objective tree https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 34 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 table 2: determination of weighting factors of the ending branches and compiling no end branches sub weighting factor overall weighting factor 1 o111 0.25 x 0.4 0.10 2 o1121 0.4x0.3x0.4 0.048 3 o1122 0.6 x 0.3 x 0.4 0.072 4 o113 0.45 x 0.3 x 0.4 0.054 5 o121 0.45 x 0.3 0.135 6 o122 0.55 x 0.3 0.165 7 o131 0.6 x 0.3 0.18 8 o132 0.4 x 0.3 0.12 assessment of values and determination of overall values the values are expressed in points of use value analysis approaches by giving 1 for more important criterion and 0 for less important criterion in a given pair of criteria to be evaluated. weighting evaluation criteria of the objective tree according to the weighting evaluation putting assigning of weighting factors for each criterion by overall “o” letters. weighting evaluation based on the structure of the objective tree figure 3: assignment of weighting factor for each criterion table 3: weighted and un-weighted overall values determination criteria 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 un weighted over all weighted over all 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 4 4/28 (0.143 ) 2 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 2 2/28 (0.071 ) 3 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 2 2/28 (0.071 ) 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 7/28 (0.25 ) 5 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 4 4/28 (0.143 ) 6 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 3 3/28 (0.107 ) 7 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1/28 (0.036) 8 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 5 5/28 (0.179 ) total 28 1 un-weighted overall value was calculated by: weighted comparing concept variants overall value was calculated by table 4: satisfaction for achieving the criteria in percentage satisfaction (%) description 100 excellent, complete satisfaction, objective satisfied in every aspect 85 very good, extensive satisfaction, objective satisfied in all of important aspect 70 good, considerable satisfaction, objective satisfied in the majority of aspects 50 fair, moderate satisfaction, a middle point bin complete and no satisfaction 25 bad, minor satisfaction, objective satisfied in some but less than half of the aspect 10 failure, minimal satisfaction ,objective satisfied to very small extent 0 no satisfaction, objective is not satisfied in any aspect showing concept variant result in decision matrix of chopping techniques three animal feed chopping techniques are considered to chop maize stack, sorghum stack with different range of output within the specified time according to their capacity. these concept variant are traditional https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 35 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 feed chopping, manual operated feed chopping and engine operated feed chopping machine. a = traditional chopping, b= engine operated chopping machine and c= manual operated feed chopping. from the table 4 the maximum value of concept variant is 84.68 at b. therefore engine operated animal feed chopping machine was the final selection. power supply is one type of the input needed to operate chopper machine. there are four concept variant are considered to chopping 300 kg/hr within different duration of time according to capacity of device to generate power. these concept variant are generator, solar energy, electric motor and manually operated. let denoting a= generator, b= solar energy, c= engine/ motor and d= manual operation. after the result of overall satisfaction is known for each concept variant then making decision applied. table 5: decision making matrix for feed chopping technique criteria alternative 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 overall satisfaction 𝑜𝑤𝑣𝑖 0.143 0.071 0.071 0.25 0.143 0.107 0.036 0.179 a % 25 70 25 10 80 70 70 20 % ×owvi 3.575 4.97 1.775 2.5 11.44 7.49 2.52 3.58 32.5 b % 85 80 90 95 65 80 75 90 % ×owvi 12.15 5.68 6.39 23.75 9.3 8.56 2.7 16.11 84.68 c % 80 85 60 75 85 85 50 80 % ×owvi 11.44 6.035 4.26 18.75 12.15 9.10 1.8 14.32 77.8 table 6: decision of matrix for selecting the best power supply devices criteria alternative 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 overall satisfaction rank 𝑜𝑤𝑣𝑖 0.143 0.071 0.071 0.25 0.143 0.107 0.036 0.179 a % 25 25 10 20 30 90 10 40 % * owvi 3.575 1.775 0.71 5 4.29 9.63 0.36 7.16 32.5 4th b % 10 80 50 20 80 40 20 60 % * owvi 1.43 5.68 3.55 5 11.44 4.28 0.72 10.74 42.84 3rd c % 80 95 80 90 85 85 100 80 % * owvi 11.44 6.745 5.68 22.5 12.155 9.095 3.6 14.32 85.535 1st d % 60 80 75 80 75 60 75 70 % * owvi 8.58 5.68 5.325 20 10.725 6.42 2.7 12.53 71.96 2nd here as shown in the table, the maximum rating is 85.53 and hence concept variant c was selected as the best concept or alternative. therefore engine was the most appropriate power supply needed to operate animal feed chopping machine. the other concept variant take into consideration is power transmission system. power is transmitted from the motor to elements of the machine by using mechanical devices such as belt, chain and gear. denoting a= belt drive, b= chain drive and c= driving by gear. from this decision matrix, the best concept table 7: decision matrix for selecting the best transmission system criteria alternative 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 overall satisfaction rank 𝑜𝑤𝑣𝑖 0.143 0.071 0.071 0.25 0.143 0.107 0.036 0.179 a % 95 90 75 65 85 75 70 80 % * owvi 13.58 6.39 5.32 16.25 12.15 8 2.52 14.32 78.55 1st b % 70 60 60 70 60 65 70 90 % * owvi 10.01 4.26 4.26 17.5 8.58 6.95 2.52 16.11 70.19 2nd c % 50 70 80 85 70 65 55 40 % * owvi 7.15 4.97 5.68 21.25 10.01 6.95 1.98 7.16 65.15 3rd variant was concept a. it was 78.55; therefore belt drive was chosen to transfer the power from engine or motor to the parts of the chopping machine. the other concept variant take into consideration is feeding system. denoting a= manual feeding, b= belt conveyor and c= gravity and vibration table 8: decision matrix for selecting the best feeding system criteria alternative 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 overall satisfaction rank 𝑜𝑤𝑣𝑖 0.143 0.071 0.071 0.25 0.143 0.107 0.036 0.179 a % 95 90 75 65 85 75 70 80 % * owvi 13.58 6.39 5.32 16.25 12.15 8 2.52 14.32 78.55 1st b % 70 60 60 70 60 65 70 90 % * owvi 10.01 4.26 4.26 17.5 8.58 6.95 2.52 16.11 70.23 2nd https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 36 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 c % 50 70 80 85 70 65 55 40 % * owvi 7.15 4.97 5.68 21.25 10.01 6.95 1.98 7.16 64.15 3rd from this decision matrix, the best concept variant was concept a. it was 78.55; therefore manual feeding was chosen in terms to economic visibility of the chopping. design and analysis of animal feed chopper animal feed chopper was driven by motor and makes the driving of main shaft by belt. under the high-speed rotation with cutter making the feed become filiform and powder, the feeds will be outflow from the material outlet through outlet parts of the chopper. feed chopper are made up of feeding part, cutting and throwing part, transmitting part, and safety device, so it was reasonably structured safe and reliable. o feeding part is feed rollers. o cutting structure made up of motion knife and locking bolt. o transmitting structure mainly consist of belt, gears, pulley selection of motor consider the design requirements (capacity given 300kg/hr) from the literature survey known that the torque of the motor must be between 30-80nm was sufficient for feed chopper. for this project the selected net torque 50nm and speed requirement 240rpm. therefore, the power requirement for the animal feed chopper was calculated by the following formula. p=(2π n t)/60………………………….(3) where, p = power, kw n= number of revolution (rpm) t = torque, nm p =(2π ×240× 50)/60 = 1.25 kw, therefore we have to select 2 hp = 2×0.746 = 1.5 kw was sufficient design and selection of pulley diameters the pulleys used in the drive system were made of cast iron. pulley diameters were selected based on the need to reduce the engine speed to the required one. the pulleys must be in perfect alignment in order to allow the belt to travel in a line normal to the pulley faces. the pulleys may be made of cast iron, cast steel or pressed steel, wood and paper. the cast materials should have good friction and wear characteristics. the pulleys made of pressed steel are lighter than cast pulleys, but in many cases, they have lower friction and may produce excessive wear (sharma & mukesh, 2010). in our case the pulleys are generally made of cast iron, because of their low cost. the rim is held in place by web from the central boss or by arms or spokes. the following equation was used to determine pulley diameters. design of hub the hub of a pulley is one of the most important components part. it gives support to the spokes and the shaft. the diameter of the hub was calculated using following formula. the outside of the hub is given by nisbett & richard (2011). d =1.50d + 25.0……………………….(7) dh=1.5d+25 =1.5×30+25 =70mm where: d = outside diameter of hub, mm d = diameter of shaft, mm the length, l, of hub is given by nisbett & richard (2011) l= (π × d)/2………………………… (8) l=π/2×d=π/2×30mm =47mm let us use two belts in order to increase the speed of the chopper and then we have two pairs of pulleys. the speed of the first pulley in the twice of the second pulley, take assume n1 = 25.57rpm. then, the speed ratio was calculated n1= 25.57 rpm, d1 = 180mm, d2 = 90mm then the speed of the second pulley n2 can be found the following relation n2/n1=d1/d2,n2=n1×d1/d2 =25.57×180/90=51.14rpm determination of pulley weight circular shape was used in the construction of the chopper pulley. the weight of the pulley was calculated as follows. ap= (πd2)/4………………........…….(9) =(π×0.182)/4=0.025m2 where, ap = area of pulley material d = diameter of pulley, m the volume of pulley material was computed using the following equations (itsi-su, 2011); vp= ap × t………………………(10) =0.025 × 0.0039m =9.92×10-5m3 mass of pulley material was computed using the following equations. the density of cast iron pulley (ρ) = 7200kg/ m3 (itsi-su, 2011) mp= vp × ρ………………………..…(11) =9.92×10-5m3×7200kg/m3 =0.714kg weight of pulley material was computed using the following equations (gat, 1988) wp= mp× g……………………...…..(12) weight of larger pulley, wp1=mp1×g=0.714kg×9.81m/s2 =7.004n mass of smaller pulley, mp2=ρ×v=ρ×(πd2)/4×t=7200×( π×0.092)/4×0.00345=0.158kg weight of smaller pulley, wp2=mp2×g=0.158kg×9.81m/ s2 =1.55n determination of torque transmitted by the pulley a first drive cast iron pulley transmits 96.98w at 25.57rpm. the diameter of largest pulley is 180mm and has smooth straight arms of elliptical straight arms of cross-section in which the major axis is twice the minor axis. find the dimensions of the arm if the allowable bending stress is https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 37 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 15mpa. mention the plane in which the major axis of the arm should lie. let b1 = minor axis, and b2 = major axis = 2b1 known that the torque transmitted by the pulley t=(p×180)/2πn………………………(13) =(96.98×180)/(2π×25.57) =17456.4/160.58=108.7nm maximum bending moment at the hub end, m=2t/n =(2×108.7n.m)/1=217.42nm and section modulus, z=π/32×b1 (b2) 2…………… …(14) =π/32×b1×(2b1) 2 =π/32×4b1 3=(πb1 3)/8 known that the bending stresses, σb 15=m/z=(217.42×8×103)/(π×b1 3)=(1739.34×103)/ (π×b1 3 ) b1 3=(1739.34×103)/(15×π)=36.93×103mm3 b1=33.3mm b2=2b1=2×3.33=66.6mm a first driven cast iron pulley transmits 96.98watt at 51.14rpm. the diameter of this pulley was 90mm and has full arms of elliptical straight arms of cross-section in which the major axis is twice the minor axis. find the dimensions of the arm if the allowable bending stress is 15mpa. mention the plane in which the major axis of the arm should lie. σb=15mpa=15 n/m2 let b1 = minor axis, and b2 = major axis = 2b1 known that the torque transmitted by the pulley, t=(p×90)/2πn=(96.98×90)/(2×π×51.14)=8728.2/3 21.16=27.18nm maximum bending moment per arm at the hub end, m=2t/n=(2×27.18)/1=27.18nm and section modulus, z=(π(b1) 3)/8………………………………(15) known that the bending stress,σb, 15=m/z=(27.18×8×103)/(πb1 3)=(217.44×103)/(πb1 3 ) b1 3=(217.44×103)/(15×π) =4616.56mm3 b1=16.65mm therefore, 2b1=2×16.65mm=33.3mm selection of the drive belt v-belt and pulley arrangements were used in this work to transmit power from the engine to the roller shaft. the main reasons for using the v-belt drive was its flexibility, simplicity, and low maintenance costs. additionally, the vbelt has the ability to absorb shocks there by mitigating the effect of vibratory forces (khurmi & gupta, 2005). determination of belt contact angle the belt contact angle is given by the following equation (khurmi & gupta, 2005). φ=sin-1 ( (r-r)/l)…………………….(16) φ= sin-1( (180mm-90mm)/1203.13) =sin-1 (0.0748) =4.29° the angles of wrap for the smaller and larger pulleys are determined by the following equation: α1=1802sin-1 ( (r-r)/l)…………… ..…..(17) =180-2sin-1 ( (180mm-90mm)/1203.13) =180-2sin-1 ( 0.0748)=171.42° α2=180+2sin-1 ( (r-r)/l)………………..(18) =180+2sin-1 ( (180mm-90mm)/1203.13) =180+2sin-1 ( 0.0748)=188.58° where: r = radius of larger pulley, mm; r = radius of smaller pulley, mm; α1 = angle of wrap for the engine pulley, degree; α2 = angle of wrap for the roller shaft pulley, degree; c = is the center distance between the two center pulleys. therefore, by using the above equations the determined values of φ, α1 and α2 were 4.290, 171.420 and 188.580 respectively. determination of belt length the length of belt appropriate to drive the system was calculated using the equation given below by shigley (2001). assume the distance between driver pulley and driven pulley, 180mm according to frame structure. center distance (c) of driven pulleys was given by: c = 90/2 + 225 + 90/2 = 387 mm l=2c+π/2 (d1+d2 )+(d2-d1 ) 2/4c………….(19) l=π/2(90mm+180mm)+2×387mm+(180mm90mm)2/(4×387mm) =423.9mm+774mm+5.23mm =1203.13mm where: l = belt length, m; c = center distance between pulleys, m; d2 = pitch diameter of driven pulley, m; d1 = pitch diameter of driver pulley, m. since the calculated length of v belt is equal to the closest standard belt the exact center distance is also correct. therefore, center distance was equal to 387mm. speed of the belt was calculated by using the following equation as given by (khurmi & gupta, 2005). v=1+(π×d1×n1)/60………………(20) =1+(π×0.18m×25.57rpm)/60=1+0.24=1.24 m/s determination of belt tensions power requirement for animal feed chopper was 1.5 kw. as losses in between pulley arrangement is considered, i.e., figure 4: chopper pulley 3d view https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 38 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 such that belt pulley power transmission efficiency is 8595%. to determine tensions on the tight and slack sides of the belt the following equations was used (khurmi & gupta, 2005). calculate belt tension and width: design a rubber v-belt to drive a machine with 96.98w at 25.57 rpm and fitted with a pulley 180mm diameter. allowable stress for belt, σ=2.1mpa=2.1×106 n⁄m2 density of rubber,ρ=1000 kg⁄m3 = 1000 kg / m3 angle of contact driver pulley, θ=165°=165×π/180=2.88rad coefficient of friction between belt and pulley, μ=0.3 power transmitted (p) p=(t1-t2 )×v…………………………(21) 96.98w=(t1-t2)×1.24 m⁄s t1-t2=96.98w/(1.24 m⁄s)=78.2n………….….(22) we know that, 2.3 logt1/t2 =μ×θ =0.3×2.88=0.864rad logt1/t2 =0.3756rad t1/t2 =2.375n……………………………..(23) from equations (22) and (23), t1=135.1n t2=56.87n let b= width of the belt in meters, and t = thickness of the belt in meters. assuming thickness of the belt, t= 10 mm = 0.01 m, cross-sectional area of the belt a=b×t=b×0.01=0.01bm2 the mass of the belt per meter length, m=area×length×density =0.01bm2×1.203m×1000 kg⁄(m3 =12.03bkg/m) according to khurmi & gupta, 2005 torsional moment (tr) due to single belt tensions was determined using the following equation. tc=m×v2…………………..………..…(24) =12.03b(1.24)2=18.5bn the maximum tension in the belt t=σmax×b×t………………………...(25) =2.1×106×b×0.01 =21000bn and tension in the tight side of belt (t2), 56.87n=t-tc =21000bn-18.5bn =20981.5bn b=56.87n/20981.5n=0.0435m=43.5mm. therefore, the standard width of the belt b is 50 mm. where: tc and t= the centrifugal and maximum tension of the belts (n); t1 and t2 = tension in the tight and slack sides (n); σmax= maximum safe normal stress (n/mm2); m = mass per unit length of belt (kg/m) and v = is speed of belt (m/s). feeding hopper design hopper, use as a feeding unit is part of animal feed chopping machine that serves material cutting into the blade housing. the cutting material is fed manually through the hopper from the top side. hopper or feeding trough is used to feed fodder such as maize stack, cutting grass etc. hopper decides capacity of feed cutter. the main purpose of hopper is providing direction to fodder and bring contact with cutting blade. the hoppers house the materials and deliver the materials to the feed roller at regulated feed rate. the hopper has a shape which facilitates loading, maximum volume utilization and reliable and complete gravity discharge through its outlet. the volume of the hopper was calculated by the following equation: v=h/2 (a1+a2+√(a1 a2 ))………...(26) a1=354 mm×152mm =53,808mm2 a2=270 mm×98mm =26,460mm2 v=460mm/2(53,808mm2+26,460mm2+√(53,808 〖mm2×26,460mm2 )) v=0.00143m^3 where, v= volume of hopper, mm3, h = height, (460mm) a1 = base area of truncated cone, top of hopper, mm2 a2 = base area of truncated cone, bottom of hopper, mm2 determination weight of feeding hopper trapezoidal shape was used in the construction of the animal feeding hopper. the weight was calculated as follows. mass of feeding hopper material was computed using the following equations (itsi-su, 2011) mf= af ×t ×ρf…………………….(27) mf=0.08 m2×1.5×10-3 m×7850kg/m3 mf= 0.945 kg weight of feeding material was computed using the following equations (gat, 1988) wf= mf × g………………………(28) =0.945 kg ×9.81m/s2 =9.272 n figure 5: feeding hopper 3d view main frame main frame is generally consists of four legs and made up of angle iron .the whole machine was mounted over the legs. the minimum height of the stand is approximately 550mm from the ground level for easy feeding of the crop in standing posture of the user. all detail dimension was described under the appendix, only the isometric view was drawn in the below figure. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 39 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 figure 6: main frame 3d views (all dimension in mm) design of shaft this shaft made up of mild steel carbon which is use for fitting the pulley and transmitting the motion of the feeder roller through the worm and gear. the main shaft was strictly attached with the pulley in its center whereas the other end is supported on a block through bearings. the length and diameter of the main shaft was calculated below. the shafts were designed on the basis of strength rigidity and stiffness. in designing shafts of the basis of strength, the following cases may be considered that is the shaft will be designed by considering the following. shaft subjected to a twisting moment to find the diameter of the shaft when the shaft was subjecting moment (torque) only t/j=τ/r………………….......…………(29) where: t = twisting moment or torque acting on the shaft. j = polar moment of inertia of the shaft about the axis of rotation. τ = torsional shear stress and r = diametric distance from neutral axis to the outer most fiber. the allowable shear stress for the shaft material was calculated as τ=σu/2fs……………………………...(30) =560mpa/(2*3.5) =560mpa/7=80mpa where, σu=560mpa for carbon steel fs = factor of safety 3.5 from the equation t=π/16 τ*d3……………………….(31) the diameter of the shaft by considering twisting of the shaft t=π/16×τ×d3=50000nmm=π/16*80*d3, d3=(50000*16)/(80*π),d=14.27mm shaft subjected to bending moment when the shaft is subjected to bending moment only, then the maximum stress was given by m/i=σb/y……………………………(32) where m = bending moment i = moment of inertia of cross sectional of shaft σb = bending stress y = distance from neutral axis to the outer most fiber for round solid shaft, moment of inertia is found by i=π/64*d4 and y=d/2 substitution in equation (32) m=π/32*σb*d3…………………….(33) the maximum bending moment of the carbon steel was, m = 424320nmm. substituting the above values to determine diameter of the shaft m=π/32*σb*d3 424320nmm=π/32*160mpa*d3 d3=(424320*32)/(π*160)=27013.05, d=27013.05=30mm therefore, for the design we should have to taking the maximum of the two 30mm > 14.27mm, the diameter of the shaft was , d = 30mm. mass of shaft was calculated by the following equation m=ρ*v…………………………….(34) shaft made up of carbon steel with density of 7853kg/ m3. v=a*l=(πd2)/4*l =(π*(0.03)2*0.7)/4 =4.95×10-4m3 mass of shaft material was computed using the following equations (gat, 1988) ms = 4.95×10-4m3× 7850kg/m3 =3.885 kg the weight of the shaft was estimated using the following equations ws =ms×g ws =3.885 kg×9.81 m/s2 =38.12 n figure 7: design of chopper shaft design of gear the gears are used to transmit power .by changing the gear used; the speed can be adjusted to obtain various cutting lengths. these gears are used to transmit the https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 40 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 power from main shaft to feeding rollers. assume that the speed of lower roller was = 55 rpm let power transmitted = 1.5 kw. let take input output = 240 rpm out -put speed =55 rpm the gear was made from hard steel material having ultimate bending stresses (σut=700 n/mm2), number of teeth on gears was calculated by the following formula. t2/t1 =n1/n2 …………………….……(35) t2=n1/n2 ×t1 t2=240/55×t1, assume, t1=16 teeth, t2=240/55×16 =70 teeth figure 8: design of 3d view of gear chopper blade these blades are made up of high carbon steel or alloy steel. the function of the blade is to cut the silage material that can be chopped into smaller pieces suitable for animal feed. there are four cutting blades used in this machine figure 9: 3d view chopper blade estimation of force required in cutting chopper blade estimation of force required in cutting chopper blade was calculated by the following formula (khope & modak., 2013) f=a×ns×s……….....................……….(36) where, f = force required in cutting the silage a = cross section area of individual stem ns = number of stem at a time in throat s = shear strength of material housing/upper cover housing covers the cutting sharp edge. housing protects the person from not touching the cutting edges accidentally. figure 10: 3d view housing or upper cover feeding roller there are two feed rollers, upper feed roller and lower feed roller, present in the fodder chopper. these rollers are made up of cast iron and have teeth on its periphery. the chopped material was first feed to the rollers, which in turn grip the material and then it move forward to the cutting blade. the lower feed roller was fix while the upper feed roller is spring loaded which can move up and down depending upon the quantity of silage being fed. figure 9: 3d view chopper blade joints a joint is a rigid rod that allows the rod to bend in any direction, and is commonly used in shafts that transmit rotary motion. it consists of a pair of hinges located close together, oriented at 90° to each other, connected by a cross shaft. figure 12: 3d view ucp bearing or joint https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 41 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 chopper rotor with its assembly these are made up of hard metal steel plates. these rotor acts as the rotating member of the silage cutting mechanism figure 13: 3d view chopper rotor with assembly working principle of animal feed chopper engine drives the main shaft with the help of belt drive. gears, pulleys and blades are mounted on the main shaft. main shaft drives the blade and gears mounted on it. power was transmitted to the feeding roller with the help of gear system. silage was entered through the hopper to feeding roller. feeding roller moves the silage to the cutting head. blades cut the silage into uniform small pieces and throw the final product outside the machine. measurements the following items were measured and estimated during evaluating the forage chopper under the studied parameters: theoretical and actual lengths of cut the theoretical lengths of cut lth was calculated using the following equation according to (telang, 2016; sankpal et al., 2017). lth=(60000vf)/(λk n_c )……………….……(37) where: lth = length of cut, cm vf = feed velocity, m/s (peripheral speed of feeding mechanism); nc = cutter head rotational speed, rpm, and λk = number of knives on the cutter head. cutting efficiency the cutting efficiency of the animal feed chopping was calculated as follows ƞc=lth/lac ×100…………………….(38) where, ƞc = cutting efficiency, % lac = actual length, (mm) and lth = theoretical length, (mm). feed chopper capacity the theoretical capacity tth, in ton per hour, was expressed by the following relationship tth=(ρf×at×lc×λk×ƞc)/(6×108 )….......(39) where: tth = theoretical capacity, kg/s; ρf = density of forage in the thereat, in kg/m3; at = thereat area, in cm2; lc = theoretical length of cut in mm; λk = number of knives on cutterhead, and ƞc= speed of cutter head, rpm. cad drawing of the parts and its assembly figure 14: inlet figure 15: inlet top cover figure 16: bolt and nut https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 42 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 figure 17: feeding hopper/inlet assembly figure 18: hinge flange figure 19: hinge pin figure 20: outlet figure 21: enclosure main side panels figure 22: enclosure main front inlet panels figure 23: electronic enclosure figure 24: guard mount figure 25: electronic enclosure mount figure 20: main assembly of animal feed chopper with pulley guard https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 43 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 methods of manufacturing for each part and assembly for constructing of products materials are needed. all these processes used in manufacturing concern for changing the ingots into usable products it includes as shaping processes, machining processes, metal forming processes, joining processes, surface finishing processes and processes effecting change in properties. therefore, animal feed chopper was manufacturing by the following method given in tables below: s. no components methods of manufacturing pats 1 main shaft facing,grinding, boring and turning 2 feeding hopper bending, welding and joining 3 feed rolls casting, rolling and shaping 4 housing/upper cover bending, drilling and joining 5 feed roll shaft rolling, grinding and slotting 6 gears grooving, casting and shaping 7 pulley shaping, rolling and machining 8 chopper blade grinding, shaping, punching and drilling 9 main frame sawing, drilling, cutting, welding and joining 10 chopper rotor shaping, rolling, 11 pulley guard bending, drilling and joining by bolt and nut 12 hinge flap rolling 13 engine setting joining by bolt and nut and drilling 14 outlet bending, welding and joining by bolt and nut table 9: technical specifications of animal feed chopper s. no type specification 1 number of gear 02 2 number of rollers 02 3 number of blades 04 4 width chopper 1042 mm 5 height chopper 950 mm 6 capacity 300 kg/hr 7 approx. weight 120 kg 8 engine speed 240 rpm 9 types of belt used v-belt drive 10 feeding hopper length 450 mm, width 250mm, height 235 mm 11 frame 550 mm in long, 430 mm in wide estimation of production costs in designing and manufacturing a technology, cost analysing is one important factor to assure the reliability and affordability of that technology. for a given system, the cost of a subsystem (performing one function) can be estimated from individual components or functional groups. these costs are added together to give the total system costs. the cost estimating technique starts from a set of engineering drawings for components of an assembly, and calculates the cost of each operation involved in component manufacturing, assembling and finishing. to minimize the cost of manufacturing processes, eliminating unnecessary operations has a great effect on it. this can be achieved through proper planning, following sequence of operation and grouping of individual operation or group of operations in succession. grouping operations has the following advantages; reduced fixed cost reduced labour cost less handling reduced setup time smaller in process inventory depending on the types of manufacturing process, total cost of the designed machine was determined by considering the following. the main elements of cost analysis includes direct material total cost standard items cost direct labour cost operation cost direct material total cost to determine the total cost of direct materials used in the manufacture of the animal feed chopper a material balance and flow sheet should be developed. once the materials balances established, raw material prices must be assessed and identified. therefore the materials and their current cost needed to manufacture the chopper were studied from the current markets. cost summary of the animal feed chopper without engine table 9.1: cost summary of the animal feed chopper without engine 1 2 3 4 5 6 ra w m at er ia l c os t (b irr ) m at er ia l w as ta ge 2. 5 % o f 1 ( b irr ) m ac hi ne c os t (b irr ) l ab or c os t ( bi rr ) o ve r he ad c os t % 5 o f 3 & 4 pr od uc tio n co st (1 + 2+ 3+ 4+ 5) bi rr 10,136.8 253.42 27.37 190 10.868 10,618.450 conclusion and recommendation animal feed chopping machine was simple in construction as there is not so much complication in design. it is also important that velocity ratio can easily be determining https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 44 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 measuring number of teeth on gears. the machine was designed in such a way that it was requiring minimum space to install. as the motor was placed inside the machine stand not outside the machine, the space was considerably saved. frame and machine stand, it can be handled safely without injury. blades were provided with double sharpening edges. the machine was provided with motor sliding arrangement and the cutting blades can be easily chopping by operator for sharpening purpose. machine has reduced noise and weight due to gears arrangement and compact design. machine has casters for portability. it is also noted that the optimum results could be obtained using a capacity of has 300kg/ hr chopping cutting rate. the overall dimensions of the designed animal feed chopper machine were 950mm in height, and 1042 mm in width. economic production of designed animal feed chopper machine was simple and its costs 10,618.45 ebirr. the following recommendation should be carried on: > the proposed animal feed chopper machine for feed should be fabricated and evaluation to complete the processing of feed production in small productive farms. > testing of the designed animal feed chopping machine should be carried out in the actual field condition for small farms development. references gat, u. (1988). the weight of mass and the mess of weight.in richard alan strehlow. standardization of technical terminology, principles and practice:astm international, 2, 45-48. itsi-su, j. 26, (2011). mass, volume and density of regularly and irregularly shaped object. internet:< http://www. pdesas. org/module/content/resources/14756/view. ashx. khope, p.b., & modak, j.p. (2013). design of experimentation for establishing empirical relationship of chaff cutting phenomenon energized by human powered flywheel motor nisbett, r. g. b., & richard, j. k. (2011). shigley’s mechanical engineering design. (9th edition), mcgrawhill, new york, usa. khurmi, r.s., & gupta, j. k. (2005). a textbook of machine design, 4th edition,eurasia publishing house (pvt.) ltd. ram nagar,new dellhi,india. sankpal, n., powar, v., patil, s., salunke, k., & pandit, p. s. v. (2017). design and modification of chaff cutter objectives : international journal of innovative research in science,engineering and technology, 5675–5683. sharma & mukesh. (2010). farm machinery design principles and problems.1st edition,jain brothers 16/873, east park road, karol bagh, new delhi. telang, a.k., 2016. design and modal formulation of power operated chaff cutter. international journal on emerging technologies (ijet), 4, 0975-8364. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 45 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 appendix https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 46 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 47 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 48 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 49 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 1(1) 31-49, 2022 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst pa ge 1 pa ge 99 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) tropicrisps: langkamote chips (jackfruit & sweet potato fusion) lena n. cañet1*, marvin r. tullao1, ismael kobe cruz1 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i1.3841 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: september 30, 2024 accepted: november 02, 2024 published: june 23, 2025 this research investigates the idea behind “tropicrisps: langkamote chips,” a novel snack that creatively uses jackfruit as the main flavor and combines it with sweet potato being very nutritious. it seeks to enhance healthy snack consumption and sustainable practices. to do this, the product uses modern technologies such as blast freezing and vacuum frying to retain important nutritional profiles and improve shelf life. the study conducted several rounds of tests, sensory testing, proximate testing, and microbiology testing in product formulation to guarantee product safety. findings from the sensory studies showed that the acceptable level of jackfruit chips was achieved in the third trial, while the second trial had better sweet potato chips accepted. proximate analysis showed low moisture movement in the jackfruit chips, which played a role in the crispness and longevity of the product compared to the sweet potato chips. fda microbial limits were achieved on both types. another alternative, this study meets with the un sustainable development goals (un sdgs) in terms of encouraging responsible and sustainable food management through the use of locally sourced ingredients. traditional culinary practices paired with the most up-todate processes in food technology present “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” as a healthy, green alternative to conventional munchies. further studies will be conducted to check the shelf of the product at several conditions in order to ensure the quality of the product and improve future formulas. this study shows how indigenous nutrition can contribute to the designing of new snacks in the philippines without compromising the health of its citizens or the integrity of the ecosystem. keywords blast freezing, experimental research, food innovation, healthy food snack, vacuum frying 1 bulacan state university, philippines * corresponding author’s e-mail: lena.canet@bulsu.edu.ph introduction the combination of tropical flavors and nutrient-rich root vegetables represents an untapped frontier in snack innovation (kalahal et al., 2024). this gap creates an opportunity for ground-breaking advances in the snack industry. journey into “tropicrisps: langkamote chips”, a ground-breaking product development initiative set to transform the snacking landscape. the jackfruit, known for its sweet and aromatic flavor profile, is a tropical fruit rich in dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals (swami & kalse, 2018). its unique texture and taste make it an ideal candidate for culinary experimentation, yet its incorporation into snack foods remains limited. sweet potatoes, on the other hand, are nutrient powerhouses, packed with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals (wang et al., 2016). with their natural sweetness and satisfying crunch when thinly sliced and baked, sweet potatoes offer both flavor and nutritional benefits to snack enthusiasts. “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” combines the exotic allure of jackfruit with the wholesome goodness of sweet potatoes, creating a tantalizing flavor experience unlike any other. beyond mere taste, this innovative fusion embodies a significant contribution to the diversification and enrichment of the snack market, offering consumers a healthier alternative to traditional potato chips. moreover, the creation of “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” aligns seamlessly with the united nations sustainable development goals (un sdgs). by promoting the use of sustainably sourced ingredients and encouraging responsible consumption practices, this product supports the goals of sustainable agriculture, responsible consumption, and health and well-being (united nations, 2020). through this study, the researchers embarked on a journey to explore the research, development of “tropicrisps: langkamote chips”, unveiling its potential to reshape both the snacking industry and the pursuit of global sustainability. literature review the vast culinary culture of the philippines is influenced by local fruits and root crops which include langka known as jackfruit and kamote better known as sweet potatoes that are used in both sweet and savory dishes (guiriba, 2019) jackfruit for instance has a sweet-fragrant taste, thus used widely in making sweet dishes like minatamis na langka as well as in cooking savory foods such as coconut milk with jackfruit. in the same manner, sweet potatoes are also quite the flexible ingredient appearing in foods such as kamote cue sold in roadsides and in traditional desserts which include ube halaya and ginataang bilo-bilo which is a dish where sweet potatoes and jackfruit are served with milk filling; thus a mouthwatering sauce. while there are many of these ingredients available for snacking, the native cooked snacks in the philippines shelf pa ge 10 0 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 99-103, 2025 are significantly lesser in quantity than other more popular or imported snacks in the philippines, thus the, accept failure to see how these local crops can be used in giving rise to healthy creative snacking alternatives. although this has always been interpreted with the absence of ensuring the value addition of the local tropical fruits and roots in new foods, the reverse is happening. however, the snack market in the philippines predominantly featured imported or processed snacks, often lacking the nutritional benefits of locally sourced ingredients (usdafas, 2024). this presented a gap in the market and an opportunity for the development of innovative snack products that celebrated the country’s rich biodiversity while promoting health and wellness. addressing this gap, the proposed study aimed to explore the feasibility and consumer acceptance of “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” within the philippine context. by leveraging the unique flavors and nutritional benefits of jackfruit and sweet potatoes, this innovative snack offering had the potential to resonate deeply with filipino consumers, tapping into their cultural appreciation for local ingredients and their growing interest in healthier snack options. to ensure that “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” maintained their nutritional content and remained healthy, the product utilized advanced technology in blast freezing and vacuum frying. blast freezing preserved the natural flavors and nutrients of the jackfruit and sweet potatoes (university of minnesota extension, n.d.), while vacuum frying minimized the use of oil and reduced the formation of harmful compounds (belkova et al., 2019), resulting in a healthier snack option without compromising taste or texture. moreover, the development of “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” aligned with the philippines’ commitment to achieving the united nations sustainable development goals (un sdgs), particularly goal 2 (zero hunger), goal 3 (good health and well-being), and goal 12 (responsible consumption and production). by promoting the use of locally sourced, sustainably produced ingredients and offering a healthier alternative to traditional snacks, “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” contributed to the country’s efforts to build a more sustainable and resilient food system. through this study, the researchers sought to shed light on the potential of indigenous ingredients to drive innovation in the snack industry, promote healthier eating habits, and support sustainable development in the philippines. materials and methods the methodology for developing “tropicrisps: langkamote chips (jackfruit & sweet potato fusion)” was carried out through several key steps to ensure the creation of a high-quality, nutritious snack product aligned with consumer preferences and sustainability principles. local suppliers of jackfruit and sweet potatoes were identified to procure fresh, high-quality ingredients, fostering partnerships with farmers and agricultural cooperatives to promote sustainable sourcing practices. recipe development proceeded through sensory evaluations and taste tests, optimizing flavor combinations, ingredient ratios, and texture using food science techniques, while considering filipino tastes and preferences. prototyping of “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” involved small-scale production trials, employing blast freezing and vacuum frying technologies to preserve nutritional content and enhance shelf stability. nutritional analysis was conducted to compare the product’s nutritional profile with traditional snacks, highlighting its health benefits. consumer acceptance studies gauged sensory attributes, taste preferences, and purchase intent among target demographics through surveys, focus groups, and taste panels. market testing, in collaboration with retailers and foodservice establishments, assessed consumer feedback and sales performance, guiding product refinement. a sustainability assessment evaluated environmental impact and social responsibility initiatives across the product lifecycle. continuous improvement efforts focused on refining the formulation, packaging, and marketing strategies based on consumer insights and market trends to ensure the long-term success of “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” in the marketplace. figure 1: flowchart for research design pa ge 10 1 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 99-103, 2025 figure 2: flowchart for preparation of “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” figure 3: different stages of “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” standardization of the product the study aimed to create and establish the ideal combination of jackfruit (langka) and sweet potato (kamote). the resulting product underwent standardization through numerous modifications at the food innovation center, as well as rigorous sensory assessment by analytical testing laboratory technicians. three distinct trials were developed and then evaluated using organoleptic assessments and a 5-point hedonic scale rating system. the product’s formulation was refined and adjusted based on the sensory evaluation results. table 1: composition of ingredients ingredients trial 1 trial 2 trial 3 jackfruit 233 g 682 g 470 g kamote 390 g 1570g 1328g the final version of the product was created by incorporating changes suggested by the technical staff at the food innovation center. the resulting “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” underwent sensory evaluation. among the three trials evaluated, the third version received the highest sensory evaluation rating and was designated as the standard sample. in the previous testing conducted inside the facility, it was determined that the optimal starting parameters for frying tank temperature (frying temperature of the sample) and pre-heating tank temp (preheating of oil before transferring to frying tank) are 90°c and 110 °c respectively for all the previous experiments and a base of 25 minutes cooking time for 1 kg sample size. it was also determined that the addition of sample size weight by approximately 1 kg only increases cooking time by 1-2 minutes depending on the material. a total of 3 trials were conducted in both jackfruit and camote before achieving the preferred results. in jackfruit the first trial conducted with a cooking time of 25 minutes yielded a result of optimal color, texture, crispiness, and taste proving that the initial parameters are effective. in the 2nd trial, it was determined that increasing the sample size to 3 kg from 1 kg and increasing the time to 28 minutes yielded with darker color and crisper, although it started to develop a burnt taste. in the 3rd trial increasing the 1 kg sample size from 1 kg to 2 kg and with an increased temperature of 26 minutes, provided the best results in all 3 with optimal color, texture, crisp, and higher sample size for more efficient production. in the development of camote chips, the same as in jackfruit, with an initial parameter of 90 degrees celsius of frying temp, and an increased cooking time of 26 minutes due to varying thickness. in the 1st trial, it was determined that it yielded optimal color, although the sample lacked in crisp. in the 2nd trial, by increasing sample size and frying temp, the products produced had more dark color but yielded optimal crispiness. in the 3rd trial, by increasing the frying temperature to 29 minutes to further develop crisp, failed, producing a distinct burn taste. in the result of the 3 trials, it was determined that pa ge 10 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 99-103, 2025 the successful parameters were developed in trial 2. studies on the product’s shelf life conducting shelf life studies for “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” is crucial to ascertain its storage stability and overall quality over time. by monitoring the product’s shelf life at different storage periods, ranging from initial storage to 15 days, 30 days, and 45 days, we can gain valuable insights into its keeping quality under various conditions. these studies allow us to assess any changes in the physical attributes, nutrient content, and microbial safety of the product throughout the storage period. such monitoring is essential for ensuring that “tropicrisps: langkamote chips” maintains its desired characteristics and remains safe for consumption throughout its shelf life. additionally, understanding the factors that influence the product’s shelf life enables us to implement appropriate storage practices and packaging strategies to prolong its freshness and enhance consumer satisfaction. sensory evaluation table 2: summary of vacuum fryer parameters and moisture content trial fresh weight (g) dry weight(g) moisture content(g) %moisture removed cooking time (min) frying tank temp (°c) preheating tank temp(°c) jackfruit 1 1000 233 767 76.70 25 90 110 2 3000 682 2318 77.27 28 90 110 3 2000 470 1530 76.50 26 90 110 sweet potato 1 1000 390 610 61.00 26 90 110 2 4000 1570 2430 60.75 28 90 110 3 3479 1328 2151 61.83 29 90 110 table 3: mean scores for different organoleptic attributes of "tropicrisps: langkamote" samples. jackfruit sensory attributes trial 1 trial 2 trial 3 appearance 4 3 5 color 5 4 5 taste 5 4 5 texture 4 4 4 flavor 5 5 5 overall acceptability 4.6 4 4.8 sweet potato sensory attributes trial 1 trial 2 trial 3 appearance 3 5 4 color 4 5 4 taste 4 4 3 texture 5 5 4 flavor 5 5 5 overall acceptability 4.4 4.8 4 proximate analysis of the product table 4: score for standardized "tropicrisps: langkamote" samples parameters jackfruit sweet potato moisture (%) 1.18% 4.13% water activity 0.240 aw 0.218 aw crude fat (%) 33.09% 37.34% pa ge 10 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 99-103, 2025 conclusions sensory evaluation of ‘tropicrisps: langkamote chips’ using three trials for each of jackfruit and sweet potato varieties revealed that the third trial for jackfruit scored the highest for all sensory attributes, while for sweet potato chips, trial two was better in terms of appearance, taste, and overall acceptability. proximate analysis revealed that jackfruit chips had lower moisture content and water activity than sweet potato chips, whereas sweet potato chips had a slightly higher crude fat content. microbial analysis showed that these two varieties met fda standard microbial specifications ensuring the safety of the product for consumption. there results imply that the production process parameters optimal for jackfruit chips and sweet potato chips differ, which makes it necessary for separate trials for each ingredient. the expected fact might have accurately come from the lower moisture and water activity present in jackfruit chips as compared to sweet potato chips, which may lead to crispiness and more shelf-life extension. the microbial analysis aspect assured safety standards for consumers. the successful establishment of the ‘tropicrisps: langkamote chips’ validates the sound use of rigorous testing methods for optimally sensory attributes, nutritional composition, and safety. going forward, continued research and development and shelf life monitoring will be vital in improving product quality, nutritional composition, and marketing performance in the market. references belkova, b., hradecký, j., hurková, k., forštová, v., vaclávík, l., & hajšlová, j. (2018). impact of vacuum frying on quality of potato crisps and frying oil. food chemistry, 241, 51-59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. foodchem.2017.08.062 guiriba, g. o. (2019). documentation of indigenous knowledge on production and post-harvest management of sweet potato in the bicol region, philippines. journal of asian rural studies, 3(1), 93. kalahal, s. p., gavahian, m., & lin, j. (2024). development of innovative tigernut-based nutritional snack by extrusion process: effects of die temperature, screw speed, and formulation on physicochemical characteristics. quality assurance and safety of crops & foods, 16(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.15586/qas. v16i1.1310 swami, s. b., & kalse, s. k. (2018). jackfruit (artocarpus heterophyllus): biodiversity, nutritional contents, and health. in s. k. kedia, a. prakash, & g. a. ravishankar (eds.), bioactive molecules in food (pp. 87–101). springer. united nations. (2020). the sustainable development goals report 2020. un desa. united states department of agriculture foreign agricultural service. (2024). snack foods market brief manila, philippines [report rp2024-0015]. retrieved from https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/report/ downloadreportbyfilename?filename=sna%20 ck%20foods%20marke t%20br ie f_mani l a_ philippines_rp2024-0015.pdf university of minnesota extension. (n.d.). the science of freezing foods. retrieved august 2024, from https:// extension.umn.edu/preserving-and-preparing/ science-freezing-foods wang, s., nie, s., & zhu, f. (2016). chemical constituents and health effects of sweet potato. food research international, 89(pt 1), 90–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. foodres.2016.08.032 table 5: microbial analysis of the product: parameters jackfruit sweet potato fda standard aerobic plate count < 10^3 cfus/g < 10^3 cfus/g < 10^4 cfus/g coliform count < 10^1 cfus/g < 10^1 cfus/g < 10^2 cfus/g yeast count < 10^1 cfus/g < 10^1 cfus/g < 10^2 cfus/g molds count < 10^2 cfus/g < 10^2 cfus/g < 10^3 cfus/g pa ge 1 pa ge 60 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) diversity of mycotoxin-producing fungi in leafy and fruit vegetables sold in port harcourt metropolis, nigeria minimah s. o.1*, nwauzoma a. b.2, chuku e. c.2, nmom f. w.2 volume 3 issue 2, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i2.3365 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: august 07, 2024 accepted: september 10, 2024 published: september 14, 2024 mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by fungi and are capable of causing diseases and even death in both humans and other animals. this study investigated the diversity of mycotoxin-producing fungi from leafy (telfairia occidentalis and bassica oleracea) and fruit (solanum lycopersicum and cucumis sativus) vegetables sold in port harcourt metropolis, nigeria using molecular techniques. the fungi were isolated from vegetable samples showing signs of disease using standard methods. dna extraction and polymerase chain reaction were carried out at the molecular laboratory of regional centre of biotechnology and bioresources research, university of port harcourt. the isolates were screened for the presence of mycotoxigenic genes (nor1 (aflatoxin), tri6 (trichothecene), otanps (ochratoxin a), fum13 (fumonisin) and zea (zearalenone)) using pcr technique. the isolates containing mycotoxins were identified using its gene sequences. ten out of the eighteen isolates were positive for four (nor1, tri6, otanps and fum13) out of the five mycotoxigenic genes screened. the nine isolates included fungi belong to six genera: meyerozyma, pithomyces, fusarium, trametes, penicillium and aspergillus. the ten isolates were classified as meyerozyma carbbica rcbbr_sf13, pithomyces chartarum rcbbr_sf5, fusarium falciforme rcbbr_sf10, trametes duplexa rcbbr_sf17, trametes versicolor rcbbr_sf2a, trametes duplexa rcbbr_mf1, fusarium longifundum rcbbr_mf4, penicillium soosanum rcbbr_mf7, aspergillus aflatoxiformans rcbbr_sf9, fusarium circinatum rcbbr_sf3 based on their its gene sequences. their its gene sequences have been deposited in genbank under the accession numbers or816039-or816047, with the exception of fusarium circinatum rcbbr_sf3 which could not accession. this study has demonstrated that mycotoxinproducing fungi are diverse and widespread in leafy and fruit vegetables sold within port harcourt metropolis. this raises both public health and food security concerns. keywords mycotoxin, leafy and fruit vegetables, diversity, polymerase chain reaction, its gene introduction mycotoxins are toxic compounds produced by certain types of fungi (molds). these toxins can contaminate food crops, posing significant health risks to humans and animals. (bennett & kilch, 2003). the harmful chemical byproducts that fungi that easily colonize crops create are typically called “mycotoxin” (turner et al., 2009). aflatoxin, citrinin, fumonisins, ochratoxin a, patulin, trichothecenes, zearalenone, and ergot alkaloids like ergotamine are a few examples of mycotoxins that may infect humans and animals (bennett & kilch, 2003). mycotoxins’ main pathogenicity mechanism involves utilizing cytochrome p450 (cyp) enzymes to limit protein synthesis and induce oxidative stress (dai et al., 2017). according to barkai-golan and paster (2011), these mycotoxins are extensively dispersed and have even been detected in green and fruity vegetables. leafy and fruit vegetables are edible parts such as the leaves, flowers and immature fruits. they are consumed wholly or in part, raw or cooked as part of the main dish or salad (asaolu et al., 2012). they add variety and aesthetic value to food and enhance the nutritional quality of diets due to their rich content of vitamins and minerals. examples of leafy vegetables are apium graveolens, brassica oleracea var. capitata, , lactuca sativa, beta vulgaris, telfairia occidentalis while examples of fruits vegetables include solanum melongena, cucumis sativus, capsicum spp, solanum lycopersicum and abelmoschus esculentus. since these leafy and fruit vegetables are usually consumed raw in addition to their ability to harbour a lot of pathogens, there is need to ensure that they are free of disease causing organisms. however, despite all efforts to ensure that pathogens do not contaminate these vegetables, some of these pathogens leave behind their toxins. fungal diseases of leafy and fruit vegetables are widespread, occurring on a wide range of vegetables (oyarzabal and backert, 2012). these diseases include anthracnose, botrytis rots, downy mildews, fusarium rots, powdery mildews. rusts, rhizoctonia rots, sclerotinia rots, and sclerotium rots. a major challenge of studying mycotoxins is in the area of effectively characterizing the fungi that produce them. modern methods in the isolation and characterization of mycotoxins-producing fungi rely on the use of high throughput molecular detection technologies. such techniques include standard polymerase chain reaction (pcr), real-time pcr, nested pcr, loopmediated isothermal amplification (lamp), rolling circle amplification (rca), and nucleic acid sequence1 regional centre for biotechnology and bioresources research, university of port harcourt, choba, nigeria 2 rivers state university, nkpolu-oroworukwo in port harcourt, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: samuelfirstson@gmail.com pa ge 61 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 60-67, 2024 based amplification (nasba) (aslam et al., 2017; cheng et al., 2020). therefore, this study aims to determine the prevalence and characterization of mycotoxinsproducing fungi in leafy and fruit vegetables using molecular techniques. polymerase chain reaction (pcr) assays have been widely used for the detection of various genes in different organisms. lawson et al. (1997) developed a pcr assay for the detection and speciation of campylobacter in human feces, showcasing the utility of pcr in identifying specific pathogens. similarly, zur et al. (1999) reported the development of a pcr-based assay for detecting alternaria dna in food products, demonstrating the applicability of pcr in detecting fungal contamination. cruz-perez et al. (2001) established a quantitative pcr method for detecting stachybotrys chartarum, highlighting the use of pcr in quantifying toxigenic fungi. bluhm et al. (2002) developed a multiplex pcr assay for the differential detection of fusarium species producing mycotoxins in cornmeal, emphasizing the importance of pcr in monitoring food safety. grooters et al. (2002) also utilized pcr to identify pythium insidiosum, showcasing the versatility of pcr in detecting various fungal species. tannous et al. (2015) described the development of a real-time pcr assay for quantifying penicillium expansum in apples, further demonstrating the utility of pcr in food safety applications. furthermore, pavón et al. (2012) developed a taqman real-time pcr method for specific detection of alternaria spp. in vegetables, highlighting the specificity of pcr in detecting particular fungal species. kumar et al. (2018) utilized real-time pcr with molecular beacons for speciating pathogenic fungi implicated in invasive fungal diseases, showcasing the potential of pcr in diagnosing fungal infections in immunosuppressed patients. overall, pcr assays have proven to be valuable tools for detecting and quantifying mycotoxigenic genes in fungi isolated from fruit vegetables, as demonstrated by various studies focusing on different fungal species and applications (pavón et al., 2012; kumar et al., 2018). materials & methods screening of fungal isolates from leafy and fruit vegetables for mycotoxins and mycotoxigenic genes dna extraction fungal dna was extracted using zymo quick dna fungal/bacterial kit (zymo research group, usa) following the manufacturer’s instruction. in brief, fungal culture was scraped and mixed with 750 μl lysis solution in a zr bashingtm lysis tube. the tube was secured in a bead fitted with 2 ml tube holder assembly and the sample processed at maximum speed for > 5 minutes. the zr bashing beadtm lysis tube was centrifuged in a microcentirifuge at > 10,000 x g for 1 minute. up to 400 μl supernatant was transferred into a zymo-spintm iv spin filter (orange top) in a collection tube and centrifuged at 7,000 x g for 1 minute. a volume of 1,200 μl of fungal/bacterial dna binding buffer was added to the filterate in the collection tube. thereafter, 800 μl of the mixture was transferred to a zymo-spintm iic column in a collection tube and centrifuged at 10,000 x g for 1 minute. the flow through from the collection tube was discarded and the step repeated. about 200 μl dna pre-wash buffer was added to the zymo-spin tm iic column in new collection tube and centrifuged at 10,000 x g for 1 minute. after, 500 μl fungal/bacterial dna wash buffer was added to the zymo-spintm iic column and centrifuged at 10,000 x g for 1 minute. the zymo-spintm iic column was transferred to a clean 1.5 ml microcentrifuge tube and 60 μl dna elution buffer directly added to the column matrix. the column was centrifuged at 10,000 x g for 30 seconds to elute the dna. determination of dna concentration and purity using nanodrop spectrophotometer dna concentration and purity were checked using nanodrop 2000c spectrophotometer (thermo fisher scientific, usa). purity was measured as a ratio of ultraviolet (uv) light absorbance at 260nm to that of 280nm. the nanodrop was connected to a computer system, and the sensor was cleaned using a cotton wool and 70% ethanol. 1μl of elution buffer (the solution used to re-suspend the dna) was dispensed directly onto of the nano drop sensor to blank the system. subsequently, dna samples (1μl) were separately loaded onto the sensor. the sensor was usually wiped prior to loading a new sample to avoid contamination. nanodrop measurement was taken in duplicate for each sample. gel electrophoresis gel electrophoresis was performed using 1.5% agarose gel (i.e. 0.75g of agarose powder was mixed with 50ml of 1x tris boris edta (tbe) buffer in a measuring flask and microwaved for 2 minutes to get a clear solution. a volume of 5μl of ez viewing dye (blue light) was added to the content in the conical flask and then poured into the casting tray or gel holder. the comb was placed within the casting tray and allowed to sit between 20 to 30 minutes at room temperature to solidify. the gel electrophoresis unit was then set up; the gel holder containing the gel was placed on the platform inside the gel tank and tbe 1x was poured into the gel tank until the gel was completely submerged. molecular weight marker (1kb dna ladder) was loaded into the first lane, and the dna samples were separately loaded into the wells created by the comb on the gel. each dna sample (5μl) was mixed with 1μl of 6x loading dye and then loaded in one lane on the gel. a control was also loaded which contained all components of the pcr reaction mixture except template dna. the set up was allowed to run for 40 minutes at 100volts. at the end of the running time, the dna fragments were visualized under ultraviolet (uv) transilluminator (gel documentation microdoctm, cleaver scientific ltd, uk). pa ge 62 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 60-67, 2024 polymerase chain reaction (pcr) dna fragments containing internal transcribed spacers its 1 and its 2 including 5.8s rrna were amplified. amplification reactions was performed in 20 ml of reaction that contained 4 ng/ µl of template dna, 1.5 mm mgcl2, 20 mm tris–hcl ph 8.4, 50 mm kcl, 0.2 mm dntp mix, 0.1 u fast-start dna polymerase, 1×reaction buffer and 0.5 µm of the each primer. a biospeedy evagreen master mix and bio-rad cfx connect (bio-rad laboratories, usa) were used for all reactions. the following amplification program was applied: 95 °c, 10 min; 45 cycles of 15 s at 95 °c, 15 s at 53 °c and 30 s at 72 °c. primer designing for mycotoxigenic gene amplification the primers used in the study were custom-synthesized by inqaba biotech, west africa. specific genes to aid the detection of the presence of mycotoxins were identified after a thorough literature survey. five metabolic pathway genes specific to major toxigenic fungal species, namely nor1 for aflatoxigenic aspergilli, tri6 and fum13 for trichotheceneand fumonisin-producing fusarium species, respectively, otanps for ochratoxigenic penicillium species and zea for zearalenone were employed. the sequences of all primers (table 2) were evaluated using primer blast and blastn tools (http:// www.ncbi. nhn.nih.gov/tools/primer-blast/) to identify any nonspecific targets and to determine the specificity of the pcr assay. polymerase chain reaction (pcr) assay for the detection of mycotoxigeneic genes in gdna from fungi isolated from fruit vegetables the fungal isolates were screened for the presence of each of the five (5) mycotoxigenic genes namely: nor1, tri6, otanps, fum13 and zea, described in table 2.1. the onetaq® quick-load® 2x master mix with standard buffer (new england biolabs, usa) was used for the amplification of the specific genes. each primer set was added to a separate master mix preparation in a pcr tube. then the gdna was added to each of the mixture in 25μl volume reaction (comprising dna template 4 µl, forward primer 0.5µl; reverse primer 0.5µl, master mix 12.5µl and nuclease-free water 7.5 µl). pcr conditions used included an initial denaturation at 94°c for 4 min followed by 30 cycles of denaturation at 94°c for 1 min, annealing at 58°c for 1 min and extension at 72°c for 1 min with a final extension of 72°c for 8 min.the pcr products were electrophoresed on 1.2% agarose gel stained with e-z vision blue light dye and visualized under a uv transilluminator. sequence analysis (blast/phylogenetic tree construction) sanger sequencing was applied to determine the order of nucleotide in the fungi. the sequences generated by the sequencer were visualized using bioformatic algorithms such as chromaslite for base calling. bioedit was used for sequence editing, before performing a basic local alignment search tool (blast) using ncbi (national centre for biotechnology information) database (https:// blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ blast.cgi). similar sequences were downloaded and aligned with cluster w and phylogenetic tree drawn with mega 6 software. the evolutionary history was inferred using the neighbor-joining method (saitou and nej, 1987). the percentage of replicate trees in which the associated taxa clustered together in the bootstrap test (1500 replicates) were shown next to the branches (felsentein, 1985). the trees were drawn to scale, with branch lengths in the same units as those of the evolutionary distances used to infer the phylogenetic tree. the evolutionary distances were computed using the jukes-cantor method and were in the units of the number of base substitutions per site. all positions containing gaps and missing data were eliminated. evolutionary analyses was conducted in mega11 (tamura, 2021). table 3: primer name, primer sequences, targeted genes and amplicon sizes for the multiplex pcr assay primer name primer sequence (5-3') gene targeted amplicon size (bp) references nor1 f accgctacgccggcactctcgg nor1 396 rashimi et al., 2012 nor1 r ggccgccagcttcgacactccg tri6 f gatctaaacgactatgaatcacc tri6 541 ramana et al. 2011 tri6 r gcctatagtgatctcgcatgt otanps f agtcttcgctgggtgcttcc otanps 750 bogs et al. 2006 otanps r cagcacttttccctccatctatcc fum 13 f gagcttgtccttctcactgg fum13 982 rashimi et al., 2012 fum 13 r gagccgacatcataatcagt zea-f ctgagaaatatcgctacactaccgac zea 192 atoui et al., 2011 zea-r cccactcaggttgattttcgtc pa ge 63 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 60-67, 2024 results collection of leafy and fruit vegetables with signs of fungal infestation forty eight (48) leafy (telfairia occidentalis and bassica oleracea) and fruit (solanum lycopersicum and cucumis sativus) vegetables obtained from obio akpor and port harcourt l.g.as, rivers state showed varying degrees of signs and symptoms of fungal diseases. the most frequently observed sign in all the vegetables were spots, colouration, and cankers. all the bassica oleracea samples had pale yellow angular spots, followed by circular spots. transparent brown patches was the dominant disease symptom in telfairia occidentalis the samples and was observed in 11 out of 12 samples, representing 91.7%. for cucumis sativus, circular and sunken cankers and yellowish irregular spots were the dominant symptoms appearing in 10 out of 12 samples examined. for solanum lycopersicum, 10 out of the 12 samples, representing 83.3% showed brownish-black colouration. table 4: signs and symptoms of the leafy and fruit vegetables used in the this study with their percentage frequency of occurrence s/n vegetable sign/symptom freq. %freq. 1 bassica oleracea dark spots 9(12) 75 circular spot 10(12) 83.3 pale yellow angular spots 12(12) 100 2 telfairia occidentalis white leaf spot lesions 3(12) 25 transparent brown patches 11(12) 91.7 3 cucumis sativus circular and sunken cankers 10(12) 83.3 discoloured tissue 7(12) 58.3 brownish-black colouration 9(12) 75 yellowish irregular spots 10(12) 83.3 4 solanum lycopersicum mould growth 6(12) 50 brownish-black colouration 10(12) 83.3 powdery white patches 9(12) 75 purity, concentration and quality of the extracted genomic dna of fungal isolates from leafy and fruit vegetables the purity and concentration of the extracted genomic dnas are shown in table 4.3. from the table, the dnas were pure, and of good concentration. the purity of the dnas ranged between 1.88 and 1.91 while the concentrations ranged between 63.8 and 132.3 ng/µl. plates 4.10 and 4.11 show the genomic dnas obtained from the first and second batches of dna screened for mycotoxigenic genes, respectively. plate 4.12 shows the final 10 selected dnas positive for mycotoxigenic genes. in all the plates, the bands were visible, distinct, intact and non-fragmented indicating good dna.the bands were slightly above the 10 kpb (>10,000 pb) mark. table 5: characteristics of the dna from the fungal isolates based on nanodrop spectrophotometric analysis s/n isolate code dna conc. (ng/µl) a260 a280 260/230 purity index (260/280) 1 sf13 70.4 1.407 0.74 1.38 1.9 2 sf5 71 1.42 0.745 1.36 1.91 3 sf10 63.8 1.275 0.667 2.15 1.91 4 sf17 97.8 1.957 1.034 1.7 1.89 5 sf2a 96.8 1.937 1.02 1.72 1.9 6 mf1 93.7 1.873 0.998 1.21 1.88 7 mf4 90.9 1.818 0.953 2.03 1.91 8 mf7 115.9 2.318 1.219 1.29 1.9 9 sf9 132.3 2.646 1.398 1.48 1.89 10 sf3 130 2.599 1.378 1.38 1.89 pa ge 64 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 60-67, 2024 all the bands were visible and slight above the 10,000 bp mark, indicating good dna size. (lanes l: 1 kb ladder; lanes 2-13; 1: sf13; 2: sf5; 3: sf10; 4: sf17; 5: sf2a; 6: mf1; 7: mf4; 8: mf7; 9: sf9; 10: sf3; 11: sf4; 12: mf8): the genomic dnas). the gel electrophoresis was run on 1% agarose. plate 1: gel electrophoresis of the gdna extracted from first batch of fungal isolates plate 2: gel electrophoresis of the gdna extracted second batch of fungal isolates all the bands were visible and slight above the 10,000 bp mark, indicating good dna size. (lanes l: 1 kb ladder; lanes 2-7 (1: mf1; 2: mf4, 3: mf7, 4: sf9, 5: sf3, and 6: sf16): the genomic dnas). the gel electrophoresis was run on 1% agarose. plate 3: gel electrophoresis of the gdna extracted selected mycotoxin-producing isolates table 6: summary mycotoxigenic gene screening characteristics of the fungal isolates s/n isolate code result type of mycotoxin first screening 1 sf13 + aflatoxin 2 sf8 3 sf19b 4 sf2b 5 sf5 + trichothecene 6 sf10 + fumonisin 7 sf17 + ochratoxin 8 sf22 9 sf14 10 sf6a 11 sf2a + aflatoxin 12 sf15b second screening 1 mf1 + ochratoxin 2 mf4 + trichothecene 3 mf7 + ochratoxin 4 sf9 + aflatoxin 5 sf3 + aflatoxin 6 sf16 legend: + = positive; = negative discussion the diversity of mycotoxin-producing fungi in leafy and fruit vegetables sold in port harcourt metropolis, nigeria, is a significant public health concern due to the potential health risks associated with mycotoxin contamination. mycotoxins are toxic secondary metabolites produced by certain fungi, which can contaminate food crops and pose serious health risks to humans and animals (bennett & klich, 2003). several studies have identified various fungi species that produce mycotoxins in vegetables. these fungi belong pa ge 65 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 60-67, 2024 predominantly to the genera aspergillus, penicillium, and fusarium. aspergillus flavus and aspergillus parasiticus are well-known producers of aflatoxins, a group of mycotoxins known for their carcinogenic properties (klich, 2007). similarly, fusarium species are responsible for producing fumonisins and trichothecenes, which have been associated with various health problems, including esophageal cancer and immunosuppression (marasas et al., 1984). research conducted in port harcourt has revealed the presence of these fungi in both leafy and fruit vegetables. for instance, a study by eze et al. (2015) found that aspergillus, penicillium, and fusarium species were commonly isolated from vegetables such as spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers sold in local markets. the study highlighted the widespread occurrence of mycotoxinproducing fungi in the metropolis, emphasizing the need for regular monitoring and stringent control measures to ensure food safety. the environmental conditions in port harcourt, characterized by high humidity and temperature, are conducive to the growth and proliferation of these fungi (pitt & hocking, 2009). the post-harvest handling and storage practices of vegetables, often inadequate, further exacerbate the problem by creating favorable conditions for fungal contamination and mycotoxin production (hell et al., 2000). given the health risks associated with mycotoxin consumption, there is an urgent need for public awareness and education on proper food handling practices. additionally, implementing rigorous food safety regulations and conducting regular inspections of vegetables in markets can help mitigate the risk of mycotoxin contamination (fao, 2004). aflatoxins, primarily produced by aspergillus flavus and aspergillus parasiticus, are some of the most potent carcinogens known. aflatoxin b1 is especially notorious for its high toxicity. common sources of mycotoxin exposure include contaminated crops such as maize, peanuts, cottonseed, and tree nuts (pestka, 2010). contamination typically occurs before harvest or during storage under warm and humid conditions. aflatoxins can cause acute toxicity, known as aflatoxicosis, which can result in liver damage, hemorrhage, edema, and potentially death in severe cases (williams et al., 2004). chronic exposure is strongly linked to liver cancer, especially in individuals with hepatitis b or c. additionally, aflatoxins can suppress the immune system and stunt growth in children. they can also contaminate animal feed, leading to accumulation in animal products like milk, eggs, and meat, thus impacting food safety and security and causing economic losses in agriculture (wild & gong, 2010). trichothecenes, produced by fusarium species, include a wide variety of compounds, with deoxynivalenol (don or vomitoxin) and t-2 toxin being notable examples. these compounds are highly toxic and inhibit protein synthesis in eukaryotic cells (mccormick et al., 2011). trichothecenes commonly contaminate cereals such as wheat, barley, and maize, with contamination primarily occurring in the field but also during storage under favorable conditions for fungal growth. acute effects of trichothecene exposure include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and immunosuppression (wu, 2007). chronic exposure can lead to more severe outcomes such as bone marrow suppression, hemorrhage, and neurological damage. these mycotoxins cause significant crop losses and reduce the quality of animal feed, impacting livestock health and productivity, and posing risks to both human and animal health, thereby creating economic and food security challenges (sobrova et al., 2010). fumonisins, primarily produced by fusarium verticillioides and fusarium proliferatum, most commonly affect maize but can also be found in other grains and animal feeds (marasas, 2001). the most common fumonisin, b1, disrupts sphingolipid metabolism, which is critical for cell membrane function. fumonisins are associated with esophageal cancer and neural tube defects in humans and can cause gastrointestinal disturbances. in animals, they can lead to diseases such as leukoencephalomalacia in horses and pulmonary edema in swine (gelderblom et al., 2016). these mycotoxins cause significant agricultural losses by contaminating maize and other grains, affecting the food supply chain, and leading to economic losses for farmers and industries dependent on these crops (riley & merrill, 2019). ochratoxins, particularly ochratoxin a (ota), are produced by aspergillus and penicillium species. ota is nephrotoxic, hepatotoxic, teratogenic, and potentially carcinogenic (brien & dietrich, 2005). these mycotoxins contaminate a variety of foodstuffs, including cereals, coffee, dried fruits, wine, and spices, with contamination occurring during pre-harvest, drying, and storage phases. ochratoxin a primarily affects the kidneys, leading to nephropathy and potentially increasing the risk of kidney cancer. it may also cause immunosuppression, neurotoxicity, and teratogenic effects (pfohl-leszkowicz & manderville, 2007). ochratoxins affect agricultural productivity and food quality, leading to economic losses. contamination of animal feed can result in ota residues in animal products, further spreading the risk of exposure through the food chain (ostry et al., 2017). conclusion in conclusion, the diversity of mycotoxin-producing fungi in leafy and fruit vegetables sold in port harcourt metropolis is a critical issue that demands attention from both health authorities and the public. addressing this 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(1999). development of a polymerase chain reactionbased assay for the detection of alternaria fungal contamination in food products. journal of food protection, 62(11), 1191–1197. pa ge 1 pa ge 83 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) comparative antibody responses of four turkey strains to attenuated salmonella vaccine: a path to enhanced poultry production jude ngozichukwuka efienokwu1, ekerette emmanuel ekerette2* volume 3 issue 2, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i2.3754 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: september 10, 2024 accepted: october 12, 2024 published: november 14, 2024 the increasing demand for turkey as a protein source necessitates effective management practices, particularly in combating salmonella infections. this study evaluated the immune response of four turkey strains (black, white, exotic, and lavender) to a salmonella gallinarum-9r strain vaccine. a total of 180 samples of day-old poults (45 from each strain) were used for the experiment. following initial blood sampling at four weeks, all birds were vaccinated orally with the salmonella vaccine. monthly blood samples were collected over four months to assess antibody titres using a serial dilution method. results revealed significant differences in the mean antibody responses among the strains. the black strain exhibited the highest mean antibody titre (1.38), followed closely by the exotic (1.32) and white (1.30) strains, while the lavender strain showed the lowest titre (1.17). the antibody titres significantly increased post-vaccination compared to pre-vaccination values (p < 0.05). these findings highlight the effectiveness of vaccination in enhancing immunity in turkeys, suggesting that selective breeding of more responsive strains could improve flock health and reduce the risk of salmonella infection. keywords antibody, serial dilution, strains, turkey, vaccination 1 department of science laboratory, delta state polytechnic, pmb 1030, ogwashi-uku, delta state, nigeria 2 animal genetics and genomic unit, department of genetics and biotechnology, university of calabar pmb 1115, calabar, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: ekerette.ekerette@unical.edu.ng introduction over recent decades, egg and poultry meat production and consumption have witnessed significant increases worldwide. notably, in recent years, the consumption of eggs and meats from poultry, such as chicken and turkey, has upsurged (can & can, 2022; connolly et al., 2022). this surge connotes the growing importance of poultry products, particularly in africa, where they serve as a critical source of income and play a vital role in the protein supply chain (fao, 2010; mottet & tempio, 2017; grace et al., 2024). nigeria has one of the lowest levels of animal protein consumption, averaging 45.4g which falls below the minimum benchmark of 53.8 g per capita daily protein intake recommended by the food and agriculture organization (fao) (challenge et al., 2020). the majority of animal protein from the poultry industry in nigeria stems from chicken (akhigbe & akaeze, 2023), but there has been a recent decline in production owing to factors such as environmental changes (wasti et al., 2020; osuji et al., 2024) and production costs (sesay, 2022). in this context, turkeys provide a complementary option to chickens, as they adapt well to various environmental conditions and offer superior meat quality characterized by lower fat content (pinto e silva et al., 2008). despite their nutritional and economic potential, turkey breeding remains relatively underdeveloped. turkeys, which belong to the genus meleagris, include two primary species: meleagris gallopavo (the domesticated strain) and meleagris ocellata (the wild strain) (david, 2018). unfortunately, these birds are particularly vulnerable to infections from salmonella, a pathogen that can not only affect their health and productivity but also serve as a vector for transmission to humans. in nigeria, outbreaks of food poisoning have been linked to salmonella infections (ojeniyi & montefiore, 2009). worldwide, approximately 1.3 billion cases of gastroenteritis each year are associated with salmonella (cdc, 2019). while the increasing demand for protein drives the production of turkeys, the prevalence of salmonella infections significantly undermines these efforts, resulting in reduced productivity and diminished commercial viability compared to more commonly produced poultry species (lamichhane et al., 2024). nonetheless, turkey meat remains a popular dietary choice in nigeria, as it is not subject to the same cultural or religious restrictions as other poultry sources. thus, there is a pressing need to focus on producing healthy turkeys that are free from these harmful bacteria to improve economic stability and ensure the safety of consumers (lamichhane et al., 2024). however, diseases continue to pose substantial threats to nigeria’s burgeoning poultry economy. among the various ailments that affect poultry, newcastle disease, salmonella infections, and blackhead disease are particularly prevalent. the presence of salmonella is a significant concern, as it is responsible for causing salmonellosis, a disease that has far-reaching impacts on both commercial and local turkey populations due to their heightened susceptibility to this pathogen (lamichhane et al., 2024). estimates suggest that salmonella infections may represent a greater economic burden than any other bacterial infection affecting livestock (baptista et al., 2023). despite the widespread use of antibiotics and antiseptic treatments intended to prevent outbreaks, salmonella infections persist, affecting even those birds that receive such interventions (lamichhane et al., 2024). in many developed nations, effective control measures pa ge 84 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 83-87, 2024 have led to significant reduction but the most prevalent is in sub-saharan africa (stanaway et al., 2019). the majority of salmonella transmission to humans has been through food, including meat (kirk et al., 2015). however, in nigeria, a multitude of factors complicates effective management, as numerous potential sources of salmonella infection and product contamination exist within integrated poultry enterprises. in light of these challenges, there is an increasing interest in developing effective prevention strategies, particularly through vaccination, to combat the impact of salmonellosis and improve turkey breeding, which has suffered due to the disease (oyeagu et al., 2022). this situation calls for a comprehensive investigation into the resistance of various turkey strains to salmonella infection, especially following vaccination with the salmonella gallinarum-9r strain. the findings from this research could contribute significantly to improving strategies for managing salmonella infections, thereby enhancing turkey production and ensuring public health safety for consumers. materials and methods experimental birds and management procedures this study utilized day-old poults from four different strains: 45 black, 45 white, 45 exotic, and 45 lavender. the poults were sourced from francisco turkelings, calabar, nigeria, and transported to the experimental site set up at the department of science laboratory, delta state polytechnic, delta state. the birds were kept in standard cages with natural ventilation. before their arrival, the cages were thoroughly fumigated and disinfected using an organophosphate insecticide and dettol to minimize the risk of infection. the poults were acclimatized for two weeks and provided with turkey starter feed and water ad libitum. after eight weeks, the feed was switched to grower feed. experimental design following the acclimatization period, the poults were randomized into four groups using a randomized complete design, with each group corresponding to a strain. there were 45 replicates per strain. vaccination and blood sampling at four weeks of age, 1 ml of blood was collected from each strain through the wing veins using a sterile needle and syringe. this initial blood sample, collected into edta bottles, was used for antibody assessment (control). subsequently, the birds were vaccinated with the salmonella gallinarum-9r strain. the salmonella gallinarum-9r strain vaccine was dissolved in 100 ml of water and 1 ml was given to each bird orally. monthly blood sampling and antibody assessments were conducted for four months. preparation of buffer solution and measurement of antibody titre the buffer solution used for measuring antibody titre was phosphate-buffered saline (pbs), prepared as follows: sodium chloride (8 g/l), potassium chloride (0.2 g/l), disodium hydrogen phosphate (1.15 g/l), and potassium dihydrogen phosphate (0.2 g/l) were dissolved in 10 litres of distilled water. the buffer was maintained at a ph of 7.3. antibodies present in the serum were detected using a serial dilution method. a constant dilution factor of 2 was applied, with serial dilutions ranging from 10² to 10²⁵⁶. the butter solution was poured into a test tube in different volumes: 2 ml, 4 ml, 8 ml, 16 ml, 32 ml, 64 ml, 128 ml and 256 ml. afterwards, 1 ml of antigen was added across all the buffer volumes followed by 1 ml of serum. the mixture was incubated for 1 hour, at room temperature before recording the result. antibody titre was recorded as the highest dilution showing a positive reaction for each strain. statistical analysis all data obtained from the experiment were subjected to analysis of variance (anova) and the means were separated using the least significant difference (lsd) test at a 5% level of probability. results and discussion response of turkey strains to salmonella vaccine the antibody responses of the four turkey strains to the salmonella vaccine are presented in figure 1. the results reveal significant differences among the strains, indicating that the black, white, and exotic strains produced higher antibody titres compared to the lavender strain. specifically, the black strain exhibited the highest antibody titre, measuring 1.38. this was closely followed by the exotic strain, which recorded an antibody titre of 1.32, and the white strain, with a titre of 1.30. in stark contrast, the lavender strain showed the lowest antibody titre value at 1.17. figure 1: mean titre response of four turkey strains to salmonella vaccine pa ge 85 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 83-87, 2024 antibody titre response before and after vaccination table 1 presents the antibody titre values for the four turkey strains before and after vaccination with the salmonella vaccine. a statistical analysis of the data indicated significant differences (p < 0.05) in the antibody titre values across the various turkey strains both before vaccination and at different time points following vaccination. in the case of the black strain, the initial antibody titre was the lowest recorded before vaccination. however, after vaccination, antibody titres increased, and by months 2, 3, and 4, the black strain showed consistent titres. for the white strain, the results were particularly noteworthy, revealing a marked increase in antibody titres, peaking at month 4 with a value of 1.78. this was accompanied by titres of 1.44 at month 3, 0.59 at month 2, and a control titre of 0.33 before vaccination. the lavender strain’s response was characterized by some variability, with antibody titre values at months 2, 3, and 4 being statistically similar yet significantly higher (p < 0.05) than the initial response before vaccination. the exotic strain demonstrated the most pronounced response, achieving the highest mean titre value at month 4, which was measured at 1.84. this was followed by a strong response at month 3, with a titre of 1.44. table 1: mean titre (loge hi) response of turkey strains before and after salmonella vaccination duration black white lavender exotic month 1(initial) 0.45 ± 0.06b 0.33 ± 0.06d 0.63 ± 0.08b 0.48 ± 0.07c month 2 1.38 ± 0.09a 0.59 ± 0.07c 1.08 ± 0.13a 0.59 ± 0.07c month 3 1.38 ± 0.09a 1.44 ± 0.06b 1.33 ± 0.12a 1.44 ± 0.06b month 4 1.38 ± 0.09a 1.78 ± 0.08a 1.13 ± 0.10a 1.84 ± 0.68a mean values with different superscripts along the same vertical lines are significantly different (p<0.05). haemoglobin inhibition (hi) discussion salmonella infection remains one of the most significant bacterial diseases affecting poultry, leading to considerable economic losses and public health concerns due to its zoonotic potential (baptista et al., 2023). in response to this challenge, various control strategies have been employed, including the administration of antibiotics and probiotics, as well as the implementation of selective breeding programmes aimed at enhancing the resistance of turkey stocks to these infections. despite these efforts, the production of turkey meat continues to be constrained by the limited attention given to turkey research, particularly regarding their health management and immune responses (oyeagu et al., 2022). this neglect is troubling, especially considering the significant protein supply potential that turkeys offer, which is important for food security. the findings from this study revealed significant differences in the antibody responses among the turkey strains, particularly highlighting that the black, white, and exotic strains produced notably higher antibody titres compared to the lavender strain, both before and after vaccination. this differential response indicates that the immunological capacity of these strains was significantly influenced by the vaccine, demonstrating varying levels of effectiveness in stimulating an immune response. the marked increase in antibody levels post-vaccination suggests a robust immunological response, critical for establishing protection against salmonella. a similar trend was observed by ikpeme (2021) following the vaccination of turkey strains with newcastle vaccine. the observed increase in antibody levels post-vaccination signifies that the immune systems of these strains were effectively stimulated by the vaccine. the findings suggest that the administration of the salmonella vaccine elicited a strong immune response, characterized by the production of antibodies that could help combat infection. this aligns with the principle that a greater quantity and diversity of antibodies correlate with the strength of the immune response (zimmermann and curtis, 2019, cosgon et al., 2023). the consistent titres recorded across the black, white, and exotic strains in the months following vaccination further support the notion that a higher antibody response is indicative of enhanced resistance to disease. interestingly, the white strain demonstrated the highest antibody response at four months post-vaccination, with a mean titre of 1.78, indicating an effective and sustained immune response. the exotic strain also exhibited strong titres, with 1.84 at month four, suggesting that these strains could be prioritized in breeding programmes aimed at improving overall flock health and productivity. in contrast, the lavender strain’s response was less pronounced, though it did show a statistically significant increase in antibody levels at months 2, 3, and 4 compared to pre-vaccination titres. this accentuates the importance of evaluating breed-specific responses when developing vaccination strategies which has been noted in many reports (ravikumar et al., 2022; miyumo et al., 2024; abdelaziz et al., 2024; geletu et al., 2024). moreover, the temporal dynamics of antibody levels observed in this study indicate a natural progression in the immune response. the decline in antibody levels following the peak response period is consistent with findings from earlier research (lebaron et al., 2009; klein et al., 2023; vashishtha & kumar, 2024), which indicated that while vaccines are effective in priming the immune system, antibody levels naturally decrease over time. this suggests the necessity for ongoing monitoring of antibody levels in the turkey population, as well as the potential need for booster vaccinations to sustain an adequate level of immunity over time. according to chen et al. (2022), pa ge 86 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 83-87, 2024 antibody levels peak around one month after vaccination and gradually decline, stabilizing at a plateau significantly higher than pre-vaccination levels due to continuous production from long-lived plasma cells (llpcs) in the bone marrow. this was the observation made across the different strains where the antibody titres were generally higher than levels before vaccination despite the variations between months. maintaining optimal immunity is particularly important in environments where the risk of salmonella exposure is heightened, as it directly impacts flock health and productivity. in addition, the implications of this research extend beyond individual strain performance. understanding the differences in immune responses among various turkey breeds can inform breeding programmes and management practices aimed at enhancing disease resistance. selecting strains with superior antibody responses could lead to a more resilient poultry population, ultimately contributing to better animal health, reduced transmission to humans, and reduced economic losses due to salmonella. conclusion this study demonstrates that vaccination with the salmonella gallinarum-9r strain significantly enhanced the immune response of various turkey strains, with the black, white, and exotic strains showing notably higher antibody titres compared to the lavender strain. the results indicate that effective vaccination is essential for improving the health and productivity of turkeys, particularly in the context of salmonella prevention. given the significant differences observed in immune responses among the strains, it is evident that selective breeding for higher vaccine responsiveness could further enhance flock resilience against salmonella infections. the present findings demonstrate the importance of implementing robust vaccination strategies in turkey management to ensure both animal health and food safety. acknowledgement we extend our heartfelt appreciation to the department of microbiology, university of calabar where the antibody response test was performed. funding this research was funded by the tertiary education trust fund (tetfund) under the grant number: tetf/ dr&d/ce//poly/ogwashi-uku/ibrvol.1 references abdelaziz, k., helmy, y. a., yitbarek, a., hodgins, d. c., sharafeldin, t. a., & selim, m. s. h. 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(2019). factors that influence the immune response to vaccination. clinical microbiology reviews, 32(2), e00084-18. https://doi. org/10.1128/cmr.00084-18 pa ge 1 pa ge 18 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) development of functional nutritional whey beverage with herbal extract and its sensory quality ambitama guha1, aditi roy chowdhury1* volume 3 issue 2, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i2.2855 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: may 02, 2024 accepted: june 08, 2024 published: june 12, 2024 the dairy industry is one of the biggest food industries worldwide. in the dairy industry, lots of whey is during the paneer manufacturing process. in local sweetmeat production units of india, a huge amount of whey is not handled for preservation and is discarded locally which increases the bod level of wastewater. the objective of the current work is to make a value-added product utilizing dairy waste with the inclusion of natural preservatives in the form of herbal extracts. transforming the whey into a value-added product is addressed in the present study. the management of such waste may generate a beneficial product (herbal whey beverage) with numerous health benefits and it may be recognized as a functional whey beverage worldwide. the methodology of the production of whey was followed using the natural curdling agent in hot conditions with cow milk and cooled down immediately. herbal extracts were prepared and mixed with whey, maintaining a proper ratio, and different trial runs were done. the final pasteurization step was carried out with a specific time-temperature profile. the final finished product was hot-filled in a 200 ml sterile glass bottle and corked. the production, preservation, and overall shelf-life study were undergone in the current work. the preservation concept was addressed with some natural preservatives using herbs like cumin, cinnamon, and mint for their antimicrobial properties. the observation of the current work satisfactorily claims that the developed beverage is microbially safe for up to 4 weeks when kept in a refrigerated condition. the sensory analysis and chemical analysis also suggest the product’s goodness up to 4 weeks with all attributes of sensory parameters like haze, ph, brix, colour, flavour, taste, and mouth-feel. all the operational steps were handled hygienically. keywords herbal beverage, whey, preservation, cinnamon, cumin, mint, sensory analysis 1 department of food technology, techno main salt lake, em 4/1, sector-v, kol-91, india * corresponding author’s e-mail: rcrakhi29@gmail.com introduction the dairy industry is considered to be one of the largest industries in the food sector all over the world. lots of valuable products from this sector starting from pasteurized packaged milk, milk powder, readyto-eat milkshakes, cheese, paneer, butter, ice cream, etc are currently available in the world market. among these products from milk, cheese has been the largest produced milk-based product that creates a by-product, whey. whey is the largest produced by-product from milk processing or cheese processing, which is the liquid part that separates after the milk proteins’ coagulation. in the global statistical result, it has been seen that in 2022 cheese production has amounted to about 22.17 million metric tons. among these, the european union produces about 10.55 million metric tons of cheese per year claiming itself as the top cheese producer (statista, 2023, cheese production worldwide 2015-2023). out of the total production of liquid whey only 3.2 million metric tons have been utilized by industries to develop some valueadded products, whey protein concentrates, isolates, etc. in recent years whey-based beverage production includes whey proteins which have been introduced even in the us market (chavan et al., 2015), (miller, 2009). the expectation for the global production of cheese has reached 168 million tons of cheese whey and 50% of that whey gets wasted as animal feed, biofertilizer in irrigation systems, and discharged without treatment (pires et al., 2021). but despite being a by-product whey has been proven to have immense health benefits. whey can be considered a liquid enriched with nutrients. the composition of whey is equivalent to 94% of water and the total solids remain at 6%. whey contains lactose (4.5% of total whey), 0.8% proteins, and 0.7% minerals (pires et al., 2021). even though whey proteins are present in small amounts they show a high per value (protein efficiency ratio) and, a high bv value (biological value). the net protein utilization score is almost 95 for whey proteins which are the source of α-lactalbumin, β-lactoglobulin, casein-peptides, lactoferrin, immunoglobulin, and lysozyme. these varied compositions in whey proteins give overall immunity, anticancer effects, and show resistance to pathogenic activity. the whey proteins have also recorded antimicrobial properties (gottschalk, 2005). the other valuable components are mentioned by (tsermoula et al.,2021) as nitrogenous matter like whey protein, non-protein nitrogen, and peptides. the proteins present in whey β-lactoglobulin and α-lactalbumin are known as immunity proteins. minor proteins such as lactoferrin which is an iron-binding glycoprotein and found to be present at a 3% level of total whey protein. the functional components present in whey are in the form of oligosaccharides with a minor amount of glucose and galacto-oligosaccharide (hernández-ledesma et al.,2011). pa ge 19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 18-29, 2024 some functional micronutrients are also present in whey like minerals, mainly calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, chloride, and magnesium. some vitamins are also found to be present in whey such as complex b vitamins, especially riboflavin b2 and vitamins b12. polar lipids are also found to be present in whey with an admissible amount (tsermoula et al., 2021). when whey has been discarded from industries as runoff effluent (without any treatment), it will impart water pollution like an increase in bod level, degrading the water quality index. not only bod the increased amount of discarded whey may also give rise to the cod level as high as 50gms to 80gms cod l-1 or 40gms to 60gms bod l-l. impact of a small creamery or sweet meat shop can produce a high amount of bod value per day. which requires a huge amount of expenditure for treatment, mostly whey is discarded untreated. (de almeida et al., 2021). as whey has been proven to be a nutritious liquid, researchers have recognized whey as a co-product rather than a by-product of the cheese, and paneer industries. whey-based products that are found in the recent market as whey beverages include fermented and non-fermented fruit beverages, alcoholic whey beverages, sports drinks, whey protein powders, and isolates (papadem & kotsaki, 2019). the current study has been focused on developing wheybased beverage with the inclusion of some indigenous herbal extracts. mint, cinnamon, and cumin were selected to prepare the herbal extractive to preserve the whey on the basis of the concept of natural preservation method without the addition of any preservative. these indigenous herbs contain phytochemicals like polyphenols, flavonoids, tannins, alkaloids, terpenoids, lectins, etc. (viji et al.,2015). cinnamon has a definite role in lowering blood glucose levels and can modulate insulin levels. it is associated with the reduction of type 2 diabetes. cinnamaldehyde which is the active component in cinnamon has antimicrobial, antioxidative, and anti-inflammatory effects. cell structure studies provide proof that it inhibits the growth of bacteria associated with food contaminants (singletary, 2008). the antibacterial activity of cumin is well recognized for its active components; alkaloids, flavonoids, glycosides, saponins, and organic acids (citric acid, malic acid, tartaric acid, ascorbic acid, propionic acid) (clark, 1998). cumin (cumin aldehyde) is proven to be highly packed with antioxidants and antimicrobial properties that work against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria along with some fungi groups (kedia et al., 2014), (belal et al., 2017). considering the valued nutritious components, functional oligosaccharides, immunity proteins, essential minerals, and vitamins, the whey-based beverage was aimed in this research to serve as a valorized product for the community in the tropical and subtropical zone. in south asian countries including india, there is a huge market for herbal beverages (dini, 2019). the preservation of whey with the natural mode was focused in the present study in a blend of herbal extracts like cinnamon, cumin, and mint. the availability of herbs is common in indian scenarios and it is also cost-effective. the current study investigates the extended shelf-life study of whey with herbs having their bacteriostatic action with a view to less heat treatment for a quality product. this research aims towards a green technology and sustainable approach towards the exploitation of whey. the final product is decided as a ready-to-drink beverage with a new preservation mode/concept because of the high demand for beverages in hot and humid climates. this beverage could be also considered as a valorized product in the post-corona episode or can drive a parallel beverage sector towards a nutritional aspect compared with carbonated drinks. material and methods materials standardized and pasteurized cow milk of a recognized indian brand with 4.5% fat and 8.5% snf was purchased for whey extraction, from a local market in kolkata. sugar, lemon, and salt were also purchased from a local market in kolkata, india as well. the choice of herbs were fresh mint leaves, whole cinnamon, and whole jeera of a local brand in kolkata, which were also purchased for the preparation of the trials, from a local grocery shop in kolkata, india. preparation of whey the whey has been extracted using the traditional acid curdling method, since the ultimate objective is to use all the natural ingredients rather than citric acid, lemon juice has been used as the natural source of citric acid for the coagulation of casein protein. the processing of whey was done by taking 1l of milk, heated up to 80° c followed by the addition of lemon juice for curdling operation. the process was continued for near about 30seconds for the whey to be separated. after the separation of the whey from the casein protein the separated whey was collected in a sterile beaker using a muslin cloth and then sealed with aluminium foil, and refrigerated. the ph of the raw whey was taken at 25°c with ph paper (merck life science pvt. ltd) which came out to be 6 and the brix was measured with a refractometer which came out to be 7°. preparation of the extractives three extractives have been prepared that are extractive of mint, cinnamon, and cumin. for the extractive preparation coarsely grounded cumin and cinnamon in a grinder and freshly mashed mint leaves in a mortar pestle, were taken. each extractive was taken in three separate muslin clothes. in three different beakers, 250ml of water was been heated in a double boiler method up to 60°c. each of the herbs, packed in muslin cloths, was then pa ge 20 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 18-29, 2024 dipped in three separate beakers for 5 minutes maintaining the temperature at 60°c. after the preparation of three extractives, the beakers with the extractives were sealed with aluminium foils and then refrigerated. preparation of the final beverage the final beverage was prepared by mixing the whey and the herbal extract in a proper ratio. salt and sugar have been admixed according to taste. the beverage has been pasteurized for 1 minute at 90°c. after pasteurization, the beverage was filled in a sterile glass bottle of 200ml and then refrigerated at 10±2°c. formulation of trials two trials have been done by taking different ratios of whey and herbal extractives. in trial-1 the proportions of the ingredients were 70ml whey and 30ml of extractives with salt and sugar. in trial-2 the proportions of the ingredients were 60ml of whey with 40ml of extractives with salt and sugar. two trials were made based on varying the whey along with the herbal extract proportions on a preliminary basis and the final formulation has been selected based on the sensory scores. the shelf-life study was done on the final product. sensory analysis the final formulation of the beverage has been finalized using the hedonic scale based test of each trial. the test was carried out among four different age groups: (less than 20), (2040), (40-60), and (above 60) making a threemember panel for each age group, the trials were tasted with a triangle test (chude et al., 2023). chemical analysis proximate analysis was carried out following (a.o.a.c., 2010). instruments utilized in the chemistry of food laboratory, tmsl named hot air oven (instrumention india), muffle furnace (instrumention india), water bath, heating mantle, ph meter (toledo), and weighing machine (mettler), and spectrophotometer (systronics). shelf-life study a shelf-life study was done on the sample rated high by the panellist in sensory analysis. the shelf-life study was undergone by keeping the corked bottle in refrigerated condition at around 10±2°c for 4 weeks. the ph, brix flavour, haze, colour, appearance, consistency, and also the chemical analysis such as total sugar, total solids, titrable acidity (in terms of lactic acid), antioxidant (in terms of gallic acid equivalent), and soluble protein content were investigated between intervals of 7 days, of the total of the 4 week study was to get an idea for the shelf life of the prepared processed product (khasanov & matveeva, 2020). microbial analysis microbial analysis was done by pour plate method with nutrient agar media for the bacterial count. the plates were kept in the incubator at 42°c for 48 hours maintaining the time temperature ratios for colonisation. colonies were counted using the colony counter. by using czapek dox media yeast and mould counts were taken. the plates were kept in the incubator at 25°c to 30° c for 48 hours maintaining the time temperature ratios for colonization and the colonies were counted using the colony counter. overall work is done taking all the necessary precautions in the microbiology laboratory of tmsl, mofpi (chowdhuryet al.,2023). antioxidant analysis 1ml (1:20) diluted beverage sample has been taken in a conical flask followed by the addition of 1ml follinciocalteu reagent (1:5 with water) and kept aside for 5 minutes. addition of 3ml 20% na2co3 was done and the sample was kept for 30 minutes in a dark environment and absorbance was recorded at 760nm in a spectrophotometer (systronics). the water-soluble antioxidants (bioactive components) were analyzed in terms of the gallic acid equivalent of the final beverage which is trial-2 (chowdhury et al., 2023). thin layer chromatography (tlc) for qualitative analysis of essential amino acids thin layer chromatography has been done using tlc silica gel 60 f254 25 aluminium sheets (merck kgaa) and solution preparation, (butanol: glacial acetic acid: water in the ratio of 4: 1: 1) has been taken. the known essential amino acids along with the beverage sample were been spotted on the aluminium tlc sheets and were kept aside to let the solution flow along with the essential amino acids and the beverage sample. ninhydrin is used to spot the flow or the distance travelled by the essential amino acids (bele & khale, 2011). result and discussion table 1 comprises the whey volume, along with the curdling temperature, brix, and ph; which are to be recorded for the generation of the final finish product table 1: processing of whey total whey extracted from 1l of milk 700ml (approx) curdling temperature 80°c brix 7.1 ph 6 which may be the contributed fraction with the herbal extractives. (all data shown in table 1 and in all other tables are the mean of the triplicate values). table 2 gives a view of the extractive preparation with the herbs (cinnamon, cumin, mint). figure 1 shows the extractives that have been prepared in the food processing laboratory of tmsl. the preparation of the extractives with the heterogeneous herbal fractions was observed with the values, almost the same for all pa ge 21 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 18-29, 2024 fractions with respect to the temperature and time profile, kept constant for every extractive preparation step along with the curdled whey which has been developed in the laboratory of tmsl processing lab. hygienic practices have been employed to handle the perishable items with a keen monitoring for production. report has been given with the strawberry-based drink where the ph was recorded as 6.5 to 6.7 with sugar and additional flavour notes, whereas for fermented products, sour milk, buttermilk, and kefir the ph was adjusted to an acidic range of 4.8 to 4.5 (athanasiadis, i., et al., 2004). the ph value of the product of the current study has table 2: processing of whey cumin extractive composition cinnamon extractive composition mint extractive composition water 250ml water 250ml water 250ml herb 10gm herb 10gm herb 10gm time 5minutes time 5minutes time 5minutes temperature 60°c temperature 60°c temperature 60°c brix 1° brix 1° brix 1° figure 1: extractives (mint, cumin, cinnamon) table no. 3 contains the pasteurization time and temperature of 500ml final beverage which is 1 minute at 90°c. the beverage has been manufactured following good manufacturing practices. since all the protocols have been maintained the time for pasteurization has been kept low. the low time for pasteurization is also a measure taken to preserve the high-valued whey protein at its best condition. (vajdi & pereira, 1973) also reported almost the same time temperature profile with strawberry, lemon, chocolate, inserted whey drinks, the overall time temperature condition for the mixture was maintained at 82°c for 2 minutes, which is almost similar to our study. table no. 4 consists of the total bottling amount which is 200ml. the brix has been maintained to be 15° as per fssai beverage guidelines (food products standards and food additives regulations, 2011). the ph has been kept at 5.4 which inhibits microbial growth that is the parameter ph has been used as a hurdle for microbial growth. a table 3: pasteurization time temperature of final beverage pasteurization amount 500ml time 1minute temperature 90℃ table 4: soluble solid vs ph of the final beverage bottling amount 200ml brix at 30℃ 15° ph at 30℃ 5.4 table 5: trial 1formulation with 70% whey and 30% herbal extractives ingredients fractions whey 70ml cumin extract 15ml cinnamon extract 10ml mint extract 5ml salt 40gm sugar 90gm table 6: trial 2formulation with 60% whey and 40% herbal extractives ingredients fractions whey 60ml cumin extract 25ml cinnamon extract 10ml mint extract 5ml salt 40gm sugar 90gm figure 2: final beverage, (whey with herbs) been recorded as 5.4 which may be corroborated with the previous report. the combination of whey and extractives were continued with two trials which are reflected in table 5 (trails-1) pa ge 22 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 18-29, 2024 and table no. 6 (trial-2). the objective of the trial runs were to depict the idea about the acceptability of the finished product with respect to the sensory score. the sensory evaluation is done with respect to taste, flavour, mouthfeel, and appearance. these data reports are given in tables no. 7 and 8. the brix value of the final finished product was estimated at 15° brix (fssai regulations, 2011) for preservation table 7: hedonic rating for trial-1 age group taste flavour appearance colour mouthfeel overall impact 6.5 7 6 5.5 5 5.8 7 7 5.5 5 5 7 6.5 5 5 5 mean 6.8 6.8 5.5 5.2 5.0 20-40 6.5 6 6 6 6 6.2 6 7 5.5 6 6 6 7.5 5.5 6 6 mean 6.2 6.8 5.6 6.0 6.0 40-60 7 7 6 6 6 5.9 6 6 6 5.5 5 6.5 5 5.5 6 6 mean 6.5 5.9 5.8 5.8 5.6 above 60 5 5 5 6 6 5.7 6.5 5.5 6 6 6 7 6.5 5.5 5.5 6.5 mean 6.1 5.6 5.5 5.8 6.2 table 8: hedonic rating for trial-1 age group taste flavour appearance colour mouthfeel overall impact less than 20 7 6.5 6 7 6.5 6.6 8 8 6.5 7 6 7 7 5.5 6.5 6 mean 7.3 7.1 6 6.8 6.2 20-40 7 7.5 6 6.5 7 6.7 8 8 6.5 5 7 7.5 7.5 5.5 5.6 6.5 mean 7.5 7.6 6 5.8 6.8 40-60 5 6 5 6.5 7 6.4 7 7.5 5.5 6 8 6.5 7 6 7 7 mean 6.1 6.8 5.5 6.5 7.3 above 60 6.5 7 5.5 7.5 7 6.6 8 6.5 5 6 7.5 7 6.5 5 7 7 mean 7.1 6.6 5.1 6.8 7.2 purposes and also for taste. the pasteurization time and temperature were adjusted for the finished product to 1 minute at 90℃ that data can be corroborated with (vajdi & pereira, 1973). the holding time for pasteurization temperature was 1 minute in a closed vessel to avoid the oxidative changes of the smaller peptides and also to minimize the loss of the volatiles from the herbal fractions. further, the time-temperature profile might be affecting the composition of the finished product; the derivatized product of the sugar base, until we are not controlling the exposure to high pasteurization temperature for a longer period. figure 3 shows the sensory score data for both trials. the result shows that trial 2 (60:40 ratios of whey: herbal extracts) had higher sensory scores among the people category of the age group of less than 20, 20-40,4060, and above 60 years. the sensory score was pointed towards the high scale value with the sensory parameters pa ge 23 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 18-29, 2024 shown with respect to taste first for all categories. whereas the colour effect for every group went down to a limit value of 5.8. when the sensory scores are evaluated the overall appearance of the product is almost the same. the overall acceptability score for trial-2 was higher than trial 1 shown in table 7 and 8. figure 4 represents the most liked parameter in the final trial which is trial 2. among the panelists from the age group less than 20, taste is the most accepted parameter. among the panelists from the age group 20-40, smell is the most accepted parameter whereas among the panelists from the age group 40-60 and above 60, mouthfeel is the most accepted parameter. the compositional variation of trial 2 was higher with plant-based extract in comparison with trial 1. the animal-based by-product (whey) has been mixed with plant-based extracts and was controlled to develop a designer food (whey-based herbal beverage) the final product’s storage and its shelf life were judged. the chemical analysis report of the developed product was preserved for a longer period in refrigerated condition figure 3: best scores of the parameters from the comparison of each trial figure 4: the most liked parameter from the final trial that is trial-2 table 9: chemical analysis for shelf-life study chemical analysis 0th day week 1 week 2 week 3 week 4 temperature (±2) 10 ºc 10 ºc 11 ºc 12 ºc 12 ºc ph 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.5 brix 15° 15° 15° 15° 15° total sugar (after inversion) 13.66% 13.66% 13.66% 12.9% 12.86% total solid 15.1% 15.1% 15.2% 14.8% 14.8% titratable acidity (in terms of lactic acid) 0.21% 0.21% 0.20% 0.21% 0.22% ash 0.26% 0.26% 0.25% 0.25% 0.24% soluble protein mg/ml 6.75 6.75 6.70 6.65 6.66 pa ge 24 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 18-29, 2024 kept at 10±2℃ in a corked glass bottle is depicted in table 6. upon storage for 4 weeks there were not any significant changes in ph value (5.4,5.4,5.4,5.5) starting from the 0th day, 7th day, 15th day, 21st day, and 30th day, and the recorded ph are given in table 9, normal ph 5.45.5. this data can be corroborated with the data given by (binsi et al, 2007), where we found no significant changes in ph with a marginal value reaching 6.58, 6.59, and 6.61 with the plant extract treatment starting from the initial day. as there is no increased value in ph observed upon storage, it expresses that loss of volatiles is being arrested with the effect of the plant extract which can control the ph values for up to 15 days on chill storage (gao et al., 2014). the investigated results showed that the present study depicts that ph is not a good indicator of spoilage for the early 15 days. table 9 suggests that the total solid content does not have any significant change within the established acceptable period starting from 0 days to the 30th day. the recorded soluble solid value was observed through a refractometer as a 15° brix (brix has been considered as the soluble solid content). the result of the current study may suggest that the soluble solids (soluble proteins, soluble sugar, soluble metal ion, soluble plant extracts) do not show any effect upon the beverage consistency and also show some controlling effect on the bacterial growth during the storage in chilled condition. the total sugar was measured after doing inversion of the preserved sample and recorded weekly the total sugar in terms of glucose equivalent was recorded as 13.66%, 13.66%, 13.66%, 12.9%, 12.86% based on the 0th day, 7th day, 15th day, 21st day, and 30th day. the developed product of the present work consists of different herbs and their extracts along with a certain volume of whey. cumin contains essential oils that are well-recognized for antimicrobial effects, especially against s. aureus and e. coli (monteiro-neto et al.,2020). the extractives prepared from coarsely ground cumin powder have shown an inhibitory effect on microbial growth as said in (škrinjar & nemet, 2009), in the developed product, where cumin extract was the primary component in the herbal extracts that are admixed to develop the product (a whey-based herbal drink). the naturally occurring antimicrobial component present in all three extractives used in this current work that is cumin, cinnamon (asimi et al,.2013), (diniz do nascimento et al., 2020), and mint (soleimani et al., 2022) might have some controlling factor for giving a better shelf life for the developed product this can be exemplified by the use of natural bioactive components towards the conventional preservation mode of operation. the recorded acidity was maintained for a 1-month tenure from 0th day as (0.21%, 0.21%, 0.20%, 0.21%, 0.22%) and the titrable acidity was measured in terms of lactic acid equivalent. the acidity will be the index for maintaining a well-preserved product. the current beverage which consists of whey along with herbal extracts may be a ready food source of microorganisms. the hurdles like acidity have to be given properly so that bacteria, fungi, or protozoa can be inhibited. the observed data for acidity for a month shows that it is more or less constant. and thereby preventing spoilage and maintaining the quality of the preserved product. mineral content was measured in terms of total ash of the developed products and recorded from the 0th day to 30th day as (0.26%, 0.26%, 0.25%, 0.25%, 0.24%) this indicates the product is a ready source of minerals as it is the ready source of natural extractives such as the phytochemicals which are coming from cinnamon (khalisyaseen & mohammed, 2021), cumin (yessuf, 2015), and mint(mimica-dukic & bozin, 2008) are mostly flavonoids, glycosides saponins, tannin vit. b complex vit. e vit. a vit. c, alkaloids, carotenes, zeaxanthin, resins. ash content is quite good in cumin, mint, and also in cinnamon, which has been reflected in the total ash content of the developed product. soluble protein content was measured with respect to bovine serum assay which was set as a standard in drawing the calibration curve. the known concentrations were set as 0.2mg/ml, 0.4mg/ml, 0.6mg/ml, 0.8mg/ml, and 1mg/ ml on the x-axis, and the corresponding absorbance were plotted against the y-axis which is depicted in figure 5. the figure 5: calibration graph for soluble protein with bsa pa ge 25 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 18-29, 2024 concentration of the soluble protein of the developed product was recorded as 6.75mg/ml value. the process whey-based beverage was filled in a 200ml capacity glass bottle where the measured soluble protein content was recorded as 1.35gm. this protein indicates the combination of soluble proteins which are identified as immunity proteins. hence the developed product may be labelled as a rich source of functional proteins (solak, b. b., & akin, n. 2012). during the shelf-life study of up to 4 weeks, there is no significant changes occurred in soluble protein content. shelf-life study of the developed product has been illustrated in table 10. the preserved product was kept in a corked glass bottle of 200ml capacity at a temperature of 10℃ ±2 for a period of one month tenure. smell, colour, taste clarity or haze, and consistency were measured with very little change. all the parameters except haze doesn’t have any additional impact on the final product quality. in the case of haze up to 4th-week data, a small amount of haze was distinguishably observed throughout the 1-month period. the antioxidant content, ph value, titrable acidity, colour, smell, and taste, these were almost comparable with the changes found by the co-workers table 10: shelf-life study week smell colour taste haze consistency 1st no of flavour no changes no taste change little haze at the bottom of the bottle homogenous 2nd no of flavour no changes no taste change little haze at the bottom of the bottle no separation of water from the phase 3rd no of flavour no changes no taste change little haze at the bottom of the bottle no separation of water from the phase 4th no of flavour no changes no taste change little haze at the bottom of the bottle consistency was as good as the first week in the field of (khasanov & matveeva, 2020). up to 30 days value there is a minimum decrease in the value of antioxidant content but when stored at a low degree temperature which is very similar to our observed result with respect to colour taste and flavour and antioxidant content when stored at cold temperature conditions. microbial analysis has been recorded in table 11. the bacterial plate count was measured in two different serial dilutions,10-1 and 10-3 which gives a clear concept of mostly hygienic practices with the recorded count in a colony counter. the highest count up to the 4th week was recorded as 10 and 3 for 10-1 and 10-3 respectively. whereas the plate counts for yeast and mould showed up to the 4th week were 2 and 3 for 10-2 and 10-4 respectively counted in a colony counter. plate count for 10-1 bacterial plate count and 10-4 yeast and mould plate count are shown in figures 6 and 7. as the cold preservation has been maintained for 4 weeks duration the growth of the table 11: microbial analysis weeks bacterial plate count at 10-1 dilution bacterial plate count at 10-3 dilution yeast and mould plate count at 10-2 dilution yeast and mould plate count at 10-4 dilution week 1 2 1 0 0 week 2 3 1 0 0 week 3 3 2 1 1 week 4 10 3 2 3 organisms is arrested. the data can be corroborated with (ismail, 2011). antioxidant analysis the report of spectrophotometric analysis of total polyphenolic content, in the developed product was measured with respect to the gallic acid equivalent is given in the given in table 7. the standard calibration curve of gallic acid has been illustrated in figure 8. on the 0th day of the production, the polyphenol content is recorded in the whey beverage as 3.25mg/ml (0.325gm per 100ml) which reflects a quite high value of polyphenol content of the developed beverage. as the preservation study was carried out in the current research, we find a less figure 6: bacterial plate count of 10-1 dilution pa ge 26 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 18-29, 2024 figure 7: yeast and mould plate count for 10-4 dilution figure 8: calibration curve for total phenolic content depletion of antioxidant value up to 4th week of storage. this indicates that chilled storage might have some effect on the antioxidant capacity value. the developed beverage can be said as a healthy beverage keeping a good amount of soluble pigments, total polyphenolics. the tlc value has been carried out with respect to the essential amino acid along with glutamic acid and aspartic acid with the prepared standard which are mentioned in table 12. the image of the tlc sheets with the amino acids are given in figures 9,10,11 and 12. comparing the retardation factor of all amino acids with the sample analyte (whey-based beverage), the predominant amino acids which are found to be present are recorded as leucine, lysine, threonine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid, and proline. the thin layer chromatography method could assess the nutrition aspects of the whey-based beverage in relation table 12: total polyphenolic/antioxidant content in the final beverage weeks/days polyphenolic content (in terms of gallic acid equivalent) mg/ml 0th day 3.375 week-1 3.375 week-2 3.375 week-3 3.12 week-4 3.06 table 13: tlc report amino acid solute front/solvent front (mm) experimental retardation factor (rf) rf of beverage (u) histidine (a) 6/62 0.096 0.24 isoleucine (b) 39/62 0.62 pa ge 27 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 18-29, 2024 leucine (c) 20/62 0.32 lysine (d) 18/64 0.28 methionine (e) 35/64 0.54 0.23 threonine (g) 20/64 0.31 phenylalanine (p) 34/64 0.53 tryptophan (h) 42/66 0.63 0.32 valine (i) 34/66 0.51 glutamic acid (g1) 20/62 0.32 0.22 aspartic acid (x) 13/62 0.20 proline (y) 20/62 0.32 to functional health drinks and some sensory attributes with respect to the presence of varied essential amino acid content. the qualitative test method has been adopted to find the nutritional aspect of the developed health beverage the result in concurrence with (jain et al., 2013) figure 9: amino acids a, b, c, d, and beverage sample u figure 11: amino acids h, i, and beverage sample u figure 10: amino acids e, p, g beverage sample u and beverage sample u figure 12: amino acids g1, x, y beverage sample u conclusion ready-to-serve beverages with the inclusion of herbs in dairy wastes (whey) can be a ready solution with some health benefits that have been identified through current research. the shelf-life study of the said product was observed for 4 weeks without major alteration of food concerning sensory, chemical, and microbial qualities. the developed beverage may be an alternative sustainable product without the addition of any chemical preservative, rather than preservation done pa ge 28 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 18-29, 2024 with the concept of bacteriostatic action of herbs like cumin, mint, and cinnamon. in the conclusive part, the investigated result suggests that the presence of a good amount of polyphenols along with a high amount of soluble proteins may suggest the developed beverage could be mentioned as a functional beverage as per the chemical analysis. the developed beverage may also be utilized as a ready source for the supply of carbohydrates, soluble proteins, electrolytes, and antioxidants. for rehydration purposes, this beverage can effectively cater to all age groups including sports persons and elderly people for better fluid retention. not only that that, developed beverages will satisfy some of the essential amino acids score within the human system and may be commercialized to formulate sports drinks. the best preservation method for storage and supply chain operations of the developed beverage is to be maintained at a low-temperature condition. good hygienic practices are maintained to develop a value-added product with the herbal extracts during processing operations so as to create a temperature and time profile in the method of pasteurization. a hurdle technology has also been applied by maintaining proper acidity, brix value, and inclusion of herbal extractives for developing a sustainable functional nutritional product (fnp). references asimi, o. a., sahu, n. p., & pal, a. k. 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(1973). the feasibility of whey utilization for the production of various drinks. modern dairy, 52(3), 14-16 https://www.cabidigitallibrary. org/doi/full/10.5555/19730403775 viji, p., binsi, p. k., visnuvinayagam, s., bindu, j., ravishankar, c. n., & gopal, t. k. s. (2015). efficacy of mint (mentha arvensis) leaf and citrus (citrus aurantium) peel extracts as natural preservatives for shelf life extension of chill stored indian mackerel. journal of food science and technology/journal of food science and technology, 52(10), 6278–6289. https://doi. org/10.1007/s13197-015-1788-1 yessuf, a. m. (2015). phytochemical extraction and screening of bio active compounds from black cumin (nigella sativa) seeds extract. american journal of life sciences, 3(5), 358-364. https://doi. org/10.11648/j.ajls.20150305.14 pa ge 1 pa ge 75 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) covid-19 concerns and resources allocation on smallholder rice farms in cote d’ivoire innocent daniel gniza1* volume 3 issue 2, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i2.3505 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: august 15, 2024 accepted: september 19, 2024 published: november 02, 2024 covid-19 has caused a great deal of concern among the population, particularly in rural areas. smallholder farmers have reacted in various ways to these concerns and to the psychological stress associated with the spread of the virus. this study analyzes the correlation between producers’ concerns about covid-19 and productive resource allocation decisions on smallholder rice farms in côte d’ivoire. using cross-sectional data obtained from 1359 households in the poro, tchologo and tonkpi regions through a stratified random sampling technique where each village was considered a stratum, the study uses descriptive statistics, chi-2 tests and pearson correlation tests to achieve the objectives. the results indicate that producers’ concerns are related to family, travel, finances and product availability. these concerns vary from region to region. in addition, the results indicate that concerns about covid-19 led producers to reduce inputs used on the plots and to increase labor for cultivation activities. the study makes several recommendations, including the psychological consideration of small-scale producers in rural areas and the effective subsidization of inputs during health crises to avoid food insecurity problems. keywords covid-19, concerns, resource allocation, small producers 1 training and research unit in economic and management sciences (ufr-seg), jean lorougnon guédé university (ujlog) of daloa, ivory coast * corresponding author’s e-mail: gnizadaniel@gmail.com introduction in march 2020, the world health organization (who) declared the outbreak of the covid-19 virus, which first appeared in china and then spread to the rest of the world, a global pandemic (ins, 2020). by the end of september 2020, the virus had infected nearly 30 million people worldwide and caused nearly one million deaths (who, 2021). although there has been a delay in the number of cases in sub-saharan africa, the continent has not been spared, which has exacerbated the vulnerability of already precarious health systems (akinyemi et al., 2022). several researchers associate covid-19 with economic downturns and increased poverty rates in many developing countries, particularly in africa (laborde et al., 2021; zeufack et al., 2020). in response to this global challenge, african countries have complied with who recommendations such as containment, travel restrictions, sheltering, physical separation, and certain hygiene procedures to control the spread of the virus and save their health infrastructure (durizzo et al., 2021). these measures have led to an increased risk of food insecurity, leading to covid-19 being considered a hunger pandemic (tabe-ojong et al., 2022). in côte d’ivoire, the first case of covid-19 was recorded in march 2020, prompting the government to adopt a series of measures to reduce the risk of contamination. these measures ranged from closing schools to isolating the economic capital (abidjan) from the rest of côte d’ivoire, with all of its corollaries (oim, 2020). in rural areas, the population has been informed of the pandemic, largely through traditional information channels such as television and radio. household anxiety about covid-19 is very high and this feeling of anxiety among heads of households appears to be somewhat higher among women than men (ins, 2020). due to the rapid increase in the number of new cases, covid-19 has caused panic, uncertainty, anxiety, income and expenditure pressures, resulting in psychological and socioeconomic disorders (zhang & ma, 2020). in addition to inadequate health infrastructure and personnel, rural populations face uncertainties regarding the availability of food, production inputs, and several other agricultural needs due to covid-19-related concerns, hence the research question of this study: is there a correlation between producers’ concerns and the allocation of productive resources? the overall objective of this study is to identify the links between smallholder producers’ perceptions of the spread of covid-19 and the resources used on rice farms at the onset of the health crisis. more specifically, this study aims to : identify the different perceptions of smallholder rice farmers of the possibility of covid-19 spread ; to measure the correlation between perceptions of covid-19 spread and the amount of resources used on rice farms in côte d’ivoire. the relevance of this study lies in the fact that most studies (akinyemi et al., 2022; adjet et al., 2022; greteman et al., 2022) on covid-19 have focused on people’s perceptions, knowledge, and application of government pa ge 76 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 75-82, 2024 restrictive measures. however, almost no studies have examined the links between covid-19 concerns and onfarm resource allocation decisions. this study comes to fill that gap. furthermore, the choice of rice as a crop is highly suggestive given that rice has become the main food of both urban and rural populations in côte d’ivoire (gniza, 2023). as a result, rice is a strategic crop for social stability and food security in côte d’ivoire, especially in times of health crisis. theoretical framework : the theory of planned behavior the theory of planned behavior, according to ajzen (1985, 1991), emerged in the field of social psychology as a means of predicting behavior. it is based on the observation that individuals make reasoned decisions, and that behavior is the result of the intention to engage in it. the stronger the intention, the more effort the individual will make to move towards that behavior, and the more likely it is that he or she will engage in that behavior (steg & nordlund, 2013). the intention will not be expressed in the behavior if it is physically impossible to accomplish or if unexpected obstacles stand in the way. intention is a central factor in this theory. intentions are supposed to reflect the motivational factors that influence behavior; they indicate the extent to which people are willing to invest themselves in a given behavior. although some behaviors may in fact meet this requirement very well, most depend, at least to some extent, on nonmotivational factors such as the availability of the necessary opportunities and resources (e.g. time, money, skills, cooperation from others) (ajzen, 1985). according to ajzen (1991), there are three determinants of behavioral intention : (i) attitude (one’s own opinion of the behavior): attitude is an individual’s favorable or unfavorable feeling towards a specific behavior. an individual will intend to adopt a certain behavior when he evaluates it positively. attitudes are determined by an individual’s beliefs about the consequences of performing the behavior (behavioral beliefs), weighted by the evaluation of these consequences (outcome evaluations). thus, attitude is an individual’s dominant belief about whether the outcome of his or her behavior will be positive or negative (fishbein & capella, 2006); (ii) subjective norm (others’ opinions of behavior): subjective norms are assumed to be a function of beliefs about whether individuals approve or disapprove of behavior. the beliefs underlying subjective norms are normative beliefs. normative social influence is defined as the influence of other people that induces us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by them (aronson & wilson, 2005). although an action may not be accepted or approved by an individual, normative social influence exerts pressure on the individual to conform to the social norms of the group. normative social influence has been shown to exert a strong persuasive influence on individuals. an individual will intend to adopt a behavior when he perceives that important people think he should. significant others may be a spouse, close friends or doctor, among others; (iii) the degree of control over the perceived behavior (self-efficacy towards the behavior): refers to the perceived ease or difficulty of performing the behavior and is assumed to reflect past experience as well as anticipated impediments and obstacles. this variable can influence the implementation of the behavior either indirectly or directly. the theory of planned behavior has been able to explain various ecological behaviors. steg and nordlund, (2013) found that variables in this theory, especially perceived attitudes and behavioral control, could predict proenvironmental behaviors. the ability of this theory to predict behavior rises when other motivational factors are included in the model, such as personal norms and identity (nigbur et al., 2010). our work is based on ajzen’s theory of planned behavior. materials and methods sampling procedure and data this study uses cross-sectional data from a survey commissioned by the world bank among rice-growing households in côte d’ivoire as part of an economic inclusion project in the rice sector in october 2020, i.e. 7 months after the first case of covid-19 appeared in côte d’ivoire. considering their importance in rice production and the diversity of the agro-ecological zone, three regions were selected for design: the tonkpi, tchologo and poro regions. taking into account the intensity of rice production in the villages, 20 villages were selected in each region. in each village, 25 households were selected by stratified random sampling, where each village was considered a stratum. thus, 1500 households were surveyed, but only 1359 households were selected for this study because they were growing rice in the current season. the survey collected both quantitative and qualitative information. the quantitative information includes farmers’ socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, income, equipment, quantities of inputs and labor used, area cultivated, and any other information that is relevant to this analysis. the qualitative survey examined farmers’ perceptions and concerns related to covid-19. these data form the basis of this study. producer concerns were collected on six issues : family, employment, finances, mobility, transportation, activities, food, and products. producers’ levels of concern were measured on 5-point, fully anchored, bipolar likert-type scales ranging from 1 to 5 based on the degree of concern : 1not at all concerned; 2not concerned; 3neutral; 4concerned and, 5very concerned. table 1 summarizes the characteristics of the producers in our sample for the quantitative survey. the majority of producers in the sample are male (92%), belong to a group (62.55%), have an average age of 46.57 years, have participated in at least one rice training course, and have 2.95 and 17.70 years of education and experience in rice production, respectively. on average, the sampled pa ge 77 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 75-82, 2024 farmers have a household size of 5.86 persons in which 48.77% are children under 15 years of age, 25.09% are young people between 15 and 24 years of age, 22.25% are mature adults between 25 and 60 years of age, and 3.89% are old people over 60 years of age. after the start of covid-19 in côte d’ivoire, smallholder rice farmers in the study area used an average of 8.20 kg/ha of pesticides, 43.30 kg/ha of urea, 88.43 kg/ha of npk and 81.01 kg/ha of rice seed. in terms of labor, farmers used an average of 88.85 man-days/ha from their household and 126.41 man-days/ha from outside the household. the average cultivated area is 1.13 ha and these plots received an average of 1 visit from the extension agents. table 1: description of the producer, household, farm and productive resources variable mean std. dev. producer characteristics sex (male = 1) 0.920 0.272 age 46.574 12.08 education (in years) 2.953 4.146 experience (in years) 17.701 12.268 number of participation in rice training 1.064 1.944 membership in a group 0.625 0.484 household characteristics household size 5.866 2.801 number of kids in the household 2.861 2.075 number of youth in the household 1.472 1.283 number of mature in the household w1.305 0.940 number of old in the household 0.228 0.500 inputs allocation amount of pesticide applied (kg/ha) 8.202 6.463 amount of urea applied (kg/ha) 43.301 51.333 amount of npk applied (kg/ha) 88.433 86.801 amount of seed used (kg/ha) 81.013 66.714 labor allocation amount of family labor used (man-day/ha) 88.853 86.122 amount of non-family labor used (man-day/ha) 126.415 104.001 plot characteristics plot size 1.132 1.082 number of extension visits received 1.131 2.136 observations 1359 source : author data analysis cronbach’s alpha statistical test was performed to ensure the internal consistency of the factorial construction and the reliability of the scale with a cut-off value of 0.7 (de vaus, 2002). next, the data were summarized using frequencies and percentages. cross-tabulations were performed to assess the relationship between levels of covid-19 concern and different regions of origin of producers. a series of chi-2 tests were performed to test for differences in responses. finally, a series of pearson’s correlation tests were conducted to test the relationship between growers’ concerns and the allocation of productive resources in smallholder rice farms in the midst of a health crisis. results and discussion producers’ concerns related to the possibility of covid-19 spread producer concerns were collected on 2 groups of criteria: concerns about family and displacement and concerns about finances and product availability. concerns about family and displacement observation of table 2 shows that there is a significant difference in how producers perceive the possibility of covid-19 spreading depending on where they live. the vast majority (over 50%) of producers in each region are very concerned about their family being infected or a family member losing their job to covid-19. pa ge 78 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 75-82, 2024 table 2: producer concerns related to covid-19 with respect to family and transportation what do you think about the possibility that, due to the spread of covid-19: frequencies and percentages (in brackets) by region poro tchologo tonkpi total p-value you or your family could be infected? 0.000 not at all concerned 20 (4.38) 26 (4.91) 0 (0.00) 46 (3.38) not concerned 7 (1.53) 27 (5.09) 4 (1.08) 38 (2.80) neutral position 11 (2.41) 28 (5.28) 2 (0.54) 41 (3.02) concerned 120(26.26) 209(39.43) 90 (24.19) 419 (30.83) very concerned 299(65.43) 240(45.28) 276(74.19) 815(59.97) you or a member of your family will lose your job ? 0.000 not at all concerned 17 (3.72) 30 (5.66) 5 (1.34) 52 (3.83) not concerned 17 (3.72) 51 (9.62) 15 (4.03) 83 (6.11) neutral position 13 (2.84) 33 (6.23) 9 (2.42) 55 (4.05) concerned 158(34.57) 210(39.62) 115(30.91) 483(35.54) very concerned 252(55.14) 206(38.87) 228(61.29) 686(50.48) you may have to stay home for several weeks 0.000 not at all concerned 1 11 (2.41) 24 (4.53) 0 (0.00) 35 (2.58) not concerned 2 16 (3.50) 55 (10.38) 2 (0.54) 73 (5.37) neutral position 3 3 (0.66) 9 (1.70) 4 (1.08) 16 (1.18) concerned 4 159(34.79) 212(40.00) 115(30.91) 486(35.76) very concerned 5 268(58.64) 230(43.40) 251(67.47) 749(55.11) you cannot use public transportation and roads as you usually do ? 0.000 not at all concerned 11 (2.41) 17 (3.21) 0 (0.00) 28 (2.06) not concerned 6 (1.31) 34 (6.42) 3 (0.81) 43 (3.16) neutral position 0 (0.00) 8 (1.51) 4 (1.08) 12 (0.88) concerned 154(33.70) 216(40.75) 122(32.80) 492(36.20) very concerned 286(62.58) 255(48.11) 243(65.32) 784(57.69) total 457 530 372 1359 source : author in the tchologo region, less than half of producers (45% and 38% respectively for the risk of infection and job loss) are very worried. the same is true for concerns about travel restrictions. a total of 55.11% of producers said they were very worried about staying at home for several weeks, while 57.69% said they were very worried about not using public transportation. a significant proportion (at least 13%) said they were not worried about a household member losing their job (table 2). this could be because these producers own their own offfarm activities (food trade, farm machinery repair, etc.). concerns about finances and product availability table 3 reveals that a total of 55.04% and 56.73% of producers respectively said they were very worried that they would not be able to carry out their activities as usual and that their finances would be negatively affected. table 3: producer concerns related to covid-19 with respect to activities and availability of goods what do you think about the possi-bility that, due to the spread of covid-19 : frequencies and percentages (in brackets) by region poro tchologo tonkpi total p-value you cannot perform your normal activities not at all concerned 1 11 (2.41) 25 (4.72) 0 (0.00) 36 (2.65) not concerned 2 9 (1.97) 44 (8.30) 2 (0.54) 55 (4.05) neutral position 3 5 (1.09) 4 (0.75) 5 (1.34) 14 (1.03) concerned 4 168(36.76) 214(40.38) 124(33.33) 506(37.23) very concerned 5 264(57.77) 243(45.85) 241(64.78) 748(55.04) your finances will be affected ? 1 2 3 total 0.000 pa ge 79 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 75-82, 2024 not at all concerned 14 (3.06) 28 (5.28) 0 (0.00) 42 (3.09) not concerned 11 (2.41) 44 (8.30) 2 (0.54) 57 (4.19) neutral position 11 (2.41) 23 (4.34) 2 (0.54) 36 (2.65) concerned 147(32.17) 199(37.55) 107(28.76) 453(33.33) very concerned 274(59.96) 236(44.53) 261(70.16) 771(56.73) your ability to obtain food is limi-ted 0.000 not at all concerned 1 16 (3.50) 33 (6.23) 1 (0.27) 50 (3.68) not concerned 2 42 (9.19) 66 (12.45) 5 (1.34) 113 (8.31) neutral position 3 3 (0.66) 6 (1.13) 2 (0.54) 11 (0.81) concerned 4 142(31.07) 199(37.55) 111(29.84) 452(33.26) very concerned 5 254(55.58) 226(42.64) 253(68.01) 733(53.94) your ability to purchase other goods and services is limited 0.000 not at all concerned 1 11 (2.41) 28 (5.28) 0 (0.00) 39 (2.87) not concerned 2 8 (1.75) 54 (10.19) 3 (0.81) 65 (4.78) neutral position 3 4 (0.88) 11 (2.08) 3 (0.81) 18 (1.32) concerned 4 183(40.04) 215(40.57) 120(32.26) 518(38.12) very concerned 5 251(54.92) 222(41.89) 246(66.13) 719(52.91) total 457 530 372 1359 source : author in addition, 53.94% and 52.91% of producers said they were very worried about the ability to obtain food and the availability of goods, respectively. the tonkpi region has the highest level of concern (64.78%, 70.16%, 68.01% and 66.13% respectively for activities, finances, food and goods), with the tchologo region still having the lowest percentage (table 3). in the end, not only is there a great deal of concern among growers, but growers in the tonkpi region (in the west of the country) were found to be much more worried about the possibility of covid-19 spreading than those in other regions (poro and tchologo). this result is contrary to that of adjet et al. (2022) who show that in the eyes of the respondents covid-19 is a new pathology and could not spread in côte d’ivoire because of a certain “genetic immunity”. this could be explained by the timing of the survey (just after the first case was detected in côte d’ivoire). however, these results on regional differences in the perceived spread of covid-19 are similar to those found by several authors (strobel et al., 2020; ins, 2020; iom, 2020; mueller et al., 2021; greteman et al., 2022; akinyemi et al.) these authors have shown that concerns about covid-19 could differ from one area to another depending on several factors such as access to good information, access to quality health care services, etc. in our study, in addition to these reasons, the concern of producers in the tonkpi region was amplified by the occurrence of more cases of contamination than in the other two regions (ins, 2020), the lack of adequate sanitary facilities, and the deterioration of road infrastructure leading to the country’s capital. in addition, producers in this region have an extroverted economy based on coffee and cocoa plantations. thus, the restriction on travel and the isolation of the economic capital (abidjan), the main channel for the sale of agricultural products, has accentuated the concerns of producers in this region. correlation between covid-19 concerns and productive resource allocation cronbach’s alpha is greater than 0.7 (alpha = 0.82), which confirms the adequacy of the associated items in the concern level constructs. the relationship between covid-19 concerns and productive resource allocation was tested using pearson’s correlation coefficient. covid-19 concerns and input allocation on rice farms table 4 presents the result of the correlation test between farmers’ concerns and the allocation of inputs such as pesticides (herbicides), basal fertilizer (npk) and cover fertilizer (urea). overall, the results reveal a significant negative correlation between concerns about covid-19 and input allocation, especially for fertilizer. this means that farmers’ concerns about the possibility of covid-19 spread partly explain the reduction of inputs used on the plots durin g the pandemic period. this result is consistent with that of ebel et al. (2022) who showed changes in farm management due to covid-19, based on the agricultural practices applied by producers. these authors found that 28% of producers changed their fertilizer application practices in two rural u.s. states, montana and south dakota. in our study area, producers adopted adaptive and anticipatory strategies in light of changing conditions. this strategy has been to cut back on certain pockets of spending that they do not feel are too critical to the success of their operations. thus, instead of using 200 kg of npk per hectare, they prefer to reduce it to 100 kg/ha. also, instead of using postemergent herbicides, they prefer to do manual weeding. pa ge 80 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 75-82, 2024 covid-19 concerns and seed and plot allocation table 5 shows that there is no statistically significant correlation between levels of concern and seed and plot allocation. furthermore, the correlation coefficients are very low (close to zero), implying that seed and plot allocation during the pandemic period cannot be explained by farmers’ concerns. this result is consistent with martey et al. (2022) who show that the effect of covid-19 on land allocation is not significant on rice-allocated plots in ghana. in our study area, this is explained by the fact that land is part of farmers’ personal endowments while the vast majority of seeds used by farmers come from previous harvests. thus, the occurrence of events does not a priori influence the allocation of these resources. table 4: correlation between covid-19 concerns and input allocation what do you think about the possibility that, due to the spread of covid-19: phyto urea npk you or your family could be infected? -0.072** -0.122*** -0.116*** your finances will be affected ? -0.088*** -0.123*** -0.137*** you or a member of your family will lose your job ? -0.065** -0.109*** -0.100*** you cannot use public transportation and roads as you usually do ? -0.021 -0.095*** -0.100*** you cannot perform your normal activities -0.046* -0.130*** -0.127*** you may have to stay home for several weeks -0.037 -0.122*** -0.135*** your ability to obtain food is limited -0.043 -0.142*** -0.151*** your ability to purchase other goods and services is limi-ted -0.048* -0.144*** -0.163*** source : author table 5: correlation between covid-19 concerns and seed and plot allocation what do you think about the possibility that, due to the spread of covid-19: seed plots you or your family could be infected? 0.011 -0.003 your finances will be affected ? -0.017 -0.002 you or a member of your family will lose your job ? 0.026 0.016 you cannot use public transportation and roads as you usually do ? 0.022 0.040 you cannot perform your normal activities 0.000 0.038 you may have to stay home for several weeks 0.014 -0.024 your ability to obtain food is limited 0.044 -0.039 your ability to purchase other goods and services is limited -0.025 0.014 source : author covid-19 concerns and labor allocation on rice farms table 6 presents the results of the pearson correlation test between producer concerns and labor allocation on rice farms. the results reveal that the pearson coefficient is positive and statistically significant indicating a positive association between farmers’ concerns and labor allocation. the results further indicate a weak positive relationship between producers’ concerns and family labor, explained by the high proportion of household members unable to work (more than 52% children and the elderly, see table 1), while there is a strong positive relationship with non-family labor. these results are contrary to those of ebel et al. (2022) and ins (2020). ebel et al. (2022) showed that 34/1% of growers perceived a decrease in labor availability due to covid-19 in two rural areas in the united states. the ins (2020) report also shows that 28.6% of producers in côte d’ivoire experienced a reduction in agricultural labor. but, this result is consistent with martey et al. (2022) who show that 46% of producers said that covid-19 resulted in increased family labor. in our study area, this is because producers use more labor to compensate for the reduction or elimination of weed control products such as herbicides (hand weeding instead of applying pre-emergent herbicides) and mechanization (hand plowing and threshing). in addition, membership in self-help groups (62.55% of our sample) facilitates access to cheap labor for various cultivation operations. from the producers’ point of view, labor and inputs are substitutable (gniza, 2023). table 6: correlation between covid-19 concerns and labor allocation what do you think about the possibility that, due to the spread of covid-19 : family labor non-family labor you or your family could be infected? 0.084*** 0.126*** your finances will be affected ? 0.092*** 0.129*** you or a member of your family will lose your job ? 0.073*** 0.123*** pa ge 81 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 75-82, 2024 you cannot use public transportation and roads as you usually do ? 0.097*** 0.099*** you cannot perform your normal activities 0.086*** 0.121*** you may have to stay home for several weeks 0.067** 0.089*** your ability to obtain food is limited 0.079*** 0.093*** your ability to purchase other goods and services is limited 0.092*** 0.121*** source : author conclusion this study examined producers’ levels of concern about the possibility of covid-19 spread and possible correlations with resource allocations on smallholder rice farms in côte d’ivoire. the study showed that the vast majority of producers were very concerned about the possibility of the spread of covid-19 with respect to their household, travel, activities, and availability of food and goods. the study showed that producers in the tonkpi region were more concerned than others at this time due to the deterioration of the health system and road infrastructure and the occurrence of more cases of contamination compared to other regions. in addition, the study found that there was a negative and significant correlation between producers’ levels of concern and chemical input allocation and a positive and significant correlation with labor allocation. this confirms the suspicion of substitutability between labor and chemical inputs from the producers’ perspective. from the above, the study makes four recommendations. first, promote awareness and information among rural populations to counteract rumors and false information. this could be done through extension agents who are already well integrated in the villages and who enjoy the trust of producers. secondly, encourage community mobilization by relying on existing local mechanisms and through the organization of producers’ groups, which will help cushion the effects of health crises. third, begin to provide psychological support to producers in times of health crises so that they can remain effective in their activities (tagne et al., 2021). finally, the study recommends an effective subsidy of inputs during health crises to allow producers to access inputs without any stress and ensure good production and effectively fight against food insecurity. references adjet, a. a., yao, k. a., kouakou, y. f., & akpetou, k. k. r. (2022). perceptions sociales liées à la covid-19 en milieu rural: cas des populations du village de tapeguhé/ sous-préfecture de daloa (centre-ouest ivoirien). repriss: revue d’etude et de recherche interdisciplinaire en sciences sociales; numéro spécial, 02, 140 – 162. ajzen i. (1991). the theory of planned behavior. organizational behavior and human decision processes, 50, 179-211. ajzen, i. (1985). from intentions to actions: a theory of planned behavior. in: kuhl, j., beckmann, j. (eds) action control. sssp springer series in social psychology. springer, berlin, heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3642-69746-3_2 aronson, e., wilson, t. d., & akert, r. m. (2005). social psychology. pearson education international: upper saddle river, nj, usa. durizzo, k., asiedu, e., van der merwe, a., van niekerk, a., & günther, i. (2021). managing the covid-19 pandemic in poor urban neighborhoods: the case of accra and johannesburg. world development, 137, 105175. fishbein, m., & cappella, j. n. (2006). the role of theory in developing effective health communications. j. commun., 56, 1–17. gniza, i. d. (2023). analyse de l’efficacité allocative des ressources utilisées dans les petites exploitations de riz de bas-fond au centre-ouest de la côte d’ivoire. african journal of agricultural and resource economics, 17(4), 287-297. https://econpapers.repec.org/ repec:ags:afjare:333984. greteman, b. b., garcia-auguste, c. j., gryzlak, b. m., kahl, a. r., lutgendorf, s. k., chrischilles, e. a., & charlton, m. e. (2022). rural and urban differences in perceptions, behaviors, and health care disruptions during the covid-19 pandemic. j rural health., 38(4), 932-944. https://doi.org/10.1111/jrh.12667. ins (institut national de la statistique). 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(2022). covid-19 and food (in) security in africa: review of the emerging empirical evidence. ifpri discussion paper 2121. washington, dc: international food policy research institute. tagne, n. a., tachom w. b., ngah e. h.c., & mvessomba e. a. (2021). perception du risque lié au covid-19, intelligence émotionnelle et santé psychologique des soignants. european journal of trauma & dissociation, 5(2), 100212. french. htpps://doi.org/10.1016/j. ejtd.2021.100212. who (world health organization). (2020). coronavirus disease (covid-19) dashboard. https://covid19.who. int/. zeufack, a. g., calderon, c., kambou, g., djiofack, c. z., kubota, m., korman, v., & cantu canales, c. (2020). africa’s pulse, no. 21, spring 2020 : an analysis of issues shaping africa’s economic future. world bank, washington, dc. zhang, y., & ma, z. f. (2020). impact of the covid-19 pandemic on mental health and quality of life among local residents in liaoning province, china : a crosssectional study. int. j. environ. res. public health, 17, 2381. pa ge 1 pa ge 53 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) proximate composition and functional properties of soyabeans (glycine max) enriched carbohydrate diets otokpa emmanuel ihotu1*, etim esin etim2 volume 3 issue 2, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i2.3443 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: august 10, 2024 accepted: september 04, 2024 published: september 07, 2024 this study explored enhancing the nutritional value and functional properties of carbohydrate-rich diets by incorporating soybeans into millet, cassava, and yam. soybeans, known for their high protein, unsaturated fats, and micronutrients, were used to fortify these staple foods. proximate analysis assessed the macronutrient content of both the original and soybean-enriched samples, while functional properties such as water and oil absorption capacities, swelling index, bulk density, and gelation capacity were evaluated. results showed significant increases in protein content, particularly in the millet-soybean mixture (29.81%), with relatively low levels of fat and ash. functional assessments indicated millet’s highest gelation capacity and cassava’s superior water absorption. these findings suggest that soybean fortification can improve carbohydrate-rich diets’ nutritional quality and versatility. further research is recommended to assess the impact of these dietary modifications on human health and consumer acceptance. keywords cassava, functional properties, proximate composition, soybeans, yam 1 department of biotechnology, i.m. sechenov first moscow state medical university, moscow. russia. 2 department of biochemistry, joseph sarwuan tarka university, makurdi, benue state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: otokpaemmanuelihotu@gmail.com introduction our diets are mostly composed of foods high in carbohydrates, which account for more than half of our daily caloric intake. this is in line with the dris’ recommendations, which indicate that 45–65% of our calories come from carbohydrates (marriott et al., 2020). this macronutrient is particularly crucial in economically disadvantaged populations, where carbohydrate-rich staples are often the most accessible food sources. while carbohydrates provide essential energy, the type of carbohydrate consumed significantly impacts health outcomes. in recent decades, there has been growing concern over the excessive intake of added sugars. the world health organization (who, 2015) and other health authorities have issued guidelines recommending a substantial reduction in free sugar consumption to mitigate the risks of obesity, dental caries, and type 2 diabetes. this has prompted a global shift towards healthier carbohydrate choices, emphasizing whole grains, legumes, and other minimally processed options. to address the dual challenges of reducing sugar intake and promoting nutrient-rich diets, innovative food formulations are required. one promising approach involves fortifying carbohydrate-based foods with protein sources, such as soybeans. soybeans contain isoflavones, proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids, and have been shown to significantly impact the management of metabolic disorders like obesity and hyperglycemia (chatterjee et al., 2018 and basson et al., 2021). soy protein, which makes up 35-40% of soybeans, is the only complete plant-based protein, providing all the essential amino acids found in animal proteins (chatterjee et al., 2018). additionally, soybean extracts have been associated with inhibiting key enzymes linked to type 2 diabetes and hypertension, as well as exhibiting anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties (ademiluyi and oboh, 2013). millets are excellent sources of micronutrients, especially iron and zinc, in addition to vitamins and other minerals (dias-martins et al., 2018; kaur et al., 2014; united states department of agriculture (usda), 2016). they are affordable and readily available food crops that are attracting industry attention due to their natural antioxidants and other vital bioactive phytochemicals and minerals (kaur et al., 2019). cassava (manihot esculenta) is widely acknowledged as one of the most important tuber crops grown in tropical and subtropical areas, serving as a major food source for over 800 million people globally (mccallum et al., 2017). it is a staple ingredient in the diets of many developing countries and was identified by the fao in 2003 as africa’s most vital root crop and a significant source of nutritional calories (nassar and ortiz, 2007). yam (dioscorea spp.), prevalent in west africa, asia, and the caribbean, is rich in carbohydrates, dietary fiber, vitamins, and essential minerals like potassium, manganese, and iron, and is associated with improved digestive health and blood sugar regulation (bhandari & kawabata, 2004). analyzing the proximate composition of food components such as moisture, ash, protein, fat, fiber, and carbohydrates is vital for assessing their nutritional value and suitability for dietary needs. this analysis is particularly important for optimizing the use of soybeans, millet, cassava, and yam in food formulations to ensure nutritional adequacy. additionally, understanding the functional properties of these foods, including water and oil absorption capacity, foaming capacity, and emulsification properties, is essential. these properties pa ge 54 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 53-59, 2024 affect the processing behavior and the texture, flavor, and overall acceptability of food products. this study aims to analyze the proximate composition and functional properties of soybeans, millet, cassava, and yam, providing a comprehensive understanding of their nutritional profiles and potential applications in food systems. this information will be valuable for developing nutritionally balanced diets and enhancing the utilization of these important food resources. materials and methods food samples soybeans, millet, cassava, and yam were sourced from north bank market in makurdi, benue state, nigeria. grains were washed with tap water and sun-dried. milling was performed at the food science and technology laboratory of the university of agriculture makurdi, benue state, nigeria using a brook crompton hammer mill (huddersfield, england). the resulting flours were packed into polyethylene sacs and stored in airtight containers until further use. chemical analysis proximate analysis was conducted to measure the moisture, protein, fat, fiber, ash, and carbohydrate content in all three flour samples (table 1). the food samples were analyzed for moisture, protein, fat, ash, and crude fiber content using the methods specified in the aoac (2012) publication. the total carbohydrate content was calculated by subtracting the combined percentages of fat, moisture, ash, crude fiber, and protein from 100. dry matter determination an empty crucible was weighed, and 0.5-2 g of the thoroughly mixed sample was transferred into the crucible. the crucible was then placed in a hot air oven and dried at 100°c for 2 hours. after drying, the crucible and sample were cooled in a desiccator, and the weight of the crucible with the dry sample was recorded. calculation % dm = (w2-w1)/w x 100 where w2 = weight of the crucible and dry sample, w1 = weight of the empty crucible, and w= weight of the sample/ ash determination the weight of an empty crucible was recorded. 0.5-2 g of the thoroughly mixed sample was transferred into the crucible and placed in a furnace at 550°c for 3 hours. after ashing, the crucible and its contents were cooled in a desiccator, and the final weight was noted. calculation % ash = (w2-w1)/w x 100 where w2 = weight of the crucible and ash, w1 = weight of the empty crucible, and w = weight of the sample. fat and oil determination 2 g of the sample was weighed, placed in a filter paper, and then into an extraction thimble. the weight of the receiver flask was recorded, and 200 ml of petroleum ether was added. the apparatus was assembled and heated for 8 hours. after extraction, the solvent was evaporated from the flask. the flask containing the fat was dried at 100°c for 1 hour, cooled in a desiccator, and weighed. calculation % dm = (w2-w1 )/w x 100 where w2 = weight of the crucible and dry sample, w1 = weight of the empty crucible, and w = weight of the sample crude fiber determination 2 g of the fat/oil-free sample was weighed. the sample was boiled with 100 ml of sulfuric acid solution for 30 minutes, rinsed with boiling water, and then boiled with 100 ml of sodium hydroxide solution for another 30 minutes. after rinsing, the residue was dried at 100°c for 24 hours, cooled, and weighed. the residue was then incinerated at 550°c for 3 hours, cooled, and reweighed. calculation % crude fiber = (w2-w1)/w x 100 where w2 = weight of the crucible and sample before ashing, w1 = weight of the crucible and ash, and w = weight of the sample. nitrogen and crude protein determination 0.5-2 g of the sample was weighed and placed in a digestion flask. copper sulfate (10 g) and sodium sulfate (50 ml) were added, followed by 25 ml of concentrated sulfuric acid. the flask was heated until the mixture turned clear and light blue-green. after cooling, the mixture was diluted to 250 ml. a 10 ml aliquot was used for distillation. sodium hydroxide (10 ml, 40%) was added, and the ammonia was distilled into 20 ml of 2% boric acid. the ammonia absorbed was titrated with 0.02 m hydrochloric acid. calculation % n2 = (14.02 ×concentration of acid ×volume made ×titre ×100)/(10 ×1000 ×sample weight) where crude protein = n2 x 6.25 (general factor), n2 x 6.30 (milk), n2 x 5.70 (flour), and n2 x 5.55 (gelatin). carbohydrate the carbohydrate content was calculated by subtracting the percentages of crude protein, fat/oil, ash, moisture, and crude fiber from 100%. calculation % carbohydrate = 100 (crude protein + fat/oil + ash + moisture + crude fiber) pa ge 55 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 53-59, 2024 the food samples were mixed in a 70:30 ratio (carbohydrate to soybeans), and proximate analysis was performed to determine the moisture, protein, fat, fiber, ash, and carbohydrate content in all three flour samples, as shown in table 2. table 1: proximate composition of flours on dry weight bases (g/100g) foods components protein (%) fat/oil (%) ash (%) moisture (%) crude fiber (%) carbohydrate (%) millet 7.00 3.80 1.28 9.71 1.82 76.39 cassava 2.63 0.56 1.84 9.88 1.33 83.76 yam 7.00 0.36 2.35 12.37 1.53 76.39 table 2: proximate composition of flours mixed with soya beans in the ratio of 70:30 on dry weight bases (g/100g) foods components protein (%) fat/oil (%) ash (%) moisture (%) crude fiber (%) carbohydrate (%) millet 70% + soybean 30% 29.81 7.99 2.43 12.98 8.66 38.13 cassava 70% + soybean 30% 19.38 7.87 1.75 12.72 5.96 52.32 yam 70% + soybean 30% 21.13 6.20 2.89 13.00 4.06 52.72 functional properties functional analysis was also performed to determine bulk density, gelation capacity, swelling index, oil and water absorption capacity. bulk density was measured using the method described by onwuka (2005). a 10 ml graduated cylinder was filled with the flour sample, tapped until no further settling occurred, and then weighed to determine the bulk density. bulk density was expressed as: bulkdensity (g/ml)=(weight of sample (g))/(volume of sample (ml)) water and oil absorption capacities were assessed following the procedure outlined by onwuka (2005). for water absorption, 1 g of flour was mixed with 10 ml of distilled water, allowed to stand for 30 minutes, and then centrifuged to measure the volume of water absorbed. oil absorption was determined using a similar method with olive oil. swelling index was determined according to alobo (2003) and onwuka (2005). one gram of flour was added to a 10 ml measuring cylinder, filled with water, and the volume change after 45 minutes was recorded to calculate the swelling index. the ratio of the initial volume to the final volume gave the swelling index. least gelation capacity was evaluated using the method described by onwuka (2005). flour suspensions at concentrations from 2% to 15% (w/v) were heated, cooled, and assessed for gelation by observing the lowest concentration at which the gel remained intact upon inversion of the test tube. table 3: functional analysis of the various food samples foods components swelling index bulk density (g/ml) oil absorption capacity (ml) water absorption capacity (ml) gelation capacity (%) millet 1.33 0.65 1.70 2.3 10% cassava 1.25 0.53 1.70 2.5 6% yam 1.24 0.61 1.20 3.5 8% results and discussion the proximate composition and functional properties of the food samples reveal important insights into their nutritional content and potential applications in food processing. proximate composition from figure 1, it is evident that the carbohydrate content is highest in cassava (83.76%), followed by millet and yam, both with 76.39%. the inclusion of soya beans significantly alters the nutritional profile. for instance, the crude protein content increases drastically in all samples with the inclusion of soya beans, with millet-soya mixture showing the highest protein content (29.81%), followed by yam-soya (21.13%) and cassava-soya (19.38%). this indicates that soya beans are an excellent source of pa ge 56 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 53-59, 2024 protein and can significantly enhance the protein content of carbohydrate-rich foods. additionally, the reduction in carbohydrate content when mixed with soya beans can be beneficial in creating more balanced nutrient profiles in these foods. figure 1: proximate composition of flours on dry weight basis (g/100g) compared with proximate composition of flours mixed with soya beans in the ratio of 70:30 on dry weight basis (g/100g) functional properties the data in table 3 provides a comprehensive overview of the functional properties of millet, cassava, and yam, which are further illustrated in figures 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 through bar charts. these functional properties are crucial for determining the usability of these food samples in various food applications. the swelling index, bulk density, oil absorption capacity, and water absorption capacity are critical parameters that influence the texture, shelf-life, and consumer acceptability of food products. millet has the highest gelation capacity (10%), making it suitable for products requiring thickening. the food samples exhibit high water absorption capacity, indicating their potential use in products where moisture retention is important. the close range in swelling index and bulk density among the samples suggests they can be used interchangeably in various food applications depending on the desired texture and consistency. figure 2: swelling index for various food samples. pa ge 57 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 53-59, 2024 figure 3: bulk density for various food samples figure 4: oil absorption capacity for various food samples. figure 5: water absorption capacity for various food samples. pa ge 58 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 53-59, 2024 plant foods are generally processed before consumption, involving methods such as cooking (boiling, roasting, frying, steaming, baking, autoclaving), drying, mashing, grinding into flour, and fermentation. in this study, the test foods were primarily obtained from north bank market, makurdi, benue state, and processed by drying, milling into flour, sieving, and reconstituting to paste with hot water. these processes reduce particle sizes and retrograde starch to varying extents, potentially influencing their functional properties and nutritional benefits. the nutritional responses in human subjects and animals for different foods and among the same group of food may vary due to factors such as chemical composition, nature of the carbohydrates, dietary fiber, method of food processing, and the presence of substances acting as inhibitors of enzymatic digestion (tovar et al., 1992; bjorck et al., 1994; behall et al., 1999; darabi et al., 2000; thannoun and al-kubati, 2005a and 2005b). conclusion the proximate composition and functional properties assessment showed significant differences in the carbohydrate, protein, fat, and other nutrient contents when the food samples were mixed with soya beans. these differences highlight the nutritional benefits of incorporating soya beans into carbohydrate-rich foods, thereby enhancing their protein content and other nutritional qualities. the functional properties also indicate potential applications of these food mixtures in various food products. understanding these properties can guide food processing techniques and dietary planning, promoting healthier food choices. further research into the proximate composition and functional properties of locally consumed foods is recommended to generate comprehensive data that can aid in dietary planning and food processing. additional studies could help food manufacturers develop a broader range of processed foods from african farm produce, utilizing the nutritional benefits of soya beans. the findings have significant implications in formulating rational dietary and therapeutic goals for diabetic patients and others with clinical conditions necessitating carbohydrate restriction. moreover, such research can assist food manufacturers and processors in developing a greater range of low-gi processed foods, enhancing the health profiles of traditional diets and supporting public health objectives. acknowledgement the food science and technology laboratory at the university of agriculture makurdi, benue state, nigeria for their expertise in milling the samples using the brook crompton hammer mill. references ademiluyi, a. o., & oboh, g. (2013). soybean phenolicrich extracts inhibit key-enzymes linked to type 2 diabetes (α-amylase and α-glucosidase) and hypertension (angiotensin i converting enzyme) in vitro. experimental toxicology and pathology, 65(3), 305– 309. https://doi:10.1016/j.etp.2012.12.008 alobo, a. p. (2003). proximate composition and selected functional properties of defatted papaya (carica papaya) kernel papaya. plant foods for human nutrition, 58, 1-7. basson, a. r., ahmed, s., almutairi, r., seo, b., & cominelli, f. (2021). regulation of intestinal inflammation by soybean and soy-derived compounds. foods, 10(4), 774. https://doi:10.3390/foods10040774 behall, k. m., scholfield, d. j., & hallfrisch, j. (1999). the effect of particle size of whole grain flour on plasma figure 6: gelation capacity for various food samples pa ge 59 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 53-59, 2024 glucose, insulin, and tsh in human subjects. journal of the american college of nutrition, 18, 591-597. bhandari, m. r., & kawabata, j. (2004). assessment of antinutritional factors and bioavailability of calcium and zinc in wild yam (dioscorea spp.) tubers of nepal. food chemistry, 85(2), 281-287. bjorck, i., granfeldt, y., liljeberg, h., tovar, j., & asp, n. g. (1994). food properties affecting the digestion and absorption of carbohydrates. american journal of clinical nutrition, 59, 699-705. chatterjee, c., gleddie, s., & xiao, c. w. (2018). soybean bioactive peptides and their functional properties. nutrients, 10(9), 1211. https://doi:10.3390/ nu10091211 darabi, a., taleban, f. a., esmaili, m., & valaii, n. (2000). glycemic index of split peas, rice (binam), kidney beans, green peas, “lavash” bread, and broad bean kernels in niddm subjects. acta medica iranica, 38, 79-83. dias-martins, a. m., pessanha, k. l., pacheco, s., et al. (2018). potential use of pearl millet (pennisetum glaucum (l.) r. br.) in brazil: food security, processing, health benefits and nutritional products. food research international, 109, 175–186. https://doi:10.1016/j. foodres.2018.03.022 kaur, k. d., jha, a., sabikhi, l., et al. (2014). significance of coarse cereals in health and nutrition: a review. journal of food science and technology, 51(7), 1429–1441. https://doi:10.1007/s13197-012-0863-7 kaur, p., purewal, s. s., sandhu, k. s., et al. (2019). millets: a cereal grain with potent antioxidants and health benefits. food measurement and mapping, 13, 793–806. https://doi:10.1007/s11694-018-0981-1 marriott, b. p., birt, d. f., stallings, v. a., & yates, a. a. (eds.). (2020). present knowledge in nutrition. john wiley & sons, inc. (pp. 37-50). mccallum, e. j., anjanappa, r. b., & gruissem, w. (2017). tackling agriculturally relevant diseases in the staple crop cassava (manihot esculenta). current opinion in plant biology, 38(8), 50–58. https://doi:10.1016/j. pbi.2017.05.003 nassar, n., & ortiz, r. (2007). cassava improvement: challenges and impacts. journal of agricultural science, 145(2), 163–171. https://doi:10.1017/ s0021859607001743 onwuka, g. i. (2005). food analysis and instrumentation: theory and practice (pp. 133–137). naphthali prints. thannoun, a. m., & al-kubati, a. m. m. (2005a). blood glucose response and glycemic index of breads and some wheat products in normal human subjects. mesopotamia journal of agriculture, 33, 8-18. thannoun, a. m., & al-kubati, a. m. m. (2005b). blood glucose response and glycemic index of some dried legumes in normal human subjects. mesopotamia journal of agriculture, 33, 19-28. tovar, j., björck, i., & asp, n. g. (1992). incomplete digestion of carbohydrates in cooked ground beans (phaseolus vulgaris): studies in vitro and in vivo. journal of agricultural and food chemistry, 40(3), 477481. united states department of agriculture (usda) (2016). natural resources conservation service. plants database. retrieved november 21, 2020. https:// plants.usda.gov/ world health organization (who). (2015). sugars intake for adults and children: guideline. retrieved. http:// www.world-heart-federation.org/cardiovascularhealth/cardiovascular-disease-risk-factors pa ge 1 pa ge 1 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) modified atmospheric packaging in various food products jasmin laila rasheed1*, evangeline christina a.2, mr. naisam azeez3, justin samuel1 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i1.2942 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: april 20, 2024 accepted: may 27, 2024 published: january 07, 2025 food spoilage and preservation is a major concern worldwide. this review aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of modified atmospheric packaging usage across various products and underscores food safety and preservation significance. modified atmospheric packaging emphasizes the potential to maintain quality and extend the shelf life of products. data was collected from electronic databases from the last fifteen years, 2010 to 2024. map technology has successfully extended the shelf-life of numerous food products such as fruit, vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, and dairy goods by adjusting atmospheric gases. as a result, it minimizes microbial growth, delays biochemical changes, and prevents physical degradation in food products. this review highlights the importance of modified atmospheric packaging in achieving sustainable development goals, specifically in reducing food waste. modified atmospheric packaging is a modern preservation technique which offers insights into sustainability and food safety. keywords bio-based materials, food preservation, food processing, modified atmospheric packing, sdg goals, food safety 1 department of microbiology, school of bioengineering and biosciences, lovely professional university, phagwara, punjab, india 2 department of molecular biology and genetic engineering, school of bioengineering and biosciences, lovely professional university, phagwara, punjab, india 3 hot n fresh pastry factory l.l.c., ajman, uae * corresponding author’s e-mail: jasminrasheed786@outlook.com introduction food is covered by atmosphere which contain many gases that can lead to spoilage. atmospheric gases include oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and argon. during packing, atmospheric gases can be modified by altering the gases around the food. the presence of oxygen can lead to spoilage of food due to aerobic microorganisms. conventional methods may create a loss of quality and taste. chemical changes like rancidity, color, flavor loss, and oxidation are the major problems that occur in most traditional and conventional preservation methods (rahman & velez-ruiz, 2007). the significance of modified atmosphere packaging (map) lies in its ability to preserve perishable products by creating an atmosphere that differs from the typical conditions. this technique ensures the food safety (hintlian & hotchkiss, 1986). this technology makes the food safe to use. food safety concern map lacks the ability to ensure food safety directly. it increases the time a product can be stored by slowing down the harmful biochemical and microbiological changes that can affect its safety (soltani et al., 2015). numerous organisms exhibit accelerated development in the presence of aerobic organism growth. by providing an appropriate amount of gas mixtures, the proliferation and viability of several bacteria that are accountable for the deterioration of food products can be decreased (soltani et al., 2015). these organisms themselves or by producing toxins can cause food poisoning and even threaten human life. (han et al., 2018) however, map minimizes the activities of spoilage organisms that normally give warning for potentially unsafe conditions (sandhya, 2010). reduced oxygen packaging can lead to botulism caused by clostridium botulinum by providing anaerobic conditions for its growth. in the fresh-cut industry, the significance of pathogenic bacteria cannot be neglected. a good packaging material is essential for map packing to ensure food safety (larson et al., 1997). a study conducted by djordjevic et al. (2018) demonstrated the impact of map packaging on minced meat. map packaging with 50% of carbon dioxide showed a reduction in salmonella count (djordjević et al., 2018). several studies showed that map significantly reduces the presence of e.coli, salmonella spp., listeria, and campylobacter, but the main concern is clostridium botulinum, a dangerous bacterium responsible for foodborne illnesses. food safety in map is ensured using correct gas mixtures (caleb et al., 2013). food preservation preservation is extending the shelf life of products by preventing spoilage by microorganisms while maintaining nutritional values and quality. there are many preservation techniques (kumar, 2019). massive food waste results in poverty and starvation every year. however, preservation techniques aims at reducing the decomposition of food by microbes and other means (kumar, 2019). traditional methods the traditional methods used for preserving food include; sun drying this is the most ancient type of preservation. sun drying utilizes solar heat and movement of surrounding air to evaporate water from food items (el hage et al., 2018). pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 curing the moisture content in the product is reduced by the osmosis process. the reduction in moisture content results in reduced microbial activity (hamada et al., 2022). canning canning is the process of packaging food in sterilized containers and subjecting it to high temperatures to extend its shelf life. this process eliminates spoilage microorganisms and pathogenic bacteria, enhancing food’s nutritional and physical quality (rajput et al., n.d.). however, the anaerobic bacteria clostridium is a threat to canned foods (andré et al., 2017). refrigeration refrigeration is the preferred method for preserving fresh, high-value commodities due to its minimal impact on food properties at 4°c. however, continuous monitoring and regulation of environmental conditions are required to achieve optimal results (tuan pham, 2014). freezing freezing is a common and effective method for preserving food’s taste, appearance, and nutritional value by lowering the temperature to -40°c, as it inhibits chemical reactions, prevents microorganism growth, and reduces cellular metabolic activity (sutariya & sunkesula, 2021). addition of sugar and salt preserving food products by adding sugar and salt is a traditional method. however, sugar and salt act as a natural preservative to increase sugar content in the food, leading to hypertonic conditions. this process reduces the water and makes the environment unfavorable for microbial growth. this preservation method is primarily used for preserving fruits (s, 2020). boiling or thermal treatment it is a method of preserving food by inhibiting enzymes, toxins, and harmful microorganisms. it is one of the oldest methods, while blanching is a milder method that reduces oxygen content and inactivates enzymes (dewan, 2020). pickling the foodstuff is immersed in vinegar, oil, or brine. due to anaerobic fermentation, lactic acid and acetic acid are formed and act as preservatives (aljahani, 2020). fermentation it is a vital metabolic activity that occurs without oxygen, primarily using sugar. it produces alcohol, gases, and organic acids as byproducts. the microbe’s activity during fermentation reduces the product’s ph and inhibits the growth of undesirable pathogens (mani, 2018). modern methods for preserving and ensuring food quality, following modern methods are used; pasteurization it is a vital preservation technique that ensures food safety. the primary objective of pasteurization is to eliminate microorganisms that cause food spoilage and potential hazards to consumers’ health (ramesh, 2020). chemical food preservatives anti-microbial chemical substances can be added to food to extend the shelf life. the addition of chemical food preservatives in large quantities can be toxic. benzoates, nitrites, propionate, sulphites, and sorbates are some food preservatives. certain chemicals may cause allergic reactions and other serious health problems, including cancer (gupta & yadav, 2021). freeze drying it is a process that uses low pressure to convert ice into water vapor and remove it from a substance. freeze drying eliminates 98-99% of water content in food. this process limit the availability of water to microorganisms hence ensuring food safety (gaidhani et al., 2015). vacuum packing oxidation can be avoided by excluding oxygen from the packaging system through vacuum packing and highbarrier packaging materials (patil et al., 2020). this process can eliminate spoilage microorganisms and ensure food safety. bio-preservation utilizing beneficial or fermenting bacteria against the pathogens is bio-preservation. bio preservatives can produce toxic chemicals detrimental to pathogens (singh, 2018). irradiation food irradiation is a method of exposing food to ionizing radiation, breaking chemical bonds and potentially exposing harmful microbes in meat, poultry, and seafood. it is used as a preservation method because it can deinfest spices, increase the shelf-life of fresh fruits and vegetables, and inhibit the sprouting of tubers and bulbs like potatoes and onions (joshua ajibola, 2020). hurdle technology it is a revolutionary concept that combines various preservation strategies to produce safe, nutritious, and economical food. it involves salt, lowered ph, reduced water activity, heat treatment, and adequate packaging. hurdle technology was invented to ensure a reasonable shelf-life, acceptable taste, and desired consistency (singh & shalini, 2016). this review aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of modified atmospheric packaging usage across various products and underscores the significance regarding food safety and preservation. materials and methods recent studies and reviews of publications and articles pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 pertaining to food packaging and preservation were taken into consideration for this review. the study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of modified atmosphere packaging on different food products. data was collected from electronic databases, including google scholar, web of science, hindawi, research gate, science direct, and fsta. studies were selected from different years ranging between 2010 to 2024 using keywords’ packaging,’ ‘food packaging,’ ‘food preservation,’ ‘food preservation techniques,’ ‘food packaging and preservation,’ ‘modified atmosphere packaging,’ ‘map and food preservation,’ ‘packaging methods.’ results and discussion result a total of 65 articles are included in this review from last 15 years highlighting the effectiveness of modified atmosphere packaging on various food products. discussion modified atmosphere packaging the map is a method that alters the atmosphere around food during packing, ensuring safety and quality. it uses various gases, such as oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon, in the best combinations to maintain the product’s quality, as shown in figure 1. map is a rare commercial-scale preservation technique that helps maintain quality and safety (khan & mittal, 2020). the application of map on various food products for food preservation dates back to 1927. later, when meat carcasses were shipped to uk, it was used in australia and new zealand. the commercial application of this technology was first introduced in fruits and vegetables (sebranek & houser, 2017). the technology helped to double the shelf life of apples and pears. later modifications were made to the technology for better results, including micro-perforation, anti-fogging layers, etc. (mcmillin, 2020). in the past few years, there has been a considerable increase in the range of foods packed under map. apart from fruits and vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, bacon, cakes, sweets, salad, sandwiches, snacks, and ready meals are among them (mcmillin, 2020). figure 1: modified atmosphere packaging of fresh fruit gases used in map map uses three main gases: carbon dioxide, oxygen and nitrogen. carbon monoxide, argon, methyl cycloprene and sulphur dioxide are also used in some foods (mullan & mcdowell, 2011). these gases can be used in combinations. however, the selection of gas depends upon the food selected to pack under map, as shown in table 1. carbon dioxide actively eliminates bacteria and moulds. about 0.03% carbon dioxide is present in the atmosphere. the increased concentration of this gas helps prevent spoilage and extend shelf life by slowing the growth of spoilage and pathogenic bacteria (zahra et al., 2016). the higher concentration increases the acidity in moist foods due to its solubility in water. solubility increases with a decrease in temperature, which shows antimicrobial properties at low temperatures. however, the common disadvantage is a collapse of packaging due to gas formation (zahra et al., 2016). oxygen is responsible for the oxidation of oil and fat in food products, providing favorable conditions for the growth of aerobic bacteria and mould. the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is 21%. reducing the oxygen level in gas combination is advisable to reduce the aerobic bacterial growth because most of the bacteria and fungi grow in aerobic conditions. oxygen promotes several types of deteriorative reactions, including oxidation, browning, and pigment oxidation. however, complete elimination of oxygen may lead to anaerobic or facultative bacteria growth, which can lead to food poisoning (zahra et al., 2016). nitrogen is an inert gas. this is the most abundant gas in the atmosphere with 78%concentration. the presence of nitrogen prevents package collapse in map processing, which occurs in the presence of a high concentration of carbon dioxide. typically, the residual gas combination is mainly comprised of nitrogen (alwazeer, 2019). argon is a noble gas with antibacterial properties. it is currently used in map due to its atomic size being similar to molecular oxygen, making it a potential substitute for nitrogen. the atmosphere contains 0.9% argon (day, 2007; han, 2005). pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 types of map there are two main methods for creating map; active packaging this is done by draining all the gases in the package and creating a vacuum. then, substituting the required gas combinations. this can be established by using ethylene scavengers or emitters. active packaging helps to create a modified atmosphere very rapidly (robertson, 2009). passive packaging modified atmosphere is passively generated inside a sealed package due to product respiration utilizing oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. this is, therefore, known as commodity-generated map (costa et al., 2011; parry, 2012). equipment for map the selection of appropriate equipment is a major criterion for modified atmospheric packing: • presentation • machine performance • versatility • pack format • operation cost • quality and ease of cleaning • equipment price form-filled seal machines, chamber machines and snorkel machines are frequently used (rao, 2015). there are two categories of map machines; pillow wrap the pillow wrap machines are made of two systems: horizontal form fill seal (hffs) and vertical form fill seal (vffs). chamber two different techniques are used in chamber processing: the thermoforming technique and the preformed container machine. the thermoforming machine is widely used, as shown in figure 2. the machine is fed with two films, one for forming the tray base and the other for the lid. the food is placed on the tray after it is ready by heating in the thermoforming station. then, a vacuum is created, and the gas mixtures are flushed before closing the lid. then, the product is sealed with film. table 1: gas combinations and concentrations of map food items percentage of different gases remarks oxygen carbon di oxide nitrogen fruits 3-5% 5-20% 75-85% oxygen should be in low concentration to reduce the post-harvest respiration and transpiration vegetables 3-5% 5-20% 75-85% oxygen should be in low concentration to reduce the post-harvest respiration and transpiration red meat 60-65% 15-40% --------oxygen gives red colour. processed meat ------20-35% 65-80% fish 30% 40% 30% for fatty fish, nitrogen concentration can be increased. poultry ------25% 75% oxygen may lead to greyish tinges on meat. ready meals 10% 40% 50% minimum level of oxygen needed to prevent anerobic bacteria. dairy products ------30% 70% oxygen causes oxidative rancidity. figure 2: thermoforming equipment pa ge 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 1. the film necessary to form the bottom of the package is wound on a real machine equipped with a special device to ensure constant film tension during every machine repeat. 2. the film is heated in the pre-heating station and enters the forming station, where a perfect forming suction is made with the pump. 3. the packs are manually or automatically filled. 4. the top film is unwound to cover all packs and can be printed. 5. the package is sealed, and vacuum, and gas flushing are occurring. 6. the perfect shape of each pack is carried out at this cutting station. 7. the motorized outlet conveyor mesh brings the pack out of the machine. preformed container machines are almost similar to each other; the only difference is that here, the preformed trays are loaded to the machine. packing materials used in map plastic is the common choice for packaging food, but it is not eco-friendly. polymeric films are used to pack fresh produce. commonly used polymeric films are ldpe, lldpe, hdpe, pp, pvc, polyesters, pet, pvdc, evoh, nylon, pctfe, pvoh, pvoh, eva, polycarbonate films, polystyrene, cellulose-based plastics, and biodegradable polymers. sometimes, to achieve all the good properties of a packing material of map, a combination of materials also are used (mangaraj et al., 2009). biodegradable packing materials bio-based packing materials have been introduced to reduce the environmental issues due to the use of petrochemical products for packaging. innovative packing materials definitely enhance the sustainability (reichert et al., 2020). biodegradable packaging materials have a good barrier property and increase the shelf life of the packed products while helping in biodegradability. biomers can be produced using different methods: directly from natural substances like polysaccharide proteins, polymerization of monomers derived from biomass such as pla from lactic acid and microorganisms such as polyhydroxyalkanoate (pha) (thulasisingh et al., 2021). poly lactic acid (pla) pla is an aliphatic polyester with biopolymer properties suitable for map. it is a biodegradable and compostable thermos plastic polymer. this is produced by fermentation and distillation process from starch. the pla will break down within twelve weeks compared to plastic, which takes centuries to degrade. hence, pla is environmentfriendly (tawakkal et al., 2014). types of polymeric films for map three types of polymeric films for map are developed; 1. micro perforated or non-perforated films 2. macro perforated polymeric films 3. perforation-mediated packaging systems micro-perforation allows the proper carbon dioxide and oxygen concentrations in the package headspace to extend shelf life. the gas permeability in this type is controlled by the number of perforations and their size. by adjusting the size and density, the packing films can be customized for specific products (hussein et al., 2015). normally, the perforation size is 50 to 200 micrometers in diameter. conversely, macro perforation has a higher permeability rate than micro-perforated materials. this is a simple technique that involves only punching, which helps in better gas diffusion. perforation-mediated packing system offers the benefit of avoiding in-package anaerobiosis, extending the shelf life and maintaining the quality of fresh or minimally processed produce (hussein et al., 2015; winotapun et al., 2015). selection criteria for packing material for map 1. type of packing whether it is flexible, rigid or semi rigid. 2. permeability or the barrier properties. 3. machinability and strength 4. clarity 5. durability 6. heat sealing property 7. extend of fogging especially when transpiration occurs in fresh produce. 8. sealing reliability 9. rate of water vapor transmission 10. resistance to chemical degradation 11. chemically inert 12. non-toxic 13. commercially suitable 14. economic feasibility. table 2 presents the packaging materials and their properties used during map. table 2: various packing materials used in map ldpe (low density polyethylene) • soft, flexible and strong • resistance to chemicals • easy to seal • high oxygen and carbon dioxide permeability • low cost pe • strong, flexible, tough • good barrier properties • not suitable for application involving exposure to heat. • low cost pa ge 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 pp (polypropylene) • strong, dense, transparent • favorable response to heating • high clarity and durability • moderate barrier properties • low cost pet (poly ethylene terephthalate) • excellent transparency-glass like • good barrier properties • good resistance to chemical degradation. • high cost pvc (polyvinyl chloride) • strong, transparent • good gas barrier • excellent resistance to chemicals • extensively used as packing film • inexpensive pvdc (poly vinylidene chloride) • high gas barrier properties • heat sealable • used in retorting, hot filling, low temperature storage. • expensive ps (polystyrene) • excellent transparency • high tensile strength • poor barrier propertiesso used as ‘breathable’ film • inexpensive nylon 6 (polyamide) • strong • good barrier properties • excellent performance in high temperature • costly evoh (ethylene-vinyl alcohol) • excellent gas barrier properties • used as oxygen barrier material • maintains product quality for oxygen sensitive products • costly eva (ethylene vinyl acetate) • excellent transparency • good heat seal • good adhesive properties • used as adhesive in multilayer films • inexpensive pla (poly lactic acid) • biodegradable • hydrolysable • suitable for map especially fresh produce • expensive advantages in map modified atmosphere packaging provides many benefits, which include; • shelf-life extension is possible in various food items • retaining quality of the product like color and flavor • maintaining the nutritional values • minimizing growth of spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms • best method for preserving perishable foods • ensure food safety • no added preservative in this method • product presentation will be excellent when packed in map microbiological effects of map microbes in food, including fungi, yeast, and bacteria, can be beneficial or hazardous. some species can cause food deterioration, while others can cause food poisoning during storage. map can alter these growth patterns, increasing shelf-life by adjusting the gases needed. furthermore, oxygen is a significant factor in bacterial growth, which can be classified based on oxygen demand. aerobes which require oxygen for growth and development. microaeropliles they need a low concentration of oxygen. some pathogens can grow optimally in such conditions. facultative aerobes they can grow better in oxygen but survive without it. many strains are psychrotrops. pa ge 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 anaerobes they cannot live in the presence of oxygen. complete removal of oxygen in map may not be useful for shelf life extension because pathogenic bacteria like clostridium may survive, which can cause food poisoning. consequently, carbon dioxide, when present in a minimum of 20% concentration, may indefinitely extend the lag phase of microorganisms while exerting bactericidal effects on the bacteria and molds, making it the most commonly used gas to limit bacteria and mold growth (yan et al., 2022).biochemical changes with map lipid oxidation unsaturated fatty acids oxidize when exposed to oxygen, and the rancidity process accelerates. the reaction is caused by oxygen joining with unsaturated fatty acids. removing oxygen and replacing carbon dioxide and nitrogen will dissuade rancidity in food products (laguerre et al., 2020). discoloration of meat red color of meat is preferred by the customers, which occurs due to the presence of oxy-myoglobin. map in the opaque pack is suitable as light can cause discoloration due to chemical changes. low oxygen concentration is advisable in cured meat for color retention (cenci-goga et al., 2020). oxidative off flavor usually, this occurs during chilled storage. meat, poultry, fish, and dairy products are highly susceptible to oxidative processes. map can delay developing off orders at low oxygen concentrations (gorris & peppelenbos, 2020). photo-oxidation of chlorophyll oxidation of chlorophyll occurs in fruits and vegetables, which turn green to brown or grey. low-concentration and opaque packets can reduce this effect in map (mullan & mcdowell, 2011). physical changes the following physical changes can occur in food products during packaging. therefore, map helps to reduce physical changes in food. • spoilage • water loss • wilting • weight reduction • textural changes • syneresis in dairy products role of modified atmospheric packing in achieving sdg’s the role of technology in sustainability is clearly understood here. map can contribute to many sustainability development goals, such as sdg 2: zero hunger, sdg 12: responsible consumption and production, and sdg 13: climate action set by the united nations (lemaire & limbourg, 2019). food waste is a significant issue globally, with billions of tons wasted daily. however, one-third of this waste comes from production (lemaire & limbourg, 2019). map technology aims to minimize food waste and extend shelf life, contributing to sustainability goals like zero hunger. responsible production involves reducing chemicals and synthetic materials, achieving sdg 12. map also introduces biodegradable packing materials, promoting an eco-friendly system. by reducing plastic packaging and increasing shelf life, map technology contributes to environmental sustainability and sdg 13 (lemaire & limbourg, 2019). map of fruits and vegetables passive map minimizes respiration rates in fruits and vegetables, which have high perishability, rapid quality decay, and limited shelf life. map helps delay postharvest ripening and prevents early spoilage (oliveira et al., 2015). it is widely used in fresh-cut farm produce, maintaining tss, juice content, and surface color. map can also prevent enzymatic browning in high oxygen concentrations (tinebra et al., 2021). various studies showed that map can retain quality in plums, strawberries, kiwi, litchi, table grapes, cherries, and blueberries. map can also reduce water loss and wilting in green leafy vegetables like spinach, parsley, and dill and help retain chlorophyll (soltani et al., 2015; thompson et al., 2018). map of poultry and meat meat is a highly perishable product, and minced meat is susceptible to bacterial growth due to the disruption of meat’s cellular structure throughout the surface. due to cross-contamination, meat can be contaminated with salmonella during slaughter, dressing, deboning process, transportation and storage. therefore, map technology was used to decrease the count of salmonella in minced meat (djordjević et al., 2018). map is a technology used to preserve the color of fresh meat cuts by maintaining the pigment even in an oxygen-rich environment. this process is particularly useful for sliced beef, a quality criterion that commands high market prices (singh et al., 2011). the primary cause of red meat deterioration is microbial growth and oxidation of the oxymyoglobin pigment (bekhit et al., 2019). however, the oxygen level must be decreased to prevent microbial proliferation, while maintaining a low oxygen concentration is crucial (danijela et al., 2013). map ensures the appropriate concentration of gases, inhibiting microbial growth and preserving the product’s color (gill, 2018). further, poultry primarily focuses on prolonging its shelf life, and map treatment has shown a significant reduction in bacterial growth (ibrahim et al., 2020). moreover, chilled storage and nitrite as a preservative can also reduce post-processing contamination in meat and poultry products. thus, prevent food spoilage and poisoning (papadochristopoulos et al., 2021). pa ge 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 1-10, 2025 map of fish and seafood aquaculture has become a global phenomenon, with fish and shellfish being highly perishable due to bacterial action. typical icing and refrigeration methods only extend shelf life by a few days. aerobic microbes spoil processed fish, leading to spoilage. map inhibits spoilage flora, increasing shelf life significantly (kontominas et al., 2021). microbes are found in fresh catch’s surface, gills, and intestines, causing spoilage quickly. chemical changes, such as auto-oxidation or enzymatic hydrolysis, can result in off orders in fish (tavares et al., 2021). tissue enzyme activity can also lead to unacceptable softening. trimethyl amine oxide (tmao) in fish muscle can be degraded to tma at chilled temperatures, causing a spoiled fish smell (debbarma, 2022). studies on seasoned cobia sticks show that cobia sticks remain safe and of good microbiological, chemical, and biological quality for a longer period when packed in map. the extended shelf life of fish depends on species, fat content, initial microbial load, gas mixture, and storage temperature (gonçalves & santos, 2018). despite a smaller shelf life, high demand for spoiled fish products persists. map of dairy products milk-based products, such as sweets, fat-filled milk powders, cheese, and fat spreads, are in high demand due to their high consumption (oliveira et al., 2019). however, these products suffer from spoilage due to oxidative rancidity and microbial growth. they have limited shelf life due to deteriorative changes during storage. these products are mainly consumed fresh and undergo biochemical, physical, and microbiological changes, making them unfit for human consumption (lu & wang, 2017). map has been studied to enhance the shelf life of these dairy products. cheese products can be packed using map, as the combination of gases ensures shelf life and quality, maintaining the seal tight without excessive pressure on the packing seal (atallah et al., 2021). future prospects many novel technologies, such as active packaging and hurdle technology, are associated with map products to increase safety and shelf life further. active packaging is an emerging technology in which food packages and the environment interact using gas emitters and absorbers. hurdle technology is a combined process that is an intentional combination of preservation techniques in order to establish a series of preservative factors (hurdles) that any present microorganism cannot overcome. it can be a storage temperature, water activity, ph, redox potential, bio conservation, map, ultra pressure treatment, and edible coatings. the use of combination processes with map is nascent and needs further development. furthermore, smart packing, such as tti (time-temperature indicators), is a technology that can be combined with refrigerated map products. this ensures food safety with strict temperature control over time. conclusion in conclusion, this study underscores the significance of modified atmosphere packaging for various products. map technique is crucial for food preservation, preventing food waste and ensuring food security. map is a modern preservation technique that helps extend the product’s shelf life by retaining its quality and flavor. it reduces food waste, extends shelf life, and maintains nutritional value. map is linked to zero hunger, responsible consumption, and climate action goals in sustainable development. it is versatile and effective for various food products, including vegetables, fruits, meat, poultry, fish, and dairy. for all these products, map has proved to provide significant barrier properties and improved shelf life to a longer extent. map is not only a solution for food preservation but also accelerates the future demand for environmentally friendly packaging materials and technologies. limitations and strengths the study limitations may include 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(2016). food packaging in perspective of microbial activity: a review. the journal of microbiology, biotechnology and food sciences, 6(2), 752. pa ge 1 pa ge 1 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) moisture adsorption characteristics of spray-dried composite tropical fruit purees and application to shelf life prediction in flexible packages jack amedu ankeli1, ogbene gillian igbum3, friday godwin okibe4, charles chukwuma ariahu2, ndi betrand bongjo3* volume 4 issue 2, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i2.4189 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: december 01, 2024 accepted: january 08, 2025 published: july 03, 2025 the moisture adsorption behavior of spray-dried watermelon, orange, and mango composite puree was examined at temperatures of 20°c, 25°c, 30°c, 40°c, and 50°c across a water activity range of 0.11–0.95 by gravimetric static method and data obtained analyzed using the bet, gab, and oswin models. the sorption data and water vapor permeability of commercial aluminum pouches, low density polyethylene (ldpe), melinex 813, and propafilm c were utilized to predict product shelf lives under ambient storage conditions. the experimental data exhibited the type iii isotherms, characteristic of foods rich in soluble components. the gab model provided the best fit to the adsorption data. bet monolayer moisture contents decreased with increasing temperature, suggesting fewer available waterbinding sites at higher temperatures. aluminum pouches demonstrated superior moisture protection compared to the other packaging options. this study offers valuable insights for optimizing storage strategies and selecting packaging materials for spray-dried composite fruit products with practical applications in the food industry. keywords flexible packages, moisture sorption isotherms, monolayer moisture content, optimal storage, spray-drying, tropical fruit purees, water activity 1 department of food science &technology, university of mkar, mkar,benue state, nigeria 2 department of chemistry, benue state university, makurdi, nigeria 3 centre for food technology and research, benue state university, makurdi, nigeria 4 department of biochemistry, federal university of health sciences, otukpo. benue state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: betrandbongjo@gmail.com introduction the preservation and storage stability of fruit products remain critical challenges in the food industry, particularly for tropical fruits which are often characterized by high moisture content and seasonal availability. tropical fruits such as watermelon (citrullus lanatus), orange (citrus sinensis), and mango (mangifera indica) are highly valued for their unique flavors, nutritional properties, and bioactive compounds. watermelon, with its high water content (>90%) and rich lycopene composition, provides antioxidant properties and potential health benefits. oranges are renowned for their high vitamin c content, flavonoids, and essential minerals, while mangoes are excellent sources of provitamin a carotenoids, vitamin c, and polyphenols (vicente et al., 2022). however, these fruits’ high moisture content (80-92%), coupled with their rich nutrient profile that supports microbial growth and seasonal nature, necessitate effective preservation methods to ensure year-round availability and reduced post-harvest losses. spray drying has emerged as an effective method for extending the shelf life of fruit products while maintaining their nutritional and sensory qualities (shishir & chen, 2017). this technology involves the transformation of liquid feed into dried particles through rapid atomization in a hot drying medium, typically air(seth et al., 2018). the process offers several advantages including operational flexibility, rapid drying rates, and the production of freeflowing powders with controlled particle size. for tropical fruit purees, spray drying provides an efficient means of moisture removal while preserving heat-sensitive components and minimizing thermal degradation of bioactive compounds (santos et al., 2018). understanding moisture sorption characteristics is fundamental to predicting and controlling product stability during storage, especially when considering the hygroscopic nature of fruit powders (barbosa-cánovas et al., 2020). these characteristics, typically represented through moisture sorption isotherms, provide essential information about water-solid interactions and help determine optimal storage conditions. moreover, thermodynamic parameters derived from moisture sorption data offer valuable insights into the molecular mechanisms governing moisture binding and product stability. flexible packaging materials, varying in their moisture and oxygen barrier properties, can significantly influence product stability. the interaction between product moisture sorption characteristics and packaging material properties determines the moisture transfer rates and ultimately affects the product’s shelf life. understanding these relationships is essential for selecting packaging materials that can effectively protect spray-dried products from environmental factors while maintaining their quality attributes (lechevalier, 2016; wu et al., 2021). while extensive research exists on individual fruit powders, there is limited comprehensive data on the moisture sorption behavior of composite tropical fruit purees in their spray-dried form. additionally, the practical application of such data in predicting shelf life stability pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 1-8, 2025 across different packaging materials remains relatively unexplored. this gap is particularly significant given the growing market demand for tropical fruit products and the need for efficient preservation methods. this study investigated the moisture sorption characteristics of spray-dried composite tropical fruit purees (watermelon, orange, and mango) and examined their implications for shelf life prediction in various flexible packaging materials. through the analysis of sorption isotherms, modelling of sorption behavior, and evaluation of thermodynamic properties, this research aimed to provide crucial insights for optimizing storage conditions and packaging selection in the food industry. materials and methods sources of raw materials and preliminary handling watermelon, oranges, and mangoes were obtained from the “railway market” in makurdi, benue state, nigeria. they were thoroughly washed, cleaned and kept in the refrigerator for 12 hours prior to product development. fruit purees production watermelon fruit puree production after washing and sorting, the fruits were peeled manually using stainless steel knives, followed by slicing, removal of the seeds, and blending of pulps in a household electric blender (kenwood electricals, uk) at speed number 3 for 15 s into smooth pastes, which were pasteurised at 70 oc for 15s in 250 ml glass beakers with aluminum foil coverings. after cooling, the watermelon purees were kept in a refrigerator before use for composite puree formulation (maurice, 2018). production of orange fruits puree orange fruit puree was produced with slight modifications as described by obasi et al. (2017). essentially, the fruits were sorted, washed, peeled and sliced using stainless steel knives. after the removal of the seeds, the slices were blended into a smooth paste using the house hold electric blender. the orange puree was then pasteurized at 70 oc for 15s in 250 ml glass beakers with aluminium foil covers. the pasteurized orange puree was rapidly cooled in an ice bath and promptly stored in a refrigerator prior to use for mixed puree formulation. production of mango fruits puree this was done by the method of labaky et al. (2020). the mango fruits were sorted, washed and blanched by immersion in a boiling hot water bath maintained at 98 oc for 5 min. the blanched mango fruits were then cooled in running tap water, peeled using stainless steel knives and the fleshy mesocarp sliced to obtain pieces which were blended in the kenwood mixer in the presence of 0.2 m citric acid buffer (ph 5.2) into a smooth slurry. the slurry was then stored in the freezer compartment of a household refrigerator prior to use for composite puree formulation. composite fruit purees formulation the composite fruit puree compositions are shown in table 1 each puree type was treated with commercial maltodextrin as a carrier agent respectively to obtain a dextrose equivalent (de) of 30 for each group. the composite purees together with the malodextrins were each blended into smoothies and subjected to preliminary sensory evaluation which indicated that the composite puree sample comprising 50% watermelon, 30% orange and 20% mango composite puree (code: 618) was the most acceptable smoothie and hence was used for the spray drying experiment. spray drying operations spray drying of the composite fruits puree containing 50 % watermelon, 30 % orange and 20 % mango was as described by sabhadinde (2014) using a pilot plant spraydryer (simon dryers ltd, cheshire, england.) with a cocurrent airflow. the speed of the blower was set at 2400 rpm for all the drying. distilled water was pumped into the dryer at a set flow rate at 10 rpm (10 rpm ~ 30 ml/min) to achieve inlet and outlet temperatures of 200 °c and 120 °c, respectively. the dryer was run at this condition for about 10 min prior to the introduction of the feed. the feed puree was passed through the spray-dryer chamber (500 mm x 21 mm) with the aid of a centrifugal pump. the speed of rotation of the pump controls the feed flow rate, which passes from the atomizer nozzle with an inner diameter of 0.5 mm. the inner temperature and feed rate were maintained at 160°c and 400 ml/h respectively. after the spray-drying operation, the powder obtained was collected in a pre-weighed, insulated glass bottle connected at the end of cyclone collector and packed in aluminium pouches which were stored at 25°c in a desiccator containing activated silica gel prior to prompt use for analyses. table 1: composite purees formulation sample code puree composition (%) watermelon orange mango 573 30 50 20 618 50 30 20* 335 20 50 30 804 50 20 30 732 20 30 50 408 30 20 50 *most acceptable sample upon which quality analyses was carried out pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 1-8, 2025 measurement of equilibrium moisture content and water activity equilibrium moisture content was determined gravimetrically by exposing the samples to atmospheres of known relative humidities following the method described by (ariahu et al., 2005). sulphuric acid (h2so4) solutions of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 % were used to provide water activities ranging from 0.15 to 0.96. a thermostatically controlled biochemistry incubator (model: spx-80-ii, searchtech instruments) and 500 ml plastic containers were used for temperature and humidity controls respectively. the solutions made from the acid (200ml each) were carefully introduced into the plastic containers. a screen made of wire gauze was arranged in the plastic containers above the acid solutions to provide a platform for the samples to rest. the experiment was carried out at four temperatures (20, 25, 30, 40 and 50 oc). the equivalent moisture contents were determined by material balance from the initial moisture contents 1. emc: mw1+100(w3-w2)/(w1+(w3-w2) (1) where; m=initial moisture content of the sample, w1=weight of sample during sorption, w2=initial weight of the sample and crown cork, w3=final weight of the sample and crown cork at equilibrium, emc= equilibrium moisture content moisture sorption models the equilibrium moisture data was fitted using the brunauer–emmett–teller (bet), gab and oswin models. these models were chosen for their reported fit for starchy foods. they are the most widely used model that gives a good fit to data for a variety of foods over the aw region of 0.05 to 0.45 (chirife & iglesias, 1978; rizvi, 1995) in (ocheme et al., 2013). the models are; bet model: aw/(1-aw )m=1/(m0 c)+((c-1)aw)/(m0 c) (2) gab model: m=(mo gkaw)/((1-kaw)(1-kaw+gkaw)) (3) oswin model: m=a[aw/(1-aw )]b (4) where; m= equilibrium moisture content, mo = monolayer moisture content and a, b, g, k and c are constants related to heat of sorption, aw = water activity the isotherm model parameters were obtained using originlab 2024 through linear and polynomial regression methods as the case may be. the goodness of fit of different models used was evaluated using correlation coefficient (r2) the net isosteric heat of sorption was calculated by applying clausius-clapeyron equation to the isosteres obtained at constant moisture content following the procedure reported by ariahu et al. (2005). by plotting ln (aw) versus 1/t for a specific moisture content, ∆hst was evaluated from the slope (-∆hst/r). the differential entropy of sorption (∆so) was also obtained from the intercept, c, coefficient (∆so/r) of the same plot. applying this at different moisture contents allowed the dependence of ∆hst and ∆so with moisture to be determined as follows: ln aw=cst∆hst/r 1/t (5) application of moisture sorption to shelf life prediction the relationship between effective diffusivity and storage temperature at 85 % rh was evaluated. from the parameters obtained from the packaging films (aluminum pouch, ldpe, melinex 813 and propafilm c) and sorption data, the shelf life of the instant fufu flour samples can be predicted following the expression for shelf life predictions by karel (1975) as cited in offiah et al., (2016) ln (me-mi)/(me-mc )=(b/x)(a/ws )(p0/b)ts (6) where; me=equilibrium moisture content at outside relative humidity (obtained from sorption isotherm), mi=initial moisture content of packaged food, mc=critical moisture content of packaged food (from sorption isotherm), b=moisture permeability of packaging materials, b=slope of sorption isotherm, ws=weight of solid food, a=package surface area, x=thickness of the packaging material, po=vapor pressure of pure water at ambient temperature, ts=shelf life. a working isotherm straight line equation derived from a given sorption isotherm is given as; m=y+baw (7) where b=slope, y=intercept at aw=0 (representing initial moisture content, mi), m=moisture content (gh2o/100 g solids) at given aw. the water vapour permeability of the different packaging films at 85 % rh are given as follows; aluminum pouch (0.098 gh2o/m2.day.mmhg), low-density polyethylene (0.8169 gh2o/m2.day.mmhg), melinex 813 (0.88 gh2o/m2.day.mmhg), propafilm c (0.122 gh2o/m2.day.mmhg). the surface area of the packaging material was taken as 0.25 m2 with the weight of the sample to be packaged being 500 g. results and discussion effect of temperature and water activity on moisture sorption isotherms as presented in figure 1, the equilibrium moisture content was observed to be increasing as the water activity increased; but decreased with an increase in temperature. also known as the flory-huggins isotherms, the isotherms observed in this study were of j-shaped (type iii). this type of isotherm is common in foods with soluble components like sugars. authors have reported similar types of isotherm types in literature (domínguezchávez et al., 2023). this shape implies that with the presence of the sugars, the food material sorbs small amounts of water at low water activity and large amounts of water at high relative humidity. pedro et al. (2010) observed similar results for spray-dried passion fruit. the observed differences in moisture sorption capacity can be explained by the differences in bulk porosity and the pore size of the dried materials. such drying techniques such as freeze-drying and spray drying, resulted in a highly porous product with small pores, which sorbed more water (tsami et al., 1998). the behavior of the isotherms can be attributed to physical sorption occurring on highly active sites at low water activities, as water molecules primarily interact with surface hydroxyl groups of crystalline sugar. the observed decrease in equilibrium moisture content with rising temperature aligns with findings from other researchers (ocheme et pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 1-8, 2025 al., 2013; pedro et al., 2010; sengev et al., 2016). this trend may result from the reduced affinity of water molecules for the product at higher temperatures. this trend is related to the excitation state of molecules reported by diosady et al in (ariahu et al., 2005). the attractive forces between molecules are lower at high temperatures due to an increase in the kinetic energy of water molecules, allowing the connection between moisture and sorption sites to be broken, which reduces the moisture content of the product (yadav & mishra, 2023). dalgıç et al. (2012) have also reported similar results for freeze-dried mint leaves. the effect of spray drying on the moisture sorption isotherm of coffee extract has also been studied and it aligns with the results in this study (villegassantiago et al., 2020). similar results were also observed for spray-dried sweetened yoghurt powder (seth et al., 2018). an increase in moisture content with rising water activity was observed, with a more pronounced increase occurring in the water activity range of 0.5 to 1.0. this suggests that at water activity levels above 0.5, microbial growth, enzymatic reactions, and lipid oxidation are likely to accelerate, leading to faster spoilage of the spray-dried fruit puree composites. model regression parameters and derivative the regression parameters for the gab, bet, and oswin models are presented in tables 2, 3, and 4, respectively. it was observed that the monolayer moisture content (mo) decreased with increasing temperature. the mo values are critical for identifying storage and preservation conditions, as exceeding these values could lead to deteriorative changes. it represents the minimum amount of water bound to active sites to give a monolayer coverage and maximum stability of storage foods (yang et al., 2016). the monolayer moisture contents determined using the bet and gab models were found to range from 6.60 to 15.50 g h2o/100 g solids and 9.98 to 30.87 g h2o/100 g solids, respectively. notably, the bet monolayer values were significantly lower than those obtained from the gab model. authors reported lower bet and gab monolayer moisture contents ranging from 1.18-6.89 g h2o/100 g solids and 4.52-6.59 g h2o/100 g solids respectively; for spray-dried coffee extract (villegas-santiago et al., 2020). this reduction in monolayer values could be explained by the reduction in the total number of active sites for water binding as a result of physical and/or chemical changes in the product induced by temperature during the freezing process. several researchers have observed similar scenarios (domínguez-chávez et al., 2023). though there was a general reduction in the monolayer moisture content, the decreasing trend was not clear as there was an initial decrease in mo and then a subtle increase. this could be due to several factors which affect sorption in foods which can be complex (harini, 2023). figure 1: moisture sorption isotherms of spray-dried tropical fruit composite purees fitting of sorption models sorption experimental data for five temperatures (20 °c, 25 °c, 30 °c, 40 °c, and 50 °c) were fitted to three models: bet, gab, and oswin, within their theoretically appropriate ranges. the quality of the fit for each model was assessed using the correlation coefficient (r²), with the values presented in tables 2, 3, and 4 for the bet, gab, and oswin models, respectively. the r² value, which indicates how well a model explains the variability of the predicted values, suggests that models with r² values closer to 1 are more suitable (gichau et al., 2020). the r² values ranged as follows: gab (0.81–0.96), bet (0.50–0.87), and oswin (0.49–0.62). among the models, the gab model had the lowest %rms (5.8 – 7.6) and hence provided the best fit, as evidenced by its r² values being closer to 1 compared to the oswin and bet models. this finding agrees with results reported by pedro et al. (2010), who studied the sorption isotherms of passion fruit pulp and villegas-santiago et al. (2020), who analyzed the drying process of coffee extract. table 2: gab adsorption regression parameters for spray-dried composite tropical fruit puree sample temperature k c mo r2 20 0.67 1.84 30.87 0.96 25 0.70 6.13 9.98 0.88 30 0.87 8.75 11.89 0.80 40 0.82 4.11 13.40 0.84 50 0.80 2.35 13.97 0.81 r2=correlation coefficient, mo=monolayer moisture content, g and k are gab constants pa ge 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 1-8, 2025 thermodynamic properties of spray-dried composite tropical fruit purees net isosteric heat of sorption the net isosteric heat of sorption exhibited strong dependency on emc of spray-dried composite tropical fruit purees (figure 2). the net isosteric heat was maximum (3.3×10−4 kj/mol) at the lowest emc (2 % db) which decreased with the increase in emc. this finding is also corroborated by several workers (edrisi sormoli & langrish, 2015; yogendrarajah et al., 2015). this could be attributed to the availability of highly active polar sites that initially require greater interaction energy. once the available polar sites become less, binding energy also diminishes (seth et al., 2018). the isosteric heat of sorption decreased swiftly up to 6 % moisture content (db) followed by a gradual decrease with increasing moisture content. this implied that the water bound in the ‘monolayer region’ is difficult to remove compared to the ‘condensed water region’ of isotherm (seth et al., 2018). the high correlation coefficients (r2≥0.869) confirm the validity and effectiveness of the clausius-clapeyron equation in describing the sorption energetics of the spray-dried tropical fruit puree composites, as shown in table 5. as the moisture content increases, the heat of sorption approaches that of pure water, indicating that the moisture exists predominantly in a free form. this underscores the strong dependence of isosteric heat on moisture content, with the energy required for sorption (beyond the latent heat) being significantly higher at low moisture content (yazdani et al., 2006). additionally, this suggests that the heat of adsorption for the initial layers of water molecules exceeds the heat of condensation of pure water. the heat of sorption values at specific moisture contents offer valuable insights into the state of the sorbed water, serving as an indicator of the physical, chemical, and microbiological stability of food materials under specific storage conditions. the variation in sorption heat with moisture content is particularly useful for calculating energy consumption and designing efficient drying equipment. additionally, it aids in understanding the balance between water-water and water-solid interactions. water sorption in foods is inherently complex, as the main water-sorbing constituents—such as proteins, starch, cellulose, and sugars—each contain distinct polar groups that create energetically preferential sites for water binding (labuza & altunakar, 2020). table 3: bet adsorption regression parameters for spray-dried composite tropical fruit purees sample temperature c mo so r2 20 2.64 15.50 544.65 0.74 25 7.86 6.60 232.65 0.72 30 10.19 9.91 348.17 0.87 40 4.77 10.12 355.57 0.73 50 2.59 10.14 356.29 0.50 r2=correlation coefficient, mo=monolayer moisture content ( g h2o/100g solids), so=surface area of sorption (m2/100g solids), c= bet constant table 4: oswin adsorption regression parameters for spray-dried composite tropical fruit purees sample temperature n c r2 20 0.28 8.96 0.49 25 0.21 6.11 0.50 30 0.23 11.12 0.62 40 0.26 7.88 0.56 50 0.29 5.92 0.52 a and b are oswin constanst, r2=correlation coefficient table 5: regression parameters for clausius–clapeyron equation relationship between lnaw and 1/t for adsorption isotherms regression parameter moisture content (gh2o/100 g solids) 2 3 4 5 6 8 10 12 n 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 a -0.039 -0.049 -0.028 -0.027 -0.026 -0.023 -0.021 -0.019 b 8.96 12.32 6.43 6.29 6.13 5.64 5.23 4.76 r2 0.933 0.985 0.896 0.920 0.944 0.948 0.940 0.869 δhst 0.00033 0.00041 0.00024 0.00023 0.00022 0.00019 0.00017 0.00016 δso -0.0745 -0.1024 -0.0535 -0.0523 -0.0510 -0.0469 -0.0435 -0.0395 n = no. of entries; r2=correlation coefficient; b= intercept coefficient; a= slope; δhst=net isosteric heat (kj/mol); δso=net entropy of sorption (kj/mol.oc). pa ge 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 1-8, 2025 entropy of sorption like isosteric heat of sorption, sorption entropy exhibited strong dependency on emc (figure 2). the sorption entropy gives the status of the available sorption sites for water binding on the surface (yogendrarajah et al., 2015). the entropy of sorption (δso) values were determined from the intercept coefficients obtained through leastsquare linear regression of the relationship between lnaw and 1/t at constant moisture contents. using the clausius-clapeyron equation, δso was calculated as cst=∆so/r. negative δso values were observed, increasing as moisture content increased. this reflects the thermodynamic compensation between the heat and entropy of moisture sorption. at lower moisture contents, water molecules are tightly bound to the sorbent surfaces, exhibiting a low degree of freedom and low entropy of sorption. in contrast, at higher moisture contents, water molecules form multilayers over the tightly bound first layer, possessing greater degrees of freedom and, consequently, higher entropy of sorption (li et al., 2011; yang et al., 2016). for the spray-dried tropical fruit purees, the entropy of sorption increased up to approximately 6 % moisture content and then became asymptotic with further increases in moisture content. this behavior may be attributed to a balance between the increasing moisture content and the availability of hydrophilic sites, which prevents significant fluctuations in entropy. similar asymptotic tendencies in various products have been reported in the literature (ariahu et al., 2005; li et al., 2011; sengev et al., 2018). (0.122 g h2o/m2.day.mmhg). for instance, at 20 °c, aluminum pouches were estimated to achieve a shelf life of 73.08 months, the longest among the tested packaging materials. in contrast, the shelf life for the same packaging decreased significantly to 9.31 months at 50 °c, highlighting the influence of temperature on product stability (figure 3). these shelf-life estimations focused on the water vapor permeability of the packaging materials. however, further investigations are necessary to understand the impact of gas permeability, particularly to oxygen and carbon dioxide, which could contribute to lipid oxidation and affect product quality (gichau et al., 2020; seth et al., 2018). figure 2: net isosteric heat and net entropy of sorption of spray-dried composite tropical fruit purees shelf life prediction of spray-dried composite tropical fruit purees as anticipated, the shelf life of the product decreased with increasing initial storage moisture content and storage temperature across all packaging types. storage conditions, particularly high ambient temperature and relative humidity, pose significant challenges for the stability of dried products (anandito et al., 2017). higher storage temperatures are predicted to shorten shelf life due to the increased transmission rate of water vapor (gichau et al., 2020). regardless of temperature, aluminum pouches were predicted to offer the longest shelf life due to their low water vapor transmission rate figure 3: shelf life prediction of spray-dried composite tropical fruit purees conclusion this study provides comprehensive insights into the moisture sorption behavior and storage stability of spraydried composite tropical fruit purees. the investigation revealed that the spray-dried products exhibited type iii isotherms, characteristic of high-sugar materials, with the bet model providing the best fit for the experimental moisture sorption data. this finding is particularly significant for predicting moisture content under various storage conditions.the thermodynamic analysis revealed important relationships between moisture content and binding energy, as demonstrated by the increase in net isosteric heat of sorption with increasing moisture content, indicating the presence of thermodynamic compensation. the negative values of net entropy of sorption, which approached zero with increasing moisture content, suggest reduced molecular mobility and increased order in the system at lower moisture content. these thermodynamic parameters provide valuable insights into the water-solid interactions that govern product stability. the comparative analysis of different flexible packaging materials demonstrated that aluminum pouches offered superior protection and predicted longer shelf life (73.08 months at 20 oc) compared to other packaging options. this finding has significant practical implications for the food industry, particularly in the selection of appropriate packaging materials for spray-dried fruit products. these results contribute to the fundamental understanding of moisture sorption phenomena in composite fruit pa ge 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 1-8, 2025 systems and provide practical guidelines for the storage and packaging of spray-dried tropical fruit products. the findings can be applied to optimize storage conditions and packaging selections, ultimately leading to improved product stability and extended shelf life. references anandito, r. b. k., siswanti, purnamayati, l., & sodiq, h. 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(2015). moisture sorption isotherms and thermodynamic properties of whole black peppercorns (piper nigrum l.). lwtfood science and technology, 64(1), 177–188. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.lwt.2015.05.045 pa ge 1 pa ge 11 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) triple fortification improved the physicochemical qualities of soy-chocolate drinks terhemba nancy seember1*, ariahu charles chukwuma2, kelly ndombow yakum1, peter abuengmoh1, nwatum irene ayah1 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i1.4080 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: november 19, 2024 accepted: december 26, 2024 published: january 22, 2025 the effect of triple fortification on the physicochemical qualities of soy-chocolate drinks were evaluated. triple fortification of soy-chocolate drinks with 0.15 mg potassium iodide, 2.0 mg ferrous sulphate, and 1.6 mg pro-vitamin a (retinol palmitate) / 100g sample was used as recommended by the world health organization (who) fortification guidelines. four soy-chocolate drinks comprising of non-fortified plain (nfpscd), fortified plain (fpscd), non-fortified sweetened (nfsscd) and fortified sweetened (fsscd) were formulated. soychocolate drinks were formulated and analyzed using standard procedures. ph ranged from 6.12 to 6.86, tta varied from 0.62 to 0.89 % lactic acid, and specific gravity from 1.02 to 1.07. the vitamin content increased significantly (p< 0.05)., retinol palmitate varied from 0.14 to 1.66 mg/ 100g, while vitamin b1 ranged from 0.20 to 0.35 mg/ 100g, vitamin b2 from 0.50 to 0.72 mg/ 100g, vitamin b3 1.03 to 1.22 mg/ 100g, vitamin b6 from 0.21 to 0.23 mg/ 100g, vitamin k range between 2.18 to 3.37 mg/ 100g, vitamin e from 0.81 to 0.96 mg/ 100g. mineral composition of soy-chocolate drinks were calcium which was 92.43 to 94.36 mg/ 100g, sodium 80.06 to 83.26 mg/100g, potassium 306.43 to 329.52 mg/100g, magnesium 46.04 to 47.12 mg/ 100g, phosphorus 120.62 to 123.54mg/100g, zinc 2.01 to 2.69, iron 3.71 to 3.88 mg/ 100g, iodine 0.18 to 0.24 mg/100g. it was observed from this research that soy-chocolate nutrient quality was improved because of fortification. keywords cocoa powder, fortification, nutrients, soymilk 1 center for food technology & research, benue state university, makurdi, nigeria 2 department of food science & human ecology, university of agriculture, makurdi, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: nancyseember@gmail.com introduction soymilk is a stable aqueous extract of whole soybean (glycine max) seeds (iwe, 2003). it is a highly refreshing food drink which contains about 6 % protein, 4 % fat, 5 % carbohydrate, 1 % fibre, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants which are essential for human health (adebowale, 2019) . soy milk, kunu-zaki, zobo, coconut milk, and tigernut milk are some of the local aqueous non-alcoholic drinks in nigeria. nevertheless, soymilk’s ease of production and adaptability are credited to its versatility as a beverage around the world (ariahu, 2019). as this drink is cholesterol free and low in energy, it could enhance health benefits in terms of reducing body weight and blood lipids (who, 2021). it is available as a plain, sweetened, unflavored beverage or in a variety of flavored beverages including chocolate, vanilla and almond. cocoa powder is a product of dry cocoa solids with 10 12 % phenolic compounds (phytonutrients), commonly referred to as nutraceuticals or phytochemicals, which are used in food supplementation (fao, 2020). polyphenols have antioxidant properties that takes part in the reduction of diseases by preventing damage during aerobic respiration. it prevents cardiovascular diseases, cholesterol, modulate immune function and stop the production of low-density lipoprotein (ldlp) (achinehwu, 2019). cocoa is rich in flavonol that regulates platelet which aids in blood clotting. soy-chocolate drinks are aqueous blends of liquid soymilk and varying levels of cocoa powder which may be plain or sweetened. these non-alcoholic drinks combine the nutritional and health benefits of aqueous extractives of soybean and cocoa bean in a punch. the benefits include high protein contents, predominance of polyunsaturated fatty acids, phytochemicals as well as low lactose and cholesterol content (ariahu, 2019). chocolate drinks are popular among adults and children, especially those of school age and holds promise as appropriate vehicle in food fortification programmes for addressing micronutrients deficiency (mnd). protein energy malnutrition (pem) and micronutrients deficiency (mnd) are prevalent in the third world countries including nigeria (ashaver et al., 2023). pem in general is defined by the world health organization as a cellular imbalance between the supply of nutrients and energy and the body’s demand for them to ensure growth, maintenance, and specific functions (ball, 1999). according to codex (2022) malnutrition is lack of essential vitamins and minerals required in small amounts by the body for growth and development. these nutritional deficiencies are more prevalent among low-income people, the invalids and those living in idp camps. food fortification is defined as the addition of one or more essential nutrients to a food, with the purpose of addressing a given deficiency in a population (fao, 2002). the nutrients of critical concern in mnd fortification programmes are iron, iodine and vitamin a (yasmine, 2019). food fortification is often considered the most economical approach to reduce nutritional deficiencies in settings where suitable food vehicles are available. the control of micronutrients malnutrition, notably vitamin a deficiency, iodine deficiency disorders and iron-deficiency pa ge 12 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 11-20, 2025 anemia, presently occupies the attention of nutrition and public health workers throughout the developing world. the food fortified are those commonly consumed by the population at risk. this has demonstrated to be a cost-effective food-based strategy for the control of micronutrients deficiencies (fao, 2020). soy-chocolate drinks can be employed for addressing pem and a vehicle for mnd fortification programmes. maximum limits by standard and least cost of production used in this research can be employed to serve as baseline data and standardization for soy-chocolate drinks. materials and methods about 10kg soybean (glycine max) seeds was bought from benue agriculture and rural development agency (bnarda) makurdi while a 500g pack of cocoa powder (nestle nigeria plc) was purchased from a popular supermarket in makurdi, benue state. provitamin a (retinol palmitate), ferrous sulphate and potassium iodide used as fortificants were purchased from a chemical store (emole nig ltd makurdi benue state, nigeria). soy-chocolate drinks formulation the soy-chocolate aqueous drink was produced using the method described by illinois with modifications as shown in figures 1, 2 and 3 (illinois, 2020, blackman et al., 2010). essentially, soybeans were sorted and cleaned to remove stones and damaged, deformed seeds. then the dry soybean was washed and soaked in water overnight (500g in 1 litre) for 12 hours. it was then rinsed and blanched in 0.5 % sodium bicarbonate for 30 minutes. the soybean seeds were ground in blender and expressed in the ratio of 3:1 (water to beans on a weight basis) to remove the okara or soy pulp. the obtained milk was then boiled and formulated by adding cocoa powder (0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 %) and sugar (0, 2, 4, 6 %). the milk was then pasteurized at the temperature of 65◦c for 15 seconds and subsequently bottled and refrigerated. this yielded 16 experimental groups which were promptly subjected to sensory evaluation. the most preferred plain and sweetened formulations and were each subjected to triple fortification using 0.15 mg potassium iodide, 2.0 mg ferrous sulphate and 1.6 mg/100 g sample pro-vitamin a as recommended by the world health organization (who) fortification guide respectively. this yielded four working samples comprising of non-fortified plain soy-chocolate drink (nfpscd), fortified plain soy-chocolate drink (fpscd), non-fortified sweetened soy-chocolate drink (nfsscd) and fortified sweetened soy-chocolate drink (fsscd) (regulations, 2021). figure 1: flow chart for the production of cocoa powder by nestle nig. plc source: illinois, 2020 pa ge 13 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 11-20, 2025 figure 2: flow chart for production of soymilk drink source: illinois, 2020 figure 3: flow chart for the production of soy-chocolate drink source: abadi et al., 2023 pa ge 14 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 11-20, 2025 analyses physical analysis of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the ph of the soy-chocolate drink samples was measured using jenway ph meter (model 3015, serial number 1647, uk). 2 g of each formulated sample was poured in a beaker. the ph electrode which was previously standardized using buffer of ph 4.01 and 9.20 and rinsed with deionized water. the electrode was dipped into the homogenate allowing sufficient time for equilibrium before taking readings. determinations were carried out in triplicate for each sample. chemical analysis of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the proximate composition of soy-chocolate drinks was analyzed for moisture, protein, fats, ash and crude fiber using a.o.a.c (2017). carbohydrate was determined by difference (subtracting crude protein (%), moisture (%), fat (%), crude fiber (%) and ash (%) contents of the soy-chocolate drinks from 100) and the energy value by atwater procedure. the mineral content of drinks was analyzed using spectrophotometric method to determine the mineral content of each sample (aoac, 2005). also, vitamin a, b1, b2, b3, b6, e and k content of soy-chocolate aqueous drinks were determined using colourimetric methods as described by ball (2020). statistical analysis data were subjected to one way analysis of variance (anova) with separation of means by duncan’s multiple range test at 0.05 of significance using statistical package for social sciences spss version 28. results and discussion physicochemical properties of fortified soychocolate drinks the physicochemical properties of soy-chocolate drinks are shown in table 1. there was a significant (p<0.05) difference among formulated samples. ph of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the effect of sugar, cocoa powder, and fortificants on the ph of soy-chocolate drinks is shown in table 1. the research showed that the ph increased from 6.12 to 6.86 mg/100g for soy-chocolate drinks. the fortified drinks, fpscd (6.42) and fsscd (6.86) had higher ph values than the non-fortified drinks nfpscd (6.12 mg/100g) and nfsscd (6.63 mg/100g) respectively. soy-chocolate drinks exhibited slightly acidic to neutral ph which is ideal for soy-chocolate beverages (dogan & kayacier, 2019). the slightly neutral ph and low acidity observed in this research could be due to low acidity ingredients (cocoa powder and sugar) used in sample formulation as well as readily non-fermentable sugars (ijarotimi & ashipa, 2019). ph plays a vital role in the quality, stability, and nutritional value of soy-chocolate drinks. total titratable acidity of fortified soy-chocolate drinks as expected, the titratable acidity (g lactic acid/ 100g sample) decreased as ph increased. the titratable acidity of nfpscd and nfsscd were 0.89 and 0.71 % lactic acid while fpscd and fsscd scored 0.81 and 0.62 % lactic acid. lactic acid is used as an index of activity of certain bacteria like streptococcus, leuconostoc and lactobacillus species. these microorganisms referred to as lactic acid bacteria (lab) produce lactic acid in considerable amounts and are used in the manufacture of acid foods (fao/who/unu, 2002). tta is essentially the total acid concentration in the food system. it is used as a parameter to measure acid’s impact on texture, stability and food flavour (ismail et al., 2020). specific gravity of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the effect of treatment on the specific gravity of soy-chocolate drink is shown in table 1. there was significant difference (p<0.05) among samples. nonfortified sweetened (nfsscd) soy-chocolate drink had the highest (1.78 mg/100g) score while fortified plain (fpscd) had the least (1.68 mg/100g) score. the specific gravity of soy-chocolate drinks varied significantly (p<0.05) among samples. specific gravity (sg) is the ratio of a substance’s density to the density of water. it is an important indicator of texture, consistency and shelf life in various food products. the sweetened samples (nfsscd and fsscd) had the highest (1.07 and 1.06) values while the plain samples (nfpscd and fpscd) had the least (1.05 and 1.02) values. this could be due to the influence of sugar and cocoa powder concentration. these values are within recommended values for soymilk related beverages (yasmine, 2019). energy content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the energy content of soy-chocolate drinks was 79.03 kcal for non-fortified plain soy-chocolate drink (nfpscd), 85.52 kcal for fortified plain soy-chocolate drink (fpscd), 78.19 kcal for non-fortified sweetened soy-chocolate drink (nfsscd) and 87.97 kcal for fortified sweetened soy-chocolate drinks (fsscd). energy values are a function of protein, fat and carbohydrate contents of formulated food products. the higher the values of these nutrients, the higher the energy values. the observed differences in the energy levels of the samples could be due to variation in protein, fat and carbohydrate content. the results showed variation between the non-fortified and the fortified samples. the energy values of aqueous drinks were within permissive values. the results obtained from this study are below that of (yakum et al., 2024) who reported higher energy values from fortified coconut milk supplemented with cocoa powder. pa ge 15 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 11-20, 2025 proximate composition of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the effect of sugar, cocoa powder and fortificants on the proximate composition of soy-chocolate drinks is shown in table 2. the proximate compositions of non-fortified plain soy-chocolate drink(nfpscd), fortified plain soy-chocolate drink (fpscd), non-fortified sweetened soy-chocolate drink (nfsscd) and fortified sweetened soy-chocolate drink (fsscd) showed significant difference (p<0.05) among samples. the significant (p<0.05) variations in proximate compositions between the aqueous drinks could be due to the effects of sugar, cocoa powder and fortificants. moisture content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the result of the moisture content ranged from 77.71 % for vitamilk, 81.87 % fsscd, 82.79 nfsscd, 83.37% for fpscd and 83.00 % for nfpscd. all formulated samples showed significant differences except for fpscd (82.37%) and nfsscd (82.79%). the moisture content of the samples ranged from 77.7183.00 % for soychocolate drinks were higher than the value for ‘vitamilk’ (control). the non-fortified plain (nfpscd) had high moisture (83.00 %) while vitamilk had low moisture content (77.71 %). this might be due to the influence of increased concentration of cocoa powder and sugar (solids) (fao/who,1995). the moisture content of fortified samples (fpscd and fsscd) had less moisture (81.8782.37 %). the moisture content of all aqueous drinks reported in this study were within recommended moisture content of beverages (dogan & kayacier, 2019). moisture is significant in sensory qualities like texture and mouthfeel, flavour profiling, stability and emulsification (iwe, 2003). protein content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks there was no significant difference for protein content of vitamilk (6.40%) and fpscd (6.40 %) while the other samples nfsscd (6.20%), fsscd (6.90%), nfpscd (6.25%) showed significant differences (p<0.05). these values were higher than the control (vitamilk) that scored 6.40 %. this is of great importance in reducing protein energy malnutrition (pem) as a result of high cost of animal protein (who, 2021). plant based protein sources are cheaper than animal-based protein therefore soychocolate drink could serve as cheap alternate source of protein. protein is important for growth and tissue replacement (muhimbula, 2011). the values obtained from this research are within daily recommended values for soy-chocolate drinks. fat content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the fat content ranged from 3.314.57 % with significant difference among all the samples. the fpscd, vitamilk and fsscd had the highest fat content of 4.44, 4.33 and 4.57 % while nfpscd and nfsscd had the least values of 3.31 and 3.39 % respectively. for the crude fat content, maximum mean value (4.57 %) was recorded in fsscd while the minimum mean value was 3.31 % (nfsscd). statistical analysis showed that the crude fat content of aqueous drinks significantly (p<0.05) increased with fortification. this result agrees with the earlier report by (yakum et al., 2024) on physicochemical properties of fortified coconut milk-based chocolate-like drinks as influenced by cocoa powder and sugar levels. the relatively high fat content of the samples is due to the fact that soybean is an oil seed as well as fortification with retinol palmitate – an oil-based fortificant (yakum et al., 2022). fat increases energy density and provides essential fatty acids needed in the body for proper neural development (yakum et al., 2022). ash content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the ash content showed significant differences among all the samples ranging from 0.72 to 1.60 %. the ash content of samples increased with fortification from 0.72 % to 1.60 % which is within the recommended values. ash content of a food material is used as an index of mineral constituents of food (nih, 2022). there was significant difference ((p<0.05) among all samples. vitamilk had higher (1.60 %) ash content than the rest of the samples. this could be due to fortification of aqueous drink with macro-nutrients/minerals. the ash content obtained in this research was higher than that of (ashaver et al. 2023) on fortified tigernut milk and moringa seeds based aqueous drinks. this can be attributed to supplementation with cocoa powder. table 1: physicochemical qualities of soy-chocolate drinks nutrients(mg/100g) products nfpscd fpscd nfsscd fsscd ph 6.12 d± 0.04 6.42c±0.02 6.63b±0.02 6.86a±0.01 tta(% lactic acid) 0.89a±0.01 0.81b±0.02 0.71c±0.03 0.62d±0.10 specific gravity 1.05b±0.03 1.02c±0.01 1.07a±0.02 1.06a±0.01 energy (kcal/100g) 79.03d±0.17 85.52c±0.56 78.19e±0.07 87.97a±0.16 results are means of ± s.d of triplicate expressed on wet weight bases. means with common superscripts are not significantly (p>0.05) different within each column key: nfpscd = non fortified plain soy-chocolate drink, fpscd = fortified plain soy-chocolate drink, nfsscd = non fortified 6 % sweetened soy-chocolate drink, fsscd = fortified 6 % sweetened soy-chocolate drink. pa ge 16 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 11-20, 2025 crude fibre content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the crude fibre showed significant difference (p<0.05) among all the samples. vitamilk (control) recorded the highest value (4.15 %) followed by nfsscd (1.03 %) while fsscd had the least value (0.89). the fibre contents of formulated aqueous drinks were within recommended value for beverages (codex, 2021). nfpscd and nfsscd scores were 1.01and 1.03 % while fpscd and fsscd were 0.89 and 0.92 % respectively. fibre is important for the regulation of bowel movement, prevents constipation and supports healthy gut bacteria. this observed low fibre in the research will enable children of school age to consume more of the drink and will give them an opportunity to meet their daily energy and other vital nutrient requirements. the values obtained in this study were higher than the crude fibre (0.02 – 0.06 %) of fortified chocolate-like drink from coconut milk and cocoa powder reported by (yakum et al., 2024). the crude fibre content of the non-fortified samples (nfpscd and nfsscd) was higher (1.01 and 1.03 %) than that of the fortified (fsscd and fpscd) samples (0.890.93 %). carbohydrate content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the carbohydrate content of the soy-chocolate drinks ranged from 4.81 to 5.90 g/100g. the carbohydrate values were nfpscd (5.43%), fpscd (4.99%), nfsscd (5.90%), fsscd (4.81%) and vitamilk (5.76%). the increase in carbohydrate content of samples could be attributed to the proportions of sugar and cocoa powder. the carbohydrate content of the non-fortified plain sample was higher (5.90 g/100g) than the fortified sweetened (4.81 g/100g) which was least among the treatment. this could be due to the separation, solubility and dilution in the concentration of starch molecules. carbohydrates such as sugar and starch are of nutritional benefits because energy is required for daily activities. the values were lower (6.00 9.01 %) than that of tigernut milk and moringa seeds based aqueous drinks (ashaver et al., 2023). mineral composition of fortified soy-chocolate table 2: proximate composition of soy-chocolate drinks nutrient(g/100g) products nfpscd fpscd nfsscd fsscd vitamilk moisture 83.00a±0.093 82.37b±0.047 82.79b±0.332 81.87c±0.364 77.71d±0.015 ash 0.72 e±0.06 0.91 c±0.025 0.77 d±0.012 0.93 b±0.012 1.60 a±0.006 fat 3.59d±0.367 4.44b± 0.131 3.31e±0.021 4.57a±0.015 4.33c±0.021 fibre 1.01c±0.04 0.92d±0.26 1.03b±0.11 0.89e±0.02 4.15a±0.02 protein 6.25c±0.05 6.40b±0.02 6.20d±0.06 6.90a±0.17 6.40b±0.02 cho 5.43c±0.06 4.99d±0.03 5.90a±0.01 4.81e±0.02 5.76b±0.01 results are means of ± s.d of triplicate expressed on wet weight bases. means with common superscripts are not significantly (p>0.05) different within each column key: nfpscd = non fortified plain soy-chocolate drink, fpscd = fortified plain soy-chocolate drink, nfsscd = non fortified 6 % sweetened soy-chocolate drink, fsscd = fortified 6 % sweetened soy-chocolate drink drinks the result of the mineral composition of the aqueous drinks are shown in table 3. there were variations in the mineral content of the samples with statistical analysis showing significant (p<0.05) differences among samples. calcium content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the calcium content of soy-chocolate was relatively high, and values ranged from 92.43 to 94.36 mg/100g. nfpscd scored 92.43 mg/100g, fpscd had 94.36 mg/100g while nfsscd 92.84mg/100g and fsscd scored 94.05 mg/100g calcium content. the result showed that the fortified plain soy-chocolate drink (fpscd) had the highest value while the non-fortified plain soy-chocolate drink (nfpscd) had the least value as shown above. the observed high content of calcium in soy-chocolate drink might be due to supplementation with cocoa powder and fortification (yakum et al., 2024). calcium is important for blood clotting, muscle contraction, healthy bones and teeth (food and nutrition bulletin, 2020). sodium content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks sodium content of soy-chocolate drinks increased significantly (p<0.05) with fortification and supplementation with cocoa powder. values ranged from 80.16 to 83.26 mg/100g. the fpscd recorded 83.26 mg/100g, nfsscd had 80.06 mg/100g, nfpscd 80.12 mg/100g and fsscd mean score was 83.16 mg/100g. these values were below the required daily amount (rda) of 100 mg/100g for young children and adults. there was a significant difference (p<0.05) among all the samples. sodium controls blood pressure and volume regulations (fao, 2002). magnesium content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks magnesium content of soy-chocolate drinks increased with cocoa powder and fortification. the nfpscd was the least (46.04 mg/100g), fpscd had 47.12 mg/ 100g while nfsscd had 46.12 mg/100g and fsscd scored 47.11 mg/100g. these values were higher than those of ashaver et al. (2023) who reported on fortified tigernut and moringa seed based aqueous drinks. these values pa ge 17 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 11-20, 2025 were below recommended daily allowance of 200400 mg per day. magnesium is required for normal nerve and muscle function, immune system and for maintenance of blood glucose levels (ismail et al., 2020). phosphorus content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the phosphorus content of soy-chocolate drink is presented in table 3. the non-fortified plain soy-chocolate drink (nfpscd) had 120.73 mg/ 100g, fortified plain soy-chocolate drink (fpscd) had 123.73 mg/100g, nonfortified sweetened soy-chocolate drink (nfsscd) had 120.62 mg/ 100g and fortified sweetened soy-chocolate drink (fsscd) was 123.54mg/100g. there was no significant difference between the fortified samples and as well as the non-fortified samples. fortification and supplementation improved the phosphorus content of soy-chocolate drinks. phosphorus contents of soy-chocolate drinks were relatively high ranging from 120123 mg/ 100g with fsscd having high values and nfsscd having the least value. the values obtained in this study were higher than those obtained from fortified coconut milk-based chocolate-like drinks influenced by cocoa powder and sugar levels reported by (ismail et al., 2020). phosphorus is an important nutrient that plays a significant role in the formation of adenosine triphosphate (atp) in the body (muhimbula et al., 2011). potassium content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks fortification, cocoa powder and sugar levels were seen to improve the potassium content of soy-chocolate drink. the fortified samples (fpscd and fsscd) had scores ranging from 329.52 to 327.84 mg/100g while the nonfortified samples (nfpscd and nfsscd) had the least values ranging from 307.61 to 306.43 mg/100g. there were variations in the mineral content of the samples with potassium content of fortified plain (fpscd) being the most abundant (329 mg/100g) macro-mineral for formulated samples. these observations are similar to earlier findings by (omary et al., 2019) and (unicef, 2021) who reported potassium to be the most abundant mineral in nigerian agricultural products. iron content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the nfpscd had significantly (p<0.05) the highest iron content (3.88 mg/100g) while fsscd had the least (3.71 mg/100g) iron content. this might be due to the dilution effect of iron in aqueous solutions. the fpscd had 3.73 mg/100g and nfsscd was 3.82 mg/100g. iron is a component of myoglobin, a protein that provides oxygen to muscles and supports metabolism in human (muhimbula et al., 2011). regular consumption of foods rich in iron has the potential to prevent anaemia in infants and young children. zinc content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the zinc content of the soy-chocolate drinks ranged from 2.01 to 2.69 mg/ 100g. zinc supports normal growth and development during pregnancy, childhood and adolescence. the formulated soy-chocolate drinks had nfpscd scored 2.69 mg/100g, fpscd had 2.01 mg/100g, while nfsscd scored 2.62 mg/100g and fsscd scored 2.04 mg/100g. plants have higher zinc content than animal sources and fortification improved the zinc content of soy-chocolate drinks (yakum et al., 2024). iodine content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the iodine content of soy-chocolate drink ranged from 0.18 to 0.21mg/ 100g. the non-fortified samples (nfpscd and nfsscd) had higher (0.21 to 0.24 mg/ 100g) values than the fortified (fpscd and fsccd) samples having the least (0.18 to 0.18 mg/ 100g) respectively. iodine is essential for thyroid function and can be used to enhance nutritional profile as well as support public health. vitamin composition of fortified soy-chocolate drinks table 3: mineral composition of soy-chocolate drinks nutrients(mg/100g) products nfpscd fpscd nfsscd fsscd calcium 92.43 d± 0.02 94.36a±0.03 92.84c±0.03 94.05b±0.01 sodium 80.12c±0.12 83.26a±0.11 80.06d±0.22 83.16b±0.13 magnesium 46.04c±0.21 47.12a±0.13 46.12b±0.11 47.11a±0.12 phosphorus 120.73d±2.2 123.37c±1.15 120.62a±2.1 123.54b±3.1 potassium 307.61c±2.5 329.52a±1.5 306.43d±2.2 327.84b±3.5 iron 3.88a±0.02 3.73b±0.02 3.82a±0.01 3.71c±0.02 zinc 2.69a±0.06 2.01c±0.01 2.62b±0.02 2.04c±0.03 iodine 0.21 b±0.02 0.18c ±0.01 0.24a±0.02 0.18c±0.01 results are means of ± s.d of triplicate expressed on wet weight bases. means with common superscripts are not significantly (p>0.05) different within each column key: nfpscd = non fortified plain soy-chocolate drink, fpscd = fortified plain soy-chocolate drink, nfsscd = non fortified 6 % sweetened soy-chocolate drink, fsscd = fortified 6 % sweetened soy-chocolate drink pa ge 18 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 11-20, 2025 provitamin a, vitamin b1, b2, b3, b6, e and k contents of aqueous drinks are shown in table 4. there was significant (p<0.05) difference among the samples. vitamin k content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks vitamin k (phylloquinone) content was high compared to the rest of the vitamins analyzed. the nfpscd had a relatively higher (3.37 mg/100g) value, fpscd (2.18 mg/100g), fsscd (2.23 mg/100g) while fpscd had the least value (2.18 mg/100g). there was significant (p<0.05) difference among the samples. increase in the concentration of cocoa powder increases the vitamin k in soy-chocolate drinks. required daily amount (rda) of 120 mcg is recommended for adults. the results of this research have shown that soy-chocolate drinks can supply the amount of vitamin k required by the body. this result is higher than that of (fao, 2010). vitamin k is relatively unstable vitamin, especially when exposed to light, heat, moisture and oxidation. it is responsible for blood clotting and for healthy bones (indrawati & otgonbayar, 2017). vitamin b1(thiamin) content of fortified soychocolate drinks vitamin b1 coenzymes are needed for energy metabolism and are important for nerve functions and normal vision (ishiwu & onyeji, 2019). it is a water-soluble vitamin, hence the values obtained from this research. nfpscd has 0.27 mg/100g, fpscd mean score was 0.20 mg/100g, nfsscd had 0.35 mg/ 100g and fsscd 0.22 mg/100g. cocoa powder increased the vitamin b1 content of soy-chocolate drinks. it is needed in the body for the breakdown of carbohydrate to energy, muscle contraction and conduction of nerve signal. pyridoxine content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks pyridoxine (b6) scores were low for soy-chocolate drinks. the non fortified samples nfpscd and nfsscd had 0.23 mg/ 100g and 0.23 mg/ 100g while fpscd and fsscd mean score were 0.21 mg/ 100g and 0.23 mg/100g respectively. pyridoxine (b6) showed no significant difference (p<0.05) among samples except for fpscd. vitamin b6 is needed in the production of red blood cells as well as for brain function and development. it is also important for regulation of blood glucose and maintaining nerve function. increase in concentration of cocoa powder increased the vitamin b6 content. the required daily amount of 0.10.3 mg/ day for young children has shown that soy-chocolate drink is healthy for young children. vitamin b2 (riboflavin) content of fortified soychocolate drinks vitamin b2 metabolizes carbohydrate, fats and protein into glucose for energy. it is also an antioxidant for skin and hair. the nfpscd had 0.72 mg/100g, fpscd 0.58 mg/100g, nfsscd value was 0.71 mg/100g and fsscd had 0.61 mg/100g. the non-fortified formulated samples had the highest score compared to the fortified formulated samples. this could be as a result of the dilution effect on fortified samples. vitamin b3 (niacin) content of fortified soychocolate drinks vitamin b3 showed no significant (p<0.05) difference among samples. its content ranged from 1.22 mg/100g (nfpscd), 1.03 mg/100g (fpscd), 1.18 mg/ 100g, and 1.07mg/100g (fsscd). the non-fortified samples had higher vitamin b3 content than the fortified formulated samples. niacin content was below the rda for young children and adults (2 to 14 mg) (ochanda et al., 2020). vitamin b3 produces stress related hormones in the adrenal gland and is involved in circulation. pro-vitamin a (retinol palmitate) content of fortified soy-chocolate drinks the provitamin a content of soy-chocolate drinks ranged from 0.14 mg/100g (nfpscd), 1.63 mg/100g (fpscd), 0.19 mg/100g (nfsscd) to 1.66 mg/100g (fsscd). pro-vitamin a showed no significant difference (p<0.05) between nfpscd and nfsscd as well as fpscd and fsscd. values obtained were lower than those of (ashaver et al., 2023) on fortified tigernut milk and moringa based aqueous drink. pro-vitamin a is needed for reproduction, growth and development, acting as antioxidant and for healthy eye. provitamin a is called retinol because it produces pigment in the retina of the eye. responsible for healthy teeth, skeletal and soft tissues, mucus membranes and skin (terhemba et al., 2024). vitamin e (tocopherol) content of fortified soychocolate drinks vitamin e values ranged from 0.82 mg/100g to 0.92 mg/ 100g (fsscd and nfpscd) and 0.81mg/ 100g to 0.96 mg/100g (fpscd and nfsscd) respectively. vitamin e is a powerful antioxidant required for healthy heart, skin, boost immune system, cancer prevention and brain function. observable scores were below the rda of 4 to 5 mg/100g for infants, 6 to 15 mg/100g for children and adults (zilic et al., 2017). conclusion table 4: vitamin composition of soy-chocolate drinks nutrients(mg/100g) products nfpscd fpscd nfsscd fsscd pro vitamin a 0.19b ±0.02 1.66 a ± 0.01 0.14b ±0.10 1.63a ±0.01 b1 0.27b ±0.06 0.20d ±0.05 0.35a ±0.01 0.22c ±0.15 pa ge 19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 11-20, 2025 soy-chocolate drink can be produced with the adaptation of fortificants (ferrous sulphate, potassium iodide and retinol palmitate) used in this research for addressing pem and mnd. soy-chocolate drinks could serve as affordable nutritious beverage for vulnerable and malnourished groups. fortification, cocoa powder and sugar improved the physicochemical, minerals, proximate and vitamin qualities of soy-chocolate drinks therefore can be employed as vehicle for micronutrient’s fortification programmes. references achinewhu, s. c. (2019). nuts and seeds. in nutrition quality of plant foods (pp. 134–159). post harvest research unit, department of biochemistry, university of benin. adams, m. r., & moss, m. o. (1995). food microbiology. the royal society of chemistry. adebowale, a. a., & sanni, l. o. (2019). effects of solid content and temperature on the viscosity of tapioca meal. journal of food science and technology, 50(3), 573– 578. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-011-0363-7 association of official analytical chemists (aoac). (2017). official methods of analysis (8th ed.). aoac. aoac international. (2005). official methods of analysis (18th ed.). aoac international. ariahu, c. c., ukpabi, u., & mbajunwa, k. o. (199a). production of african breadfruit (treculia africana) and soybean (glycine max) seed-based food formulations: 1. effects of germination and fermentation on nutritional and organoleptic quality. plant foods for human nutrition, 54(2), 123–266. ashaver, a., ariahu, c., yusuf, i., ariahu, c. e., & gbuusu, b. (2023). storage changes in triple-fortified tigernut and moringa seed-based aqueous drinks. asian journal of food research and nutrition, 2(4), 821–833. ball, g. f. m. (1994). water soluble vitamins: assays in human nutrition. chapman and hall. blackman, c. j., sean, m. g., chang, y., mc, a., & westoby, m. (2010). leaf hydraulic vulnerability to drought is linked to site water availability across a broad range of species and climates. annals of botany, 114(3), 435– 440. https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcq128 codex alimentarius. (n.d.). general principles of the addition of essential nutrients to food (vol. 4). joint fao/who food standards programme. doğan, m., & kayacier, a. (2019). rheological properties of reconstituted hot salep beverage. international journal of food properties, 7(4), 683–691. fao/who/unu. (2002). human vitamin and mineral requirements: report of a joint food and agriculture organization, world health organization and united nations university. food and nutrition bulletin, 19(2), november 2020. united nations university press. federal government of nigeria. (2021). food fortification regulations (108, 135), 3091–3108. printed and published by federal government printer, lagos, nigeria. food and agriculture organization/world health organization. (1995). codex alimentarius. fao/who. grover, z., & ee, l. c. (2009). protein-energy malnutrition. pediatric clinics of north america, 56, 1055–1068. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcl.2009.07.00 ijarotimi, o. s., & ashipa, f. (2019). evaluation of nutritional composition, sensory, and physical properties of home-processed weaning food based on low-cost locally available food materials. nutrition & food science, 36(1), 6–17. iwe, m. o. (2003). the science and technology of soybeans (20th ed.). communication service ltd. illinois, e. (2019). production and nutritional benefits of ultra-high blends of soymilk. international journal of food science, 5, 873–879. indrawati, r., & otgonbayar, u. (2017). stability of vitamin k in food systems. journal of food science, 8(5), s1448–s1456. ishiwu, c. n., & onyeji, a. c. (2019). properties of an instant gruel based on maize starch, african yam bean, and soybean flours. nigerian journal of nutritional sciences, 25, 16–19. ismail, y. s., rustom, m. m., lopez-leiva, i., & baboo, m. n. (2020). uht-sterilized peanut beverages: kinetics of physicochemical changes during storage and shelflife prediction modeling. journal of food science, 61(1), 123–134. muhimbula, h. s., issa-zacharia, a., & kinabo, j. (2011). composition and sensory evaluation of complementary foods from local, cheap, and readily available cereals and legumes in iringa, tanzania. african journal of food science, 5, 26–31. national institutes of health, office of dietary supplements. (2022). vitamin e: fact sheet for health professionals. ochanda, s. o., onyango, c. a., mwasaru, a. m., ochieg, b2 0.72a ±0.01 0.58c ±0.01 0.71b ±0.015 0.61c ±0.01 b3 1.22a ±0.01 1.03c ±0.01 1.18b ±0.01 1.07c ±0.01 b6 0.23a ±0.01 0.21b ±0.01 0.23a ±0.01 0.23a ±0.02 e 0.92b ±0.02 0.81c ±0.01 0.96a ±0.01 0.82c ±0.02 k 3.37a ±0.01 2.18a ±0.02 3.36a ±0.03 2.23c ±0.01 results are means of ± s.d of triplicate expressed on wet weight bases. means with common superscripts are not significantly (p>0.05) different within each column. key: nfpscd = non fortified plain soy-chocolate drink, fpscd = fortified plain soy-chocolate drink, nfsscd = non fortified 6 % sweetened soy-chocolate drink, fsscd = fortified 6 % sweetened soy-chocolate drink pa ge 20 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 11-20, 2025 j. k., & mathoko, f. m. (2020). effects of malting and germination treatments on group b-vitamins of red sorghum, white sorghum, and pearl millet in kenya. journal of applied biosciences, 34, 2128–2134. omary, z., lupiana, d., mtenzi, f., & wu, b. (2019). challenges to e-healthcare adoption in developing countries: a case study of tanzania. in proceedings of the first international conference on networked digital technologies. ostrava. terhemba, n. s., ariahu, c. c., terhemba, u. i., & nember, u. i. (2024). finger millet and defatted sesame seed flours as complementary foods: nutritional evaluation and protein quality. unicef. (2021). use of multiple micronutrient powders for point-of-use fortification of foods consumed by infants and young children aged 6–23 months and children aged 2–12 years. world health organization. world health organization. (2021). malnutrition: factsheet. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/ detail/malnutrition yakum, n. k., ariahu, c. c., ariahu, e. c., & igoli, j. o. (2024). physicochemical properties of fortified coconut milk-based chocolate-like drinks as influenced by cocoa powder and sugar levels. journal name, 3(1), page range. yakum, n. k., amove, j., abuengmoh, p., vachefon, h. f., & konsum, l. k. (2022). physicochemical and sensory properties of yoghurt from cow milk, soybean milk, and tiger nut milk blends spiced with ginger powder. international journal of food science and nutrition, 7(3), 42–51. yasmine, m. (2019). impact of small-scale fermentation technology on food safety in developing countries. journal name, 75, 213–229. zilic, s., arda, s., halise, g. a., & vural, g. (2017). phenolic compounds, carotenoids, anthocyanins, and antioxidant capacity of colored maize. journal of agricultural and food chemistry, 60(5), 1224–1231. pa ge 1 pa ge 44 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) blending insights, wadding the nutritional and physiochemical gaps of high omega-3 peony oil and high omega-6 safflower oil usman ali1*, ameer khan2, muhammad shahzad3, shahzad farooq4, farhan ullah5 volume 3 issue 2, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i2.2878 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: june 24, 2024 accepted: july 27, 2024 published: july 31, 2024 oil blending is known as a sustainable solution in development of vegetable oils with reliable storage stabilities and optimum fatty acids compositions. this novel study was done to spot the most effective oil blends in terms of the nutritional and the physiochemical properties between high omega-3 peony seed oil (pso) and high omega-6 safflower seed oil (sso) blended at different ratios of 5:95, 15:85, 50:50 and 70:30. all the blended samples showed improvement in their physiochemical properties means they can be kept at low temperature (below 5°c) without crystallization. crude oils were extracted by standard soxhlet extraction method using n-hexane as the solvent and purified through centrifuge method. identification and quantitative measurement of oil blends for fatty acids were carried out by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (gc-ms). results show that all the samples had significantly improved their polyunsaturated fatty acid profiles especially ab-70:30 (peony oil: safflower oil) with n-6 (49.16%), n-9 (2.33%) and n-3 (39.03%) respectively which not only promote health but also lead to many useful changes in the physiochemical properties. this blended oil also shown noteworthy highest iodine value of 127.24 g i2/100g, significantly lower peroxide of 6.07 meqo2/kg and lowest free fatty acid of 0.122% compared to the other blended samples. therefore, it is recommended for the daily use, deep frying and it can be kept in storage over a long period of time. keywords peony seed oil, safflower seed oil, gc-ms, fatty acids composition, oil blending 1 college of biosystems engineering and food science, zhejiang key laboratory for agro-food processing, zhejiang university, hangzhou 310058, china 2 department of agronomy, college of agriculture and biotechnology, zhejiang university, hangzhou, 310058, china 3 institute of crop science, college of agriculture and biotechnology, zhejiang provincial key laboratory of crop germplasm, zhejiang university, hangzhou.310058, china 4 jiaxing future food research institute, jiaxing, china 5 key laboratory of wheat biology and genetic improvement, school of agronomy, anhui agricultural university, hefei 230036, china * corresponding author’s e-mail: usmanalicasht@gmail.com introduction modem problems need modern solutions and oil blending is a modern solution regarding many problems surrounding the nutritional and physiochemical properties of oils, this sustainable technique improves every parameter of oil without use of potential chemicals or chemically complicated processes like fractioning, hydrogenation and interesterification. this approach is not only capable of improving the physiochemical properties of edible vegetable oils but it can also significantly improve the polyunsatured fatty acid profiles (ratio of omega 3 and omega 6) as per the recommended consumptions by different health regulatory organization like who (ali & li, 2021). somewhat recently the interest for food quality, dietary fats and their impact on human wellbeing has significantly expanded. it’s best-known that a blended fatty acids diet is mostly healthier, except for growing and correct development and performance, the physical body desires a precise quantity of fats. consumption of foodstuff containing an oversized quantity of saturated fatty acids (1:1 and 1:2) is related to cardiopathy, diabetes, cancer; so, the diet should contain fairly good amount of unsaturated fatty acids (harris, 2018). medical research on lipids also reveals that enhanced intake of polyunsaturated and unsaturated fats can reduce the possibility of coronary heart diseases and improves immunity in battling against novel viral diseases (ali et al., 2024; ramsden et al., 2013). additionally, polyunsaturated unsaturated fats (pufa), especially ω-3 unsaturated fats (dhadocosahexaenoic acid, epa-eicosapentaenoic acid) are fundamental dietary supplements for human wellbeing, they’re outlined as “essential” fats since they can’t be synthesized by the body and subsequently they should be given from the eating routine. recent findings have also shown their utilization in food systems with significance focus being given in the production of functional foods and nutraceuticals(n. c. et al., 2024) all aforementioned understandings are pivotal to understand pathways to incorporate a balanced n3/n6 diet for which oil blending can be utilized that not only upgrade the physiochemical parameters but also improve their nutritional significance (kamińska et al., 2023), the component analysis results showed that peony seed oil was rich in unsaturated fatty acids present at (92 %), mainly α-linolenic acid (42 %), significantly higher than other edible vegetable oil and it is a highly nutritional vegetable oil (gribbestad et al., 2005). similar study discovered that the preponderance of fatty acids within pa ge 45 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 44-52, 2024 peony oil consists of α-linolenic acid (ala) and linoleic acid, with ala constituting an exceptional proportion ranging from 33.8% to 67.1%. such elevated levels of n-3 ufas are atypical in plant-derived oils, with notable exceptions being flaxseed and perilla seed oil which led to its designation as a novel resource food by the ministry of health of china in 2011 (j. h. su, 2016). furthermore, pso has exhibited diverse bioactivities, including antibacterial, antidiabetic, hypolipidemic, and sun-screening effects. its safety has been validated through a series of experiments encompassing acute toxicity, subacute toxicity, long-term toxicity, and sperm abnormal genetic toxicity. these collective findings underscore the potential advantages of pso as an emerging resource for dietary supplementation. typically, marine organisms (fish, seafood, and algaes) are known to be naturally accompanying pso in its nutritive values (mainly epa and dha) with fish oil is taken into account to own the best amounts of ω-3 pufa (rubiorodríguez et al., 2010). in safflower oil, approximately 90% of the total fatty acids are composed of oleic and linoleic fatty acids. their distribution is governed by a recessive allele, and a negative correlation exists between the content of linoleic acid and that of oleic acid (arslan, 2007). traditionally categorized as a linoleic type, safflower oil boasts a polyunsaturated composition, with linoleic acid constituting 71–75% of its fatty acid profile, rendering it an edible oil. this significantly fills all the nutritional gaps when blended with peony seed oil. another complication in a variety of oils is their stability and the reason behind this to be, photo-oxidation and auto-oxidation which usually takes place during storage and processing. the fact that oils are unstable can lead to deterioration of not only the flavor and taste but also affects its nutritional profile as it produces a few compounds that are toxic. apart from this, unsaturation is also an issue in oils. blending of oils becomes necessary when an oil contains high quantity of polyunsaturated and unsaturated fatty acids, which are more susceptible to oxidation for example: linolenic and linoleic acid. betterment in the physiochemical properties in oil blends is revealed via multiple research findings for example 20% or less virgin olive oil when mixed with palm oil, it increases its thermal stability considerably (de leonardis & macciola, 2012). it was found earlier that blending may also potentially reduce partial and cloudy crystallization in palm olein. customers require oils that have low melting point, density and viscosity, which can be achieved by blending. it also provides sustainable viscosity, without any addition of chemicals and maintains the quality of oils (siddique, 2010). during this study, we tend to report the utilization of gas-chromatography plus mass spectrometry (gc-ms) for the estimation of total fatty acids in the oil blends of safflower and peony oil. individual fatty acids were known and measured exploitation the gc-ms methodology. physiochemical properties were accessed via the aoac official methods of oil analysis. materials and methods materials and reagents two kinds of oils were taken for the analysis. 100% pure safflower seed oil and peony seeds were purchased from local market of anhui province. samples were stored at room temperature (22 ± 1 °c) in airtight bags. constant temperature magnetic stirrer s10-3, high speed refrigerated centrifuge zonkia hc-3108r, cold press situvu-d-01, 7890b gcms system, vaccume evaporator chemtronstrike-250 were used in different phases of experimentation. all the chemicals used to conduct this study i.e., n-hexane, isopropanol, sodium hydro oxide, phenolphthalein, anhydrous sodium sulfate, petroleum ether, ethyl ether, koh, ch3oh, cyclohexane and acidic acid solutions were of analytical grade. oil extraction peony seeds were dehulled and oven dried (>8%), seeds were crushed to course particles before subjected to oil recovery. peony oil subjected to the current study was extracted via 2 methods, one with the soxhlet protocol using analytical grade n-hexane and other part of oil was extracted at anhui grain testing and grading laboratory using the situvu-d-01 oil press. for solvent extraction, pre-dried and crushed peony seeds were filled in filter paper and loaded into the soxhlet extraction thimble and the extraction was carried out at boiling temperature for 3 hours using n-hexane. finally, the hexane was separated by vacuum evaporation to obtain peony oil. moisture / volatile matter = w1 x 100 % by weight w in equation, w1 = loss in weight (mg) of material on drying w = initial weight of material taken for analysis oil purification 50-gram crude oil containing impurities was transferred into purifying vials of equal sizes and then racked into the centrifuge. centrifuge speed was maintained at 4000rmp, after 30 minutes all the impurities were settled at the bottom of the container forming a bulk of solid mass. upper portion of clear oil was separated and stored in special bottles for analysis. preparation of blends four samples were made with non-uniform oil percentage ab 5:95, ab 15:85, ab 50:50 and ab 70:30 (see figure 2.c). the samples were made by mixing the two types of oils together by constant temperature magnetic stirrer s10-3 operating at 40°c until uniformity is observed in color and texture as shown in the process flow diagram 1. the low temperature processing of oil samples was implemented to enhance mixing and at the same time reduce the undesirable changes. pa ge 46 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 44-52, 2024 fatty acid analysis fame’s analysis (formed through prior esterification reaction) was carried out with gcms using agilent technologies 7890b gc system with hp5 (30 m × 0.25 mm × 0.25 μm) capillary column. four different samples were analyzed for fatty acid composition ab (5:95, 15:85, 30:70, and 50:50). for the analysis of fatty acids, first we need to convert the fatty acids into fame fatty acid methyl ester also called the methylation. the method used by he and xia (he & xia, 2007) with a slight modification was used to convert the fatty acids into their respective methyl esters. 0.2g oil blend was weighed in a 10 ml volumetric flask with volume added. the ratio of 1:1 ether to petroleum ether is 2 ml to dissolve it fully. then add 1 ml koh-ch3oh solution with concentration of 0.4 mol. l-1. shake well and then stand for 20 minutes. add distilled water to the scale line and lay down. remove the upper liquid and add 2mg anhydrous sodium sulfate. after standing overnight any fragments of water was absorbed. 0.25ml sample was taken through syringe and 12.25ml (50times) petroleum ether was added to dilute it 50 times. filtered through 0.45 micro porous membrane into vials. bf3 method has also been successfully used in the past research to convert oil samples into fame using nacl, methane and hexane for gcms analysis (hadaruga et al., 2008). formula (% fa= peak area of individual fa / sum of peaks of all fa × 100) was used to determine the individual contents of each methyl ester gc-ms protocols chromatography column specification: hp-5 (30 m × 0.25 mm × 0.25 μm) capillary column; carrier gas: high purity helium with 99.999% purity; column flow rate: 1 ml · min-1; column temperature program: initial temperature 100℃, hold for 3 min, rise to 190℃ at a rate of 7℃ · min-1, hold for 15 min, then increase to 260℃ at a speed of 10℃ · min-1, hold for 8 min; split ratio 10: 1; the sample port temperature is 260℃, the interface temperature is 260℃; the injection volume is 1.0 μl. mass spectrometry conditions: electron source (ei) ionization energy source: 70 ev; em voltage: 1788 v; ion source temperature: 230°c; quadruple temperature: 150°c; mass scan range: 27-600 amu (hadaruga et al., 2008). approximately 15-20 g of each blend was heated to 130 degrees celsius, cooled in ice water with continuous stirring. after the blends reach at a temperature of 10°c over the cloud point, mixing was done consistently and quickly in roundabout movement to forestall super cooling and hardening of fat crystals on sides or the base of the bottle. now, the container was keenly checked for the presence of any kind of clouds (thermometer will no longer be visible) (aocs official method cc 6-25) (aocs, 1993). cold stability test about 15-20 g of mixed oil were filtered and then transferred to separate clean bottles with tags. the bottles were totally full of the sample and lid closed tightly. the bottles were then immersed in ice bath at 7 degrees centigrade. after 2 and 5.5 hour, all the samples were determined for their clarity. the clarity in the oil samples indicate that the oil is stable at cold storage (aocs official methodology cc 11-53)(aocs, 1993). iodine value around, 0.130 g of all the blended oil were weighed accurately into separate 500 ml round shape flask closed with glass stoppers. a flask containing no oil (blank) was prepared. around 15 ml of cyclohexane and acidic acid solutions were added and completely mixed in a portion of 1:1, then added into the sample and blank flask. then, 25 ml of wij’s solution was poured to each flask and that they were tightly closed with glass stopper and appropriately shaken to blend. all sample flasks were then left to stand in dark for around 60 minutes. then, 20 ml of potassium iodide and 150 ml of distilled water were poured to release the iodine from un-reacted iodine monochloride. eventually, the samples were carefully titrated with sodium thiosulphate till yellow colour was almost disappeared before 1-2 ml of starch solution was added as an indicator and titration was proceeded. analysis was completed once blue shade of starch solution was totally vanished. (aocs method cd 1d-92, 1993b)(aocs, 1993). peroxide value roughly 5 g of all the blended oil were gauged and place into 250 ml round shape flask. firstly, a no oil containing blank flask was prepared. a 30 ml blend of solvent acetic acid chloroform was added to each flask and left to stand for 60 seconds with occasional swirling. at this point, accurately weighed 30ml of distilled water was added. figure 1: process flow diagram of oil blending model pa ge 47 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 44-52, 2024 prepared mixture was then titrated with 0.1n of sodium thiosulphate till brown colour is acquired and 0.5ml of 1 chronicles starch solution was added and titration went on till the grey/bluish colour was disappeared. the blend ought to be vivaciously shaken all through titration to ensure all the iodine is freed from the chloroform layer (aocs method cd 8-53, 1993c)(aocs, 1993). free fatty acid value (ffa) according to the research work of (mcclements, 2007), the presence of free fatty acids (ffa) will accelerate the adverse processes affecting the quality of fats, i.e., they will contribute to rancidity and deteriorate oil quality. the acid value is analyzed directly through titrating the oil/ fat in an alcoholic medium against standard potassium hydroxide/sodium hydroxide solution. roughly 28.2 g of all the blends were weighed and put into 250 ml conical flask. then, the oil sample was mixed with 50 ml 99% isopropanol and completely dissolved. in the end, the mixture was titrated with 0.1n sodium hydroxide solution. phenolphthalein was then used as an indicator. the last drop was found when the color of our indicator was changed to pink and lasted for at least 30 second. the results are calculated using the equation: acid value = [(a-b) (0.1) (56-.1) / w here, a= titrant volume used to change the color b= titrant volume used in blank n= titrant normality (0.1n) 56.1= mol. weight of koh w= sample weight in grams results and discussions fatty acid analysis according to table 1, fatty acid assessment via gcms method detected 17 fatty acids in all the oil blends however not every fatty acid plays role in the formation of healthy oil except those placed in the polyunsaturated category. our analysis via figure 2 (a) and 2 (b) shows that sample ab 15:85 peaks the percentage of oleic acid at 29.86% followed by ab 50:50 (24.77%), ab 5:95 (20.15%) and ab 70:30 (2.33%) respectively. concerning with linoleic acid, ab 5:95 shows the highest content at 58.18% and ab 70:30 has the lowest with 49.16%. ab 70:30 shows highest improvement in linolenic acid with 39.03% and lowest of which was noted in ab 15:85 with 3.59 %. surge in the content of linolenic acid in ab 70:30 is due to the fact highest ratio of peony oil (70%) was blended in this sample; peony seed oil naturally contains high levels of linolenic acid which is reflected in the results. sample ab (5:95) contains high proportions of dietary linoleic acid (omega-6) 98% due to the fact that this sample contains 95% of the safflower oil. the overall profile of fatty acids was thus modified after blending. for an ideally healthy vegetable oil blend, who has proposed three major guidelines including the ratios of sfa, mufa and pufa were set as 1:1.5:1, antioxidant presence and 5-10:1 of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids (who. interim summary, 2008). nutritional value of individual peony seed oil and safflower oil lacks certain health promoting fatty acids which are met by blending technique. recent studies have shown an elevated deviation in the intake levels of sfa and omega-6 fatty acids among the population deficient in one of more essential fatty acid resulting in health issues like obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease (rabail et al., 2021; simopoulos, 2004) . from this perspective, our results shown tremendous improvement in the modification of pufa attainting the healthy oil status. figure 2: (a) gcms chromatogram of total fatty acids in the oil blends, (b) ratio of polyunsaturated fatty acids (pufa, omega-3, omega-6 and omega 9) at different blendding ratios, (c) physical apperance of oil blends at 5:95, 15:85, 50:50 and 70:30 pa ge 48 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 44-52, 2024 table 1: total fatty acids in sample ab 5:95, 15:85, 50:50 and 70:30 oil blend fatty acid methyl ester retention time peak area cas number ab 5:95 methyl tetradecanoate 24.072 541199 124-10-7 9-hexadecenoic acid, methyl ester, (z)32.884 362210 1120-25-8 hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester 33.671 39818405 112-39-0 linoleic acid, methyl ester (ala) 38.013 208079162 1000336-44-2 9-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester, (e)38.101 72071910 1937-62-8 linolenic acid, methyl ester 38.108 13438928 112-61-8 cis-13-eicosenoic acid, methyl ester 42.056 2753323 1000333-52-1 eicosanoic acid, methyl ester 42.594 2676298 1120-28-1 9-octadecenamide, (z)43.419 7459411 301-02-0 13-docosenoic acid, methyl ester 47.092 4196320 56630-69-4 methyl 20-methyl-heneicosanoate 47.833 6242189 1000336-47-4 ab 15:85 9-hexadecenoic acid, methyl ester, (z)32.87 170916 1120-25-8 hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester 33.657 31906002 112-39-0 linoleic acid, methyl ester (ala) 37.985 158143075 1000336-44-2 9-octadecenoic acid (z)-, methyl ester 38.087 90965710 112-62-9 9-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester, (e)38.174 4915274 1937-62-8 linolenic acid, methyl ester 38.104 11021318 112-61-8 cis-13-eicosenoic acid, methyl ester 42.051 1894740 1000333-52-1 eicosanoic acid, methyl ester 42.59 1672228 1120-28-1 13-docosenoic acid, methyl ester 47.084 2164436 56630-69-4 methyl 20-methyl-heneicosanoate 47.825 3558276 1000336-47-4 ab 50:50 methyl tetradecanoate 24.062 471065 124-10-7 methyl hexadec-9-enoate 32.87 231619 10030-74-7 hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester 33.662 36538110 112-39-0 heptadecanoic acid, methyl ester 36.507 184353 1731-92-6 linoleic acid, methyl ester (ala) 37.995 1000336-44-2 9-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester, (e)38.091 82214057 1937-62-8 linolenic acid, methyl ester 38.105 12561088 112-61-8 cis-13-eicosenoic acid, methyl ester 42.051 2497378 1000333-52-1 eicosanoic acid, methyl ester 42.59 2405171 1120-28-1 13-docosenoic acid, methyl ester 47.084 3221531 56630-69-4 methyl 20-methyl-heneicosanoate 47.825 4971794 1000336-47-4 ab 70:30 methyl tetradecanoate 24.053 648373 124-10-7 methyl hexadec-9-enoate 32.87 1100899 10030-74-7 cis-10-heptadecenoic acid, methyl ester 35.941 382814 1000333-62-1 heptadecanoic acid, methyl ester 36.503 451089 1731-92-6 linoleic acid, methyl ester (ala) 37.99 173518073 1000336-44-2 linolenic acid, methyl ester 38.105 137762442 301-00-8 9-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester, (e)38.183 8240079 1937-62-8 methyl stearate 38.556 20453087 112-61-8 cis-13-eicosenoic acid, methyl ester 42.046 3114290 1000333-52-1 eicosanoic acid, methyl ester 42.59 2047920 1120-28-1 13-docosenoic acid, methyl ester 47.084 1924651 56630-69-4 docosanoic acid, methyl ester 47.825 3289072 929-77-1 pa ge 49 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 44-52, 2024 cold test analysis from the table 2 and figure 3, all the four samples ab (5:95, 15:85, 50:50 and 30:70) passed the cold test analysis. the parent sample oils safflower oil and peony seed oils also passed the test, the results in clarity of samples shows efficient centrifuge and purification method which led to a stable storage life of the oil. the resistance against the oxidation was seen to be improved in all the samples due to newly formed polyunsaturated ratios and blending caused enhancement in many useful traits linked to nutritional quality and stability against oxidation. results show that all the oil samples have reliable storage capabilities and can withstand low temperature without forming the ice. table 2: cold test analysis results of blends percent oil results safflower oil passed peony oil passed 5:95 passed 15:85 passed 50:50 passed 30:70 passed figure 3: physical appearance of oil blends exposed to cold setting. (a) blends observed for clarity after 2 hours, (b) blends observed for clarity after 5.5 hours. no signs of crystals were observed cloud point analysis cloud point is a measure of resistance against the cloudiness, it is a point at which oil is no longer fully soluble to find out its natural resistance towards a low temperature. figure 4 (b) illustrates the cold points of parent oils and post blended oil mixtures. findings uncover that safflower oil has the lowest cloud falling around -4.16 ± 0.2 while peony oil’s cloud point temperature was recorded as highest at 5.0 ± 0.4 in comparison to other blends. however, the post blending values were significantly enhanced with an increasing trend of cloud point temperature with the increase in peony oil. among the blended oils, ab 5:95 shows the lowest value -2.0 ± 0.1 and ab 70:30 peaks the cloud point value at 4.5 ± 0.5 shown in figure 4 (a). figure 4: (a) cloud point temperature of oil blends, (b) physical appearance of oil blends examined at 10°c above the cloud point for visible hardening of fat crystals pa ge 50 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 44-52, 2024 peroxide value (pv) peroxide value or pv is a useful tool helps in the assessment of oxidation of lipids in the early stages as a result peroxide are formed which gives the degree of oxidation of lipids. mufa and pufa present in the oils are highly prone to the process of oxidation leading to the formation of undesirable taste and odor (marina et al., 2009). from the table 3, peony oil showed the highest peroxide value 29.909 meqo2 /kg and lowest pv value is shown by sample ab 5:95 with 11.367 meqo2 /kg. in the present research, it was noted that increase in linolenic acid would increase the peroxide value due to the reason peony seed oil has notable content of linolenic acid. research work of (abdulkarim et al., 2010) also indicated that oils with raised contents of linolenic acid should have higher peroxide values. pv values in the present study also increased with the increase in peony oil content in the blends. higher the percentage of safflower in blend lower will be the peroxide value indicates the presence of natural antioxidants which assist the oils to combat against the oxidation. furthermore, the past study by (freeman, 2005) found that peroxide values of oils gradually rise after they come in contact with the atmospheric oxygen. the presence of traces of heavy metals in oils will also notably enhance the peroxide value in oils(siddique, 2010). free fatty acid value (ffa) total free fatty acid or ffa is estimated by amount of alkali added to oil sample in order to render it quite neutral. ffa value is measure of rancidity already imparted in the oil samples. when the glycerol are further converted into fatty acids is known as hydrolytic rancidity. reference to table no 3, ffa values of parent safflower oil and peony oil were found to be (0.389 ± 0.0 %) and (0.141 ±0.0 %). acid value shows considerable improvement in the physiochemical properties of the blends and all samples passed the ffa test (value>0.5). blend ab 70:30 containing lowest content of sunflower oil has the least ffa value recorded (0.122 ±0.0) among the oil mixtures while ab 5:95 with highest value of safflower oil has shown the highest value (0.271 ± 0.0). samples experience an overall increment in their ffa values when the percentage of safflower is raised among them. small difference in ffa among oil samples is an indication of significant degree of refining process exhibiting good keeping quality and suitable for frying purpose. overall, the results reflect success in carrying out this research and by data it is proved that peony seed oil and safflower if blended at an appropriate percentage, have tendency to provide modified results with enhanced physiochemical properties. conclusion our findings enabled the integration of merits of two oils in a single blend with balanced ratio of different fatty acids while retaining the natural flavor and nutritive value. outcomes of this research show that blending high omega 3 peony seed oil with high omega 6 safflower seed oil at ab 30:70 had significantly improved their polyunsaturated fatty acid profiles with n-6 (49.16%) and n-3 (39.03%) and n-9 (2.33%) respectively which not only promote health but also lead to many useful changes in the physiochemical properties. this blended oil showed noteworthy highest iodine value of 127.24 g i2/100g, substantially lower peroxide of 6.07 meqo2/kg, and lowest free fatty acid of 0.122% in contrasted with other blends. therefore, it is recommended for daily usage for frying and can be kept in storage over a long period of time. acknowledgements the authors express their gratitude to the department of tea and food science & technology at anhui agricultural university in china for their assistance and support in conducting this research. the author extends special thanks to anhui grain processing and grading laboratory for granting the permission to use their lab equipment during the extraction process. referances abdulkarim, s. m., myat, m. w., ghazali, h. m., roselina, k., & abbas, k. a. (2010). sensory and physicochemical qualities of palm olein and sesame seed oil blends during frying of banana chips. journal of agricultural science, 2(4). https://doi. org/10.5539/jas.v2n4p18 table 3: iodine value, peroxide value and free fatty acid values of oil blends oil samples iodine value (iv) (gl2/100g) peroxide value (pv) (meqo2/kg) free fatty acid value (ffa %) safflower seed oil 130.583 ±1.45a 5.742 ±0.17ab 0.389 ± 0.03a peony seed oil 113.634 ±2.92c 1.568 ±0.45d 0.141 ±0.07c ab 5:95 113.230 ±4.01c 3.109 ± 0.37c 0.271 ± 0.04b ab 15:85 116.810 ±5.11c 3.181 ±1.18c 0.150 ±0.00c ab 50:50 119.974b ±8.73c 4.808 ± 0.92b 0.140 ±0.00c ab 70:30 127.248 ± 2.62ab 6.078 ±0.31a 0.122 ±0.00c all these values are shown as mean ± standard deviations (n = 3) *all small letters (a, b, c and d) are indicators of significant different (p <0.05) among blended samples pa ge 51 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 44-52, 2024 ali, u., hafeez, f., khan, a., & farooq, s. 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(2013). use of dietary linoleic acid for secondary prevention of coronary heart disease and death: evaluation of recovered data from the sydney diet heart study and updated meta-analysis. bmj, 346(feb04 3), e8707– e8707. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e8707 rubio-rodríguez, n., beltrán, s., jaime, i., de diego, s. m., sanz, m. t., & carballido, j. r. (2010). production of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid concentrates: a review. innovative food science & emerging technologies, 11(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ifset.2009.10.006 sarin, a., arora, r., singh, n. p., sarin, r., & malhotra, r. k. (2010). blends of biodiesels synthesized from nonedible and edible oils: influence on the os (oxidation stability). energy, 35(8), 3449–3453. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.energy.2010.04.039 siddique, b. m. , a. a. , i. m. h. , h. s. , r. m. and m. o. a. k. (2010). physicochemical properties of blends of palm olein with other vegetable oils. journal of grasas y aceites , 61(4), 423–429. simopoulos, a. p. (2004). omega-6/omega-3 essential fatty acid ratio and chronic diseases. food reviews international, 20(1), 77–90. https://doi.org/10.1081/ fri-120028831 su, j., ma, c., liu, c., gao, c., nie, r., & wang, h. (2016). hypolipidemic activity of peony seed oil rich in α‐ linolenic, is mediated through inhibition of lipogenesis and upregulation of fatty acid β‐oxidation. journal of food science, 81(4), h1001-h1009. who. interim summary of conclusions & dietary recommendations on total fat & fatty acids. (2008). the joint fao/who expert consultation on fats & fatty acids in human nutrition. annals of nutrition and metabolism. pa ge 52 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 44-52, 2024 appendix figure 1: study findings of high omega-3 pso and high omega-6 sso blends shows superiority in nutritional and physiochemical attributes pa ge 1 pa ge 50 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) nixtamalization and fermentation as treatments for enhancing the functional and nutritional properties of foods ndi betrand bongjo1*, charles chukwuma ariahu2, barnabas aloo ikyenge1 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i1.3916 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: october 20, 2024 accepted: november 27, 2024 published: march 24, 2025 this study evaluated the impact of nixtamalization and fermentation on the functional and nutritional properties of selected flours (maize and cassava). maize and cassava were subjected to nixtamalization and fermentation treatments respectively, and their functional properties, proximate composition, mineral content, and antinutrient levels were evaluated. the samples were as follows; nixtamalized maize (nxm), non-nixtamalized maize (nnm), fermented cassava (fc) and non-fermented cassava (nfc). results revealed that both nixtamalization and fermentation significantly enhanced key functional properties, including water absorption capacity (1.69-2.19 g/g), oil absorption capacity (1.53-1.73 g/g), bulk density (0.57-0.62 g/ml) and swelling index (2.78-3.38 ml/g). the proximate composition showed notable enhancement in protein (3.74-16.27 %), fat (2.26-7.28 %), and fibre content (1.91-3.97 %), while mineral analysis demonstrated elevated levels of essential micronutrients such as calcium (148.49-189.44 mg/100 g), magnesium (83.44-125.32 mg/100 g), potassium (149.63-186.32 mg/100 g), sodium (43.83 49.44 mg/100 g) and phosphorus (94.79-123.48 mg/100 g). furthermore, both treatments effectively reduced the antinutrient content, including phytates and tannins, contributing to improved nutrient bioavailability. overall, nixtamalization and fermentation present promising methods for enhancing the nutritional and functional qualities of flours, making them suitable for use in various food formulations like complementary food, fufu, bread making and many others. keywords fermentation, food formulation, nixtamalization, nutrient bioavailability 1 department of chemistry & centre for food technology and research, benue state university, makurdi, nigeria 2 department of food science and technology, college of food technology and human ecology, joseph sarwuan tarka university, makurdi, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: betrandbongjo@gmail.com introduction nutritional deficiencies affect people worldwide, with the heaviest burden falling on low-income populations. this is especially true in developing countries, where many individuals must not only reduce their food intake but also sacrifice nutritional quality due to financial constraints (erokhin et al., 2021). inadequate intake of essential nutrients including proteins, carbohydrates, and vitamins leads to malnutrition, which has been proven to both stunt cognitive development and diminish work productivity in adults (erokhin et al., 2021). this is why there is a need for emphasis on pretreatments or treatments, as the case may be, that are applied to raw materials for proper optimization of the quality of foods. the food industry continuously searches for innovative methods to improve both the nutritional value and taste appeal of its products. among these methods employed, nixtamalization and fermentation stand out as time-honoured practices deeply rooted in the culinary traditions of various cultures worldwide. nixtamalization is an ancient method of preparing corn by cooking and soaking it in lime water (a mixture of water and calcium hydroxide) (matendo et al., 2023). it is a pretreatment given to maize kernel in the processing of several maize-based products, including maize chips, tortillas, etc. (hassan et al., 2023). this technique was invented and exploited by the aztec and mayan civilizations and it is still being used to date. authors have reported that despite the growing popularity of these maize products, little improvements have been made in the use of this maize processing method (hassan et al., 2023). by taking into account people from africa and latin america, maize consumption ranges from about 15 % to 56 %, even though it is an ancient practice in mexico and other latin american countries (valderrama-bravo et al., 2017). this process is not yet ingrained in the culture of the nations of sub-saharan africa that produce and consume maize. numerous essential foods, such as tortillas, tortilla chips, and snacks, are created using nixtamalization. when it comes to food preparation, grains that have undergone the nixtamalization process have several advantages over untreated grains. nixtamalized maize is easier to mill, has more nutritional content, has better flavor and aroma, and has a lower likelihood of producing mycotoxins (ocheme et al., 2010; santiago-ramos et al., 2018). improved protein quality, niacin availability, lysine availability, and higher calcium content are all notable advantages of nixtamalization (matendo et al., 2023; santiago-ramos et al., 2018). according to reports, the nixtamalization procedure has been shown to increase the calcium content in nixtamalized products (offiah et al., 2016; rojas et al., 2016; sefa-dedeh et al., 2003). fermentation is the process by which microorganisms break down complex food materials into simpler forms in their search for energy and carbon. it improves the safety, flavour and digestibility of foods and also the bioavailability of nutrients and shelf life of food pa ge 51 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 50-59, 2025 products under controlled environments (oladeji et al., 2018). this bioprocess has been known to cultivate desired quality attributes in food products. these qualities encompass their appeal, utility, and functional value post-fermentation. appeal pertains to the external characteristics, texture, aroma, and flavor of food— critical factors that are discernible by the senses and contribute to consumer satisfaction. utility aspects entail a range of advantages, including reducing bulk volume, minimizing cooking duration, prolonging shelf life, enhancing nutrient preservation, and capitalizing on the opportunity to transform by-products (“waste”) into appetizing value-added food items (nout, 2005). this process involves chemical changes that occur in an organic substrate through the action of enzymes produced by microorganisms (erkmen & bozoglu, 2016). nixtamalization and fermentation have each played pivotal roles in shaping the culinary heritage of societies for centuries. their significance, however, extends far beyond cultural heritage as they offer tangible benefits to modern food production, including improved nutritional value, flavor enhancement, and food safety. for context and in this study, maize was employed for the nixtamalization process while cassava was employed for the fermentation process. this piece of work was therefore aimed at exploring the role of nixtamalization and fermentation within the food industry, to enhance the functional and nutritional properties of foods materials and methods sample collection about 10 kg of white maize (zea mays) was gotten from the wurukum market in makurdi, benue state, nigeria. freshly harvested sweet cultivar of cassava (manihot esculenta crantz) was obtained from wannune market in benue state makurdi. all of these raw materials was sorted and cleaned before experiment use. only analytical-grade reagents were used. sample preparation nixtamalized maize flour was prepared by the method of offiah et al. (2016) as in figure 1. non-nixtamalized maize flour was prepared as described by akubor (2019). maize grains were sorted and cleaned from extraneous materials. these were further milled using a hammer mill and passed through a 40 mm mesh sieve. the flours were packaged in low-density polyethylene bags and stored for further analysis cassava flour (nonfermented) was prepared as shown in figure 2 (awolu et al., 2022). matured and freshly harvested cassava tubers was sorted to remove extraneous materials like stones. it was then be peeled using a sharp kitchen knife and washed in clean water. the peeled and washed cassava were size-reduced by cutting it into small pieces. it was oven-dried at 65 oc for 48 h. cassava fermentation was done using the back slopping fermentation method or accelerated natural fermentation as described by offiah et al. (2016). a mixture was prepared by combining 50 g of cassava flour with 150 ml of distilled water in a 500 ml glass beaker. the beaker was covered with aluminum foil and kept at room temperature (30 ± 2°c) for 24 hours. after this period, half of the fermented mixture was used to initiate a new fermentation batch. this back-slopping was repeated every 24 hours throughout the fermentation period. during fermentation, both ph and titratable acidity were measured to track lactic acid bacteria activity. the process was terminated when ph readings stabilized despite continued fermentation cycles. the final fermented product was then dried at 50°c in a hot air fan-driven electric oven for 24 hours, ground in a warring blender, and passed through a 40 mm mesh sieve. figure 1: flow chart for the production of nixtamalized maize flour source: (offiah et al., 2016) figure 2: flow chart for cassava flour production source: (awolu et al., 2022) pa ge 52 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 50-59, 2025 physicochemical analyses of the samples determination of the functional properties water absorption capacity (wac): the method described by the modified method of (massingue júnior et al., 2023) was used. the sample was prepared by dispersing 1 g of flour in 10 ml of water in a 15 ml centrifuge tube. the mixture was then agitated on a platform tube rocker for 1 minute at room temperature. after letting it settle for 30 minutes, the sample was centrifuged at 1200 x g for 30 minutes. wac was then calculated as follows: wac=(amount of water-free water)/(weight of sample) × density of water × 100 (1) oil absorption capacity (oac) the sample was prepared by dispersing 1 g of flour in 10 ml of vegetable oil in a 15 ml centrifuge tube. the mixture was then agitated on a platform tube rocker for 1 minute at room temperature. after letting it settle for 30 minutes, the sample was centrifuged at 1200 x g for 30 minutes (onwuka, 2018). oac = (amount of oil-free oil)/(weight of sample) × density of oil × 100 (2) bulk density (bd) the bulk density was determined by pouring 50 g of flour into a 100 ml measuring cylinder. the cylinder was tapped repeatedly until the flour volume remained constant. the bulk density (g/ml) was then calculated by dividing the flour weight by its final volume (ml) (awolu et al., 2022). bd = (weight of sample)/(volume of sample after tapping) × 100 (3) swelling index (si) the test was conducted by mixing 1.0 g of flour with 10 ml distilled water in a centrifuge tube. the mixture was heated at 80 °c for 30 minutes with continuous agitation. following heating, the suspension was centrifuged at 1000 x g for 15 minutes. the supernatant was then removed and the paste weight was measured (awolu et al., 2022). the swelling power was calculated as follows: si(%) = (weight of sample paste)/(weight of dry flour) × 100 (4) determination of the proximate composition of flours the proximate parameters namely; moisture, ash, crude protein crude fat, and crude fibre) were determined by standard methods of the association of official analytical chemists (aoac, 2012). carbohydrate was calculated by difference as follows; % carbohydrate = 100 [protein(%) + fat(%) + ash(%) + fibre(%) + moisture (%)] (5) determination of the mineral content of the flours the magnesium, calcium, potassium, sodium and phosphorous contents of samples were determined by the atomic absorption spectrophotometer method (aoac, 2012). a muffle furnace was used to ignite two grams of the dry samples at 600 °c. ten milliliters of 5 m hcl were used to dissolve the ash. after the ash was acid-digested on a steam plate, the digested sample was carefully cleaned with distilled water, filtered using whatman’s filter paper, and then diluted to volume in a 50 ml volumetric flask. the atomic absorption spectrophotometer (perkinelmer analyst 700 spectrophotometer (norwalk, ct, usa) was then used to evaluate the samples and blanks for the various minerals. anti-nutritional analysis of samples determination of tannin contents the tannin content was determined using the burn method (krishnaiah et al., 2009). five (5) g of sample was treated with 50 ml methanol and kept for 24 hours before filtration. five (5 ml) of freshly prepared vanalin hydrochloric acid was added and the solution was allowed to stand for 20 min for colour development. the absorbance was measured at 550 nm using spectronic 20 and the machine value was used in calculating the tannin content as follows: c1=(c1c2)/v1 % tannic acid content=(c1 × 100)/(weight of sample) (6) where; c1= conc. of tannic acid, c2=conc. of base, v1=volume of tannic acid, v2= volume of base determination of phytates content the method of young and greaves with slight modification was used (disseka et al., 2018). in a 250 conical flask, precisely 2 g of samples were soaked in 100 ml of 20 % concentrated hcl for 3 hours. the samples were then filtered through filter paper, 50 ml of the filtrate was put in a 250 beaker, and 100 ml of distilled water was added. 10 ml of 0.3% ammonium thiocyanate solution was then added as an indicator, and titration was performed using standard iron (iii) chloride (0.00915 g/ ml). after titrations, the phytate content was calculated as follows; phytates acid = (titre value × 0.00195 × 1.19 × 100)/ (sample mass (g)) (7) determination of cyanide alkaline picrate reagent was prepared by a modification of the method described by wasiams and edwards (1980) as follows: test tubes with 2ml of 2% koh and 1 ml of picric acid: na2co3: h2o (1:5:200 v/w/v) was prepared (nwokoro et al., 2010). standard absorbance curves were created using three whatman no. 1 filter papers, each measuring 8 × 1 cm. these papers were immersed in an alkaline picrate solution for 15 minutes. after removal, the picrate-treated papers were promptly used for cyanide analysis. cyanide solutions (ranging from 50 to 200 μg kcn/ml) were prepared in glass containers, acidified with 20% hcl, heated to 80 °c, and immediately sealed with three picrate-treated papers. this setup was left to incubate at room temperature (28 ± 2 °c) for 24 hours. pa ge 53 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 50-59, 2025 the resulting red-coloured complex was then extracted with a 50 % ethanol solution for 30 minutes, and the absorbance of the eluate was recorded at 510 nm using a spectrophotometer. cyanide concentrations in the samples were determined by referencing the standard curve. determination of oxalate content this was determined by the standard method of aoac (2012). one gram (1 g) of the sample was placed in a 250 ml volumetric flask, to which 190 ml of distilled water and 10 ml of 6 m hcl were added. the mixture was then heated in a water bath at 90 °c for 4 hours, followed by centrifugation of the digested sample at 2000 rpm for 5 minutes. the resulting supernatant was diluted to a final volume of 250 ml. three 50 ml portions of the supernatant were evaporated to 25 ml, after which the brown precipitate was filtered and washed. the combined filtrate and washings were titrated by adding concentrated ammonia dropwise until the salmon-pink color of methyl orange turned faint yellow. the solution was reheated to 90 °c in a water bath, and oxalate was precipitated using 10 ml of a 5 % calcium chloride (cacl2) solution. the mixture was left to stand overnight and then centrifuged. each precipitate was then transferred into a beaker using hot 25 % sulfuric acid (h₂so₄), diluted to 125 ml with distilled water, and after heating to 90 °c, it was titrated with 0.05 m potassium permanganate (kmno₄) until a faint pink color persisted for at least 30 seconds. the oxalate content was calculated by taking; 1 ml of 0.05m kmno4 = 2.2 mg oxalate (8) statistical analysis data were collected in triplicate and analyzed using spss (statistical package for the social sciences) version 27. an analysis of variance (anova) test was conducted to assess significant differences between the means, and the duncan multiple range test was applied for mean comparison and separation. statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. results and discussion functional properties of the maize and cassava flours as influenced by nixtamalization and fermentation both nixtamalization and fermentation were seen to affect the functional properties of the different flours, as shown in table 1. nixtamalization significantly enhanced the water absorption capacity from 1.69 % in non-nixtamalized maize flour to 2.14 % in nixtamalized maize flour. water absorption capacity is the amount of water or moisture that is taken up by a food or flour to achieve the desired consistency for quality food (chandra et al., 2015). nixtamalization has been known to increase the water activity of maize flour as was observed in the study by sefadedeh et al. (2004). they observed that nixtamalization increases water absorption capacity in maize, influenced by lime concentration and cooking time, enhancing hydration due to gelatinization and osmotic effects. this variation may be due to lime cooking, which causes gelatinization and thereby exposes the hydrophilic sites in starch. this process reveals a strong inverse relationship between gelatinization and water absorption capacity, meaning that as gelatinization increases in the flour, its water absorption capacity decreases. several authors have reported that the improved water absorption capacity of the flours is desirable and crucial as water absorption leads to improved texture and handling properties (ramírezmiranda et al., 2014; rodríguez-martínez et al., 2015). the oil absorption capacity was enhanced by nixtamalization; ranging from 1.61 in nn to 1.53 in nxm. oil absorption capacity is a measure of the rate at which protein binds to fat in food formulations. it has been attributed to the physical entrapment of oil in a food sample. this has been known to act as a flavor retainer and increases the mouthfeel of foods (hasmadi et al., 2020). results in this study agree and follow the same trend as those of (ocheme et al., 2010; sefa-dedeh et al., 2004) who reported a decrease in the oil absorption capacity of the flours with nixtamalization. the bulk density of the flours was observed to be significantly different between the nixtamalized and non-nixtamalized samples. nixtamalization leads to gelatinization and therefore increase in water absorption or moisture uptake and consequently the bulk of the food sample (rodríguezmartínez et al., 2015). bulk density refers to the mass of numerous particles of flour material divided by the overall volume they occupy. this total volume includes the volume of the particles themselves, the internal pore volume, and the spaces between particles (inter-particle voids) (awuchi et al., 2019). it is used to determine the packaging requirements of flour as it measures the heaviness of the flour (hasmadi et al., 2020). the nixtamalized sample had a significantly higher swelling capacity compared to the non-nixtamalized sample. the swelling capacity of a food product is a function and ability of the product to rise while interacting with water. several factors have been reported to influence the swelling capacity of flour including crop species, size of flour particles, and processing method used (awolu et al., 2022). nixtamalization with ca(oh)2 was seen to enhance the swelling capacity of flour by promoting protein unfolding and increasing the interaction with water. this could be due to the ionizing hydroxyl groups of starch and proteins, which favour the formation of weak noncovalent bonds and electrostatic forces, resulting in strong entanglement and interaction with water (rincónaguirre et al., 2021). this may be attributed to the flour’s reduced fat content; research indicates that fats can form complexes with starch, which can restrict swelling. additionally, the flour’s high water absorption capacity also contributes to this effect (ocheme et al., 2010). fermentation on the other hand; as seen in table 1 significantly affected the functional properties of the flour. it was observed that the water absorption capacity was significantly lower in the fermented sample compared pa ge 54 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 50-59, 2025 to the non-fermented sample. this is a deviation from the norm as observed by feyera (2021) who reported that fermentation increases water absorption capacity in complementary food, with values ranging from 163.81 to 180.50 for samples fermented for 24 and 36 hours, respectively, compared to unfermented samples. this could be due to over-degradation of starches and proteins, leading to the loss of molecular structures that are responsible for trapping and holding water. also, intense fermentation could break down polysaccharides and proteins exposing more hydrophobic ends or reducing the overall hydrophilic sites, thereby leading to a decrease in the water absorption capacity of the flour. fermentation in sorghum, pearl millet, and maize decreased water absorption capacity, as reported by alka et al. (2012). the oil absorption capacity of the fermented sample was significantly (p<0.05) higher than the nonfermented sample. this agrees with this study wherein, african yam bean flour also was used in bread production. they also observed an increase in oil absorption capacity as affected by fermentation (chinma et al., 2020). the bulk density of the fermented sample (fc, 0.57 %) was significantly lower than the non-fermented sample (nfc, 0.62 %). these results agree with those by feyera, (2021) who observed that fermentation reduced the bulk density of composite flour from 0.90 to 0.59 g/ml, indicating a substantial decrease in heaviness, which is crucial for improving the acceptability of foods. this reduction could be attributed to the fact that during fermentation, the lactic acid bacteria break down complex polysaccharides and proteins into simpler and less heavy molecules, hence the reduction in the bulk density (oladeji et al., 2018). the swelling capacity was seen to be significantly lower in the fermented sample (fc, 2.87) compared to the non-fermented sample (nfc, 3.06). while it has been reported that the protein and fat content of flour can inhibit its swelling capacity (feyera, 2021), it was observed in this study that fermentation led to a decrease in the swelling capacity of the flour. the observed reduction in swelling power due to fermentation in this study aligns with previous findings, which reported a decrease in the swelling capacity of pigeon pea flour after being subjected to various fermentation durations (feyera, 2021). table 1: functional properties of maize and cassava flours as influenced by nixtamalization and fermentation parameter sample nxm nnm fc nfc wac (g/g) 2.14b±0.00 1.69d±0.01 1.72c±0.00 2.19a±0.01 oac (g/g) 1.53c±0.01 1.61b±0.01 1.73a±0.01 1.61b±0.02 bd (g/ml) 0.61b±0.00 0.59c±0.00 0.57d±0.00 0.62a±0.00 si (ml/g) 3.38a±0.02 2.78d±0.02 2.87c±0.03 3.06b±0.06 values are means±standard deviation of triplicate determinations. means across a row with different superscripts are significantly different at p<0.05 proximate composition of maize and cassava flours as influenced by nixtamalization and fermentation table 2 presents the proximate composition of the flours as influenced by nixtamalization and fermentation. the moisture content ranged from 10.18 in nxm to 11.51 in nnm while it ranged from 11.75 in nfc to 10.48 in fc. nixtamalization was seen to significantly reduce (p<0.05) the moisture content of the nixtamalized maize flour. this is consistent with previous studies that observed a decrease in the moisture content of nixtamalized products (matendo et al., 2023). results in this study however contrast with findings by sunico et al. (2021) who observed an increase in the moisture content of nixtamalized flour. this difference could be owed to difference in lime concentration as well as cooking time. nixtamalization is known to affect the water absorption capacity and gelatinization (partial) of maize starch. this modifies the starch structure, reducing its ability to retain water and in turn lowers the moisture content. it has also been reported that the calcium salts interfere with the sorptive or hydrophilic sites of starch thereby making them unavailable for moisture absorption (amadorrodríguez et al., 2019, 2020). some researchers have further explained that the use of ca(oh)₂ breaks down the seed coat structure, allowing calcium ions to diffuse into the seed. this process enhances the interaction and absorption of calcium with starch, pectins, and proteins (santiago-ramos et al., 2018). the ash content varied from 3.65% in nxm to 3.13% in nnm. nixtamalization significantly increased the ash content of the nixtamalized maize flour. this was expected as it has been reported that the alkaline treatment releases the bound minerals from antinutrients found mainly in the pericarp which is easily removed by the alkaline nature of the medium (sunico et al., 2021). the crude protein ranged significantly (p<0.05) from 14.02 % (nnm) to 16.27 % (nxm) demonstrating that nixtamalization greatly enhances and increases the protein content of nixtamalized maize and its products. similar reports have been advanced to enhance the protein content of nixtamalized maize key: nxm-nixtamalized maize, nnm-non-nixtamalized maize, fc-fermented cassava, nfc-non-fermented cassava wac-water absorption capacity, oac-oil absorption capacity, bd-bulk density, si-swelling index pa ge 55 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 50-59, 2025 products. for example, sunico et al. (2021) evaluated the effect of nixtamalized maize flour as a substitute in philippine salt bread. the protein content ranged from 9.78 % in non-nixtamalized maize flour to 10.60 % in nixtamalized bread. results obtained in this study are higher than those reported by hassan et al. (2023) who observed the protein content to range from 9.71 to 12.88 %, while optimizing the effect of nixtamalization on the nutritional and antinutritional contents of quality protein maize flour. reporting a protein content ranging from 7.48 to 11.6 %, hassan et al. (2023) demonstrated the effect of nixtamalization in increasing the protein content of nixtamalized products. while assessing the impact of nixtamalization on the proximate, functional, and some anti-nutritional properties of millet flour, ocheme et al. (2010) also found that millet flour cooked in lime had a higher protein content than millet flour soaked in water. santiago-ramos et al. (2018) and ramírez-jiménez et al. (2019) also observed similar results. the crude fibre content of the nixtamalized maize flour was 3.97 % higher than observed in the nonnixtamalized counterpart (3.30 %). other reports have observed similar effects on nixtamalization for example ocheme et al. (2010) observed a crude fibre content ranging from 4.05 to 6.23 % for millet flour. the findings of this research exceeded those found in a comparable investigation by hassan et al. (2023). in their research on how nixtamalization and heat processing affected nutrients in maize-soybean flour, matendo et al. (2023) found lower fiber content between 0.23-1.86%, with nixtamalized maize showing the highest levels. this variation may be attributed to differences in processing techniques. research has shown that nixtamalization enhances dietary fiber by increasing resistant starch levels in food items (ekpa et al., 2019; voss et al., 2017). when studying how nixtamalization affected dietary fiber, starch digestibility and antioxidant properties in blue maize tortilla, bello-pérez et al. (2015) documented fiber content between 10.13-14.11%. gutiérrez-cortez et al. (2010) noted that during traditional nixtamalization, the combined effect of heat and alkaline conditions strongly impacts the outer pericarp layers, leading to partial removal of hemicelluloses and some lignin from the fiber matrix of the pericarp. reports have it that fibre slows down glucsose release into the bloodstream and subsequent absorption (olosunde et al., 2023), thereby very important in controlling blood glucose levels. the fat content of the maize flours ranged from 6.53 % (nxm) to 7.28 % (nnm). nixtamalization was seen to significantly reduce the fat content of the maize flour produced. the process alters the fatty acid profile, particularly reducing linoleic acid content due to saponification and the formation of amylose-lipid complexes (bello-pérez et al., 2015). this is consistent with numerous literatures that abound. hassan et al. (2023) observed similar but lower results in the range of 3.36 to 6.00 %. (campechano carrera et al., 2012) reported 4.4–5.3 % of fat content. the carbohydrate content ranged from 59.60 % in nxm to 60.76 % in nnm. in tortilla which is one of the most popular food product produced by nixtamalization, carbohydrates are the main component. this has been corroborated in other published studies (bello-pérez et al., 2015; matendo et al., 2023). researchers also examined how fermentation influenced the basic nutritional composition of cassava flour. the flour’s moisture levels varied between 10.48 and 11.75%, where the fermented flour showed the lowest moisture content at 10.48 %. it has been reported that the fermentation process modifies starch granules, thereby making them more porous and susceptible to degradation (prastiwi et al., 2024), which can lead to moisture loss hence a decrease in moisture content in fermented products as observed in this study the fermentation process modifies starch granules, making them more porous and susceptible to degradation, which can lead to moisture loss. these findings contradict those of chinma and colleagues (2020), who noted increased moisture levels in fermented african yam bean. the current study’s results are also lower than the 10.61-12.69% range reported by fayemi and ojokoh (2014) in their investigation of how different fermentation methods affect fufu’s nutritional properties. the flour samples’ ash content varied from 2.69% in non-fermented cassava (nfc) to 2.83% in fermented cassava (fc). fermentation was found to significantly boost ash content, suggesting enhanced mineral levels an observation that aligns with chinma et al. (2020) and ariahu et al. (1999) findings. protein levels increased significantly through fermentation, ranging from 3.74% (nfc) to 5.19% (fc). while these results exceed fayemi and ojokoh’s (2014) findings of 1.87-2.32%, they align with chinma et al.’s (2020) observations. this protein increase likely results from reduced carbon ratio in the total mass, as fermenting microorganisms use carbohydrates for energy, producing carbon dioxide and concentrating nitrogen content (cui et al., 2012). crude fiber decreased notably from 2.96% (nfc) to 2.26% (fc), possibly due to enzymatic breakdown during fermentation a trend also noted by fayemi and ojokoh (2014). carbohydrate content showed a slight reduction from 76.95% (nfc) to 76.39% (fc). this decrease likely occurred because microorganisms used carbohydrate compounds for energy, with increased α-amylase activity breaking down polysaccharides into glucose (olukomaiya et al., 2020). table 2: proximate composition of maize and cassava flours as influenced by nixtamalization and fermentation parameter sample nxm nnm nfc fc moisture content 10.18d±0.08 11.51b±0.03 11.75a±0.02 10.48b±0.02 ash 3.65a±0.05 3.13b±0.09 2.69d±0.10 2.83c±0.02 crude protein 16.27a±0.02 14.02b±0.05 3.74d±0.03 5.19c±0.05 pa ge 56 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 50-59, 2025 mineral composition of maize and cassava flours as influenced by nixtamalization and fermentation the effect of nixtamalization on the mineral content of maize flour is presented in table 3. the calcium content was significantly enhanced by nixtamalization with nxm having the highest content (189.44 mg/100 g) and nnm having the least (156.32 mg/100 g). similar findings were reported by matendo et al. (2023) in their study examining how nixtamalization of maize and heat processing of soybean affected nutrients, antinutrients, and mycotoxins in maize-soybean composite flour. the increased calcium levels could be linked to higher alkalinity, as elevated ph helps remove seed pericarp, enabling better calcium interaction with maize endosperm (rojas‐molina et al., 2007; sunico et al., 2021). the maize flours’ magnesium content varied between 109.50 mg/100 g in nonnixtamalized maize (nnm) and 125.32 mg/100 g in nixtamalized maize (nxm). these values were lower than santiago-ramos et al.’s (2018) findings of 134.70 to 192.30 mg/100 g. potassium levels ranged from 154.79 mg/100 g (nnm) to 174.79 mg/100 g (nxm). similar to other minerals, nixtamalization significantly enhanced potassium content due to calcium’s role in improving mineral bioavailability (santiago-ramos et al., 2018; sunico et al., 2021). sodium content was found to be between 45.63 and 48.78 mg/100 g. this is consistent with findings from (santiago-ramos et al., 2018) who observed a range of 13.26 to 24 mg/100 g. the phosphorus content of the flours ranged from 119.84 to 123.48 mg/100 g. this is lower than those reported by (santiago-ramos et al., 2018) who observed 301.04 to 370.73 mg/100 g of phosphorus. the effect of fermentation on the mineral composition of cassava flour is presented in table 3. fermentation has been generally known to increase the bioavailability and extractability of minerals in flour by reducing phytate content and other antinutritional factors (chinma et al., 2020). the calcium content ranged from 148.49 mg/100 g (nfc) to 152.33 mg/100 g (fc). the observance was that fermentation led to an increase in the contents of calcium. the findings from this study exceeded those reported by fayemi and ojokoh (2014), while showing agreement with but remaining below values reported by mudau et al. (2022). calcium, which is crucial for various cellular processes, plays vital structural roles including bone and teeth formation and nerve impulse conduction. magnesium content varied from 83.44 mg/100 g in nonfermented cassava (nfc) to 98.65 mg/100 g in fermented cassava (fc), with fermentation increasing levels. this aligns with previous research indicating fermentation enhances mineral and macromolecule bioavailability (chinma et al., 2020; mudau et al., 2022). magnesium serves essential bodily functions, including muscle and nerve regulation, blood sugar and pressure control, and protein, bone, and dna synthesis. fermentation significantly decreased potassium content, with nfc showing the highest value (186.32 mg/100 g) and fc the lowest (149.63 mg/100 g). these results were lower than mudau et al.’s (2022) findings and contradicted chinma et al.’s (2020) observations of increased potassium in fermented african yam bean. however, they aligned with oladeji et al.’s (2018) findings of reduced potassium in fermented maize. potassium is essential for fluid balance and organ function, particularly in the brain, nerves, heart, and muscles. sodium content decreased significantly with fermentation, from 49.44 mg/100 g (nfc) to 43.83 mg/100 g (fc). these values differed from fayemi and ojokoh’s (2014) higher readings of 0.0970.555 mg/100 g and contradicted mudau et al.’s (2022) observation of increased sodium post-fermentation, possibly due to different fermentation methods. sodium maintains blood osmotic pressure and assists in nerve impulse transmission. phosphorus levels increased significantly with fermentation, reaching 118.85 mg/100 g in fermented samples. these values exceeded fayemi and ojokoh’s (2014) findings of 0.057-0.152 mg/100 g, similar to observations in fermented african yam bean flour bread. crude fibre 3.97a±0.04 3.30b±0.07 1.91d±0.06 2.15c±0.05 crude fat 6.53b±0.06 7.28a±0.06 2.26d±0.06 2.96c±0.05 carbohydrate 59.40d±0.09 60.76c±0.03 77.60a±0.07 75.00b±0.07 values are means±standard deviation of triplicate determinations. means across a row with different superscripts are significantly different at p<0.05 table 3: mineral composition of maize and cassava flours as influenced by nixtamalization and fermentation parameter sample nxm nnm fc nfc calcium 189.44a±0.02 156.32b±0.02 152.33c±0.03 148.49d±0.01 magnesium 125.32a±0.02 109.50b±0.02 98.65c±0.02 83.44d±0.02 potassium 174.79b±0.01 154.79c±0.01 149.63d±0.03 186.32a±0.02 sodium 48.78b±0.02 45.63c±0.03 43.83d±0.03 49.44a±0.02 phosphorus 123.48a±0.02 119.84b±0.02 118.85c±0.05 94.79d±0.01 key: nxm-nixtamalized maize, nnm-non-nixtamalized maize, fc-fermented cassava, nfc-non-fermented cassava pa ge 57 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 50-59, 2025 antinutrient composition of maize and cassava flours as influenced by nixtamalization and fermentation table 4.4 presents the antinutrient levels in the produced flours. the analysis revealed that both processing methods nixtamalization and fermentation led to a statistically significant decrease (p<0.05) in all measured antinutritional compounds.nixtamalization significantly reduces antinutrient levels, including phytic acid, in maize and composite flours, thereby improving their nutritional properties (matendo et al., 2023; santiago-ramos et al., 2018; sunico et al., 2021). fermentation on the other hand is known to significantly reduce phytic acid content in a number of food products like in lupin flour, maize flour, sorghum flour and phaseolus vulgaris (chinma et al., 2020; ocheme et al., 2010). fermentation has also been seen to reduce the contents of tannins, oxalates and other antinutritional factors in various flours like maize, sorghum and african breadfruit (ojha et al., 2018; ojokoh et al., 2013). values are means±standard deviation of triplicate determinations. values in the same row marked with different superscript letters indicate statistically significant differences at a 95% confidence level (p<0.05). key: nxm-nixtamalized maize, nnm-non-nixtamalized maize, fc-fermented cassava, nfc-non-fermented cassava table 4: antinutrient composition of maize and cassava flours as influenced by nixtamalization and fermentation antinutrient (mg/100 g) sample nxm nnm fc nfc tannin 0.74b±0.00 0.82a±0.02 0.54c±0.02 0.73b±0.01 phytate 1.18c±0.00 2.16a±0.00 1.08d±0.00 1.73b±0.03 oxalate 0.78c±0.00 0.94a±0.00 0.61d±0.01 0.83b±0.03 hydrogen cyanide 1.20c±0.00 1.25a±0.00 1.19d±0.01 1.23b±0.00 values are means±standard deviation of triplicate determinations. means across a row with different superscripts are significantly different at p<0.05 key: nxm-nixtamalized maize, nnm-non-nixtamalized maize, fm-fermented cassava, nfc-non-fermented cassava conclusion flours were successfully produced by the employment of the two treatment methods; nixtamalization and fermentation. the functional properties, which are essential for food product development, were significantly improved by both processing treatments. the basic nutritional composition of the flours showed notable enhancement, particularly with an observed increase in protein content. the mineral contents analysed, especially calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium and phosphorus were greatly enhanced by both nixtamalization and fermentation. the enhancement in the mineral content was a compliment to the decrease in the antinutrient content of the flours as affected by nixtamalization and fermentation. the integration of nixtamalization and fermentation techniques represents a fascinating intersection of tradition and innovation within the food industry. through these age-old processes, food manufacturers and artisans alike can enhance not only the nutritional value and flavour profile of their products but also their safety and shelf life. nixtamalization’s ability to improve the digestibility and bioavailability of essential nutrients in maize, coupled with fermentation’s capacity to unlock complex flavours and preserve foods, underscores the profound impact these methods have on both culinary practices and public health. references alka, s., neelam, y., & shruti, s. 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(2017). physical and chemical characterization of masa and tortillas from parental lines, crosses, and one hybrid. international agrophysics, 31(1), 129–138. https://doi.org/10.1515/ intag-2016-0030 pa ge 1 pa ge 76 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) effect of pre-treatments on the osmotic dehydration and mass transfer behaviour of sweet potatoes (ipomoea batatas lamipomoea batatas lam.) mfh shikder1, md nahid hossain jany1*, juwel rana2, m. burhan uddin1 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i1.4479 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: february 05,, 2025 accepted: march 03, 2025 published: may 08, 2025 food security is increasingly threatened by rapid population growth, climate change, and resource constraints, necessitating efficient preservation techniques to minimize post-harvest losses. this study investigates the osmotic dehydration process of two sweet potato (ipomoea batatas lam.) varieties, local sada and kamala sundari, under varying sugar concentrations (40%, 50%, 60%), temperatures (30°c, 40°c, 50°c, and 60°c), slice thickness (3 mm or 5 mm), and pre-treatment conditions (blanched or unblanched). the research problem addresses the high perishability of sweet potatoes post-harvest, leading to significant food losses, and the lack of optimized osmotic dehydration parameters tailored to specific sweet potato varieties. the novelty of this study lies in its comprehensive examination of multiple processing parameters simultaneously within a single experimental framework, allowing for an in-depth understanding of mass transfer mechanisms and varietal differences. results indicate that increased sugar concentrations and temperatures enhance dehydration rates, with blanching further accelerating mass transfer by increasing cell permeability. however, varietal differences were significant: kamala sundari exhibited slower yet more controlled dehydration, maintaining better structural integrity, while local sada dehydrated faster but showed higher susceptibility to structural collapse. slice thickness also played a crucial role, as thinner slices (3 mm) dehydrated more quickly but were prone to texture loss compared to thicker slices (5 mm). unblanched samples, despite slower dehydration rates, retained better textural attributes. these findings have strong industrial relevance, providing a framework for optimizing osmotic dehydration conditions tailored to different sweet potato varieties, ensuring improved product quality and reduced post-harvest losses in food processing industries. keywords food preservation, mass transfer, osmotic dehydration, pretreatment, structural integrity, sweet potato 1 department of food technology & rural industries, bangladesh agricultural university, mymensingh-2202, bangladesh 2 department of nutrition & food engineering (nfe), daffodil international university (diu), bangladesh * corresponding author’s e-mail: nahidhj.research@gmail.com introduction food security worldwide is increasingly threatened by rapid population growth, climate change and an overburdened set of resources (sarker et al., 2023). protecting nutrient-rich crops through processing is vital. sweet potatoes (ipomoea batatas l) have become an important crop in developing nations due to their high calorific yield, nutritional profile, and ability to adapt to marginal growing conditions (otálora et al., 2024). food production is vital in providing essential nutrients and increasing food security, and it is critical to economic and public health stability (peng & berry, 2018). tropical and sub-tropical regions rely heavily on tuber crops such as sweet potatoes for caloric intake (rinaldo, 2020). however, the high amount of moisture makes it highly perishable following harvest and usually results in food loss (nath & sil, 2008). osmotic dehydration is a widely used method in the food industry to preserve fruit and vegetables by reducing the amount of water they contain while conserving their nutritional and sensory quality. to do this, food items are submerged into an osmotic solution composed of salt or sugar, which creates an osmotic pressure gradient to remove water from food structures while permitting solvent diffusion (silva et al., 2014; cheng et al., 2023; osae et al., 2024). sweet potatoes (ipomoea batatas l.) are particularly well known for their rich nutrient content; therefore, sweet potato dehydration produces intermediate moisture products, which improve shelf life and flavor profiles (malakar et al., 2021). dehydration by osmotic is highly dependent on various variables, including the amount of osmotic solution applied, processing temperature, sample thickness, pretreatment methods (blanching) used as well as sweet potato variety differences that influence cell structure, moisture content and chemical composition that ultimately impact dehydration rates as well as final product characteristics (de souza silva et al., 2011). osmotic dehydration depends on many variables, including the quantity and temperature of osmotic solutions used, sample thickness, method of pretreatment (blanching) utilized and sweet potato varieties whose cells alter cell structures, moisture content and chemical composition to influence rate of dehydration as well as final characteristics (lagnika et al., 2021). sweet potatoes degrade rapidly due to their high moisture levels, leading to significant postharvest losses (sarker et al., 2023; araújo & pena, 2023). however, the effect of key processing parameters such as sugar concentration, temperature, slice thickness, and pretreatment (blanching, etc.) on sweet potato degradation remains uncertain (kadir et al., 2024; dermesonlouoglou et al., 2025). unblended on the kinetics of osmotic dehydration has not been sufficiently researched, nor pa ge 77 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 76-89, 2025 has the significance of varietal differences such as sada vs kamala sundari in dehydration behavior been recognized fully. this study addresses these gaps by investigating how processing variables affect water loss and solids gains during osmotic dehydration, in combination with varietal characteristics to optimize dehydration processes for product quality and effectiveness. this study aims to investigate the effects of sugar concentration in the solution (40%, 50% and 60%) as well as the temperature, the thickness of slices (3 and 3 millimeters), and the pre-treatment method (blanched or. non-blanched) on the dehydration behavior of two varieties of sweet potato such as local sada as well as kamala sundari. the research focuses on studying the mechanisms of water loss and gain of solids during the process of osmotic dehydration in order to improve processes to ensure efficient removal of moisture while preserving the desirable structural and sensory characteristics (lagnika et al., 2021; pandiselvam et al., 2022). the uniqueness of this research is the holistic method of analysis. in contrast to previous studies that looked at individual parameters on their own the research we are conducting simultaneously examines various critical variables, including slice geometry, pretreatment and differences between varietals within a single experimental framework (antonio et al., 2008; corrêa et al., 2017; wu et al., 2020; wang et al., 2025). this integrated analysis will provide extensive insight into the mechanisms of mass transfer in osmotic dehydration. the report will also offer practical recommendations for the development of specialized methods to preserve sweet potatoes. the findings will aid in the reduction of postharvest losses as well as increasing the shelf-life of this vital crop, with a substantial impact on industry and food security. materials and methods raw materials and identification two kinds of sweet potatoes, local sada and kamala sundari, were purchased from a local market in mymensingh, bangladesh. a plant pathologist at bangladesh agricultural university verified the variety’s identity using morphological traits. only fresh tubers with no defects were used in the tests. preparation of raw materials tubers were cleaned under running tap water to eliminate soil, cleansed with a food-grade product, rinsed with distilled water, and dried by air. they were then peeled with a stainless-steel peeler to reduce the loss of flesh and cut into 5 and 3 mm pieces using an automated slicer to ensure uniformity across the samples (kwaw et al., 2023; šovljanski et al., 2024). pre-treatment (blanching vs. unblanching) slices were split in two parts. to blanch slices, they were soaked in water at a temperature of 90°c for 3 minutes before being chilled in ice water for 2 minutes in order to stop the cooking. the samples that were not blanched were processed with no heating treatment (osae et al., 2024). osmotic dehydration process analytical-grade sucrose solutions were made at 40, 40%, 50%, and 60% (w/v) after dissolving the necessary amount of sucrose in the distilled water. slices of sweet potato (both blanched and unblanched with a thickness of 3 mm and 5 mm) were immersed in a solution of sugar at a fruit-to-solution ratio of 1:10. dehydration was conducted in a temperature-controlled water bath at 30°c, 40°c, 50°c, or 60°c for 6 hours, with a peristaltic pump circulating the solution at 500 ml/min (tube bore size: 8.0 mm). the samples were taken at predetermined intervals (30, 60, 120, 180, 240, 300, and 360 minutes) to determine the amount of mass transferred (antonio et al., 2008; pang et al., 2021; rastogi, 2023). total solids determination the quantity of total solids in those sweet potato pieces was measured using gravimetric analysis by drying in a vacuum oven at 70°c for 24 hours according to the procedure explained in the work of aoac (association of the official analytical chemistry). sweet potato slices were then transferred to aluminum dishes pre-weighed to ensure that all dishes’ weights were precisely recorded (tayyab rashid et al., 2020; osae et al., 2024; rindang et al., 2024). the dishes and the slices were then put in a vacuum oven set at 70°c for a drying time lasting 24 hours (balladin & headley, 1999). after drying, the samples were allowed to cool down to room temperature with a desiccator to avoid moisture absorption from the surroundings. the aluminum dishes that held dried samples were weighed to determine the weight (pang et al., 2021). the content of total solids (ts) was calculated by using the following equation (equation 1): total solid (ts),% =(w3-w1)/(w2-w1) (1) where, w1 = weight of aluminum dish, w2 = weight of dish and sample, w3 = weight of dish and the vacuum dried samples determination of mass transfer the mass transfer during the osmotic dehydration process of sweet potato slices was assessed by measuring two key parameters: water loss (wl) and solid gain (sg). water loss (wl) to determine the loss of water during dehydration osmotically of slices of sweet potatoes, we estimated their decrease in weight after dehydration by capturing their mass at the beginning (mi) prior to observing how dehydrated each slice was at various intervals of sampling (30, 60, 120, 180, 240, and 360 mins) by using geninasoto et al.’s (2001) equation that is described below (equation 2): water loss (wl),% =(mi-mo)/mi (2) where, mi is the initial mass of the sweet potato slice, and mo is the mass of the osmotically dehydrated slice at a specific time interval. pa ge 78 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 76-89, 2025 solid gain (sg) solid gain was assessed by measuring the growth in the solids content of the sweet potato slices because of the absorption of sugar in the osmotic solution. the total solids of both the original slices (tsi) and the dehydrated osmotically soaked cut (tso) were determined by gravimetric analysis by using a vacuum oven to dry at 70°c for a period of 24 hours (pang et al., 2021). the gain in solids was calculated by using the following equation (equation 3): solid gain (sg),% =(tso-tsi)/mi (3) where, tso = total solids of the sample after osmotic dehydration, tsi = initial total solids of the sample before dehydration, and mi = initial mass of the sweet potato sample. this part should contain adequate detail to reproduce reported data. it can be divided into subsections to demonstrate data type and collection, and also if several methods are described. methods already published should be indicated by a reference; only relevant modifications should be described. the methodology should be written concisely in detail by maintaining the continuity of the texts. results and discussion this research set out to assess the effects of sugar solution concentration on the dehydration of osmotic fluids by analyzing various parameters, including concentration (40%, 50% or 60%), temperature (30°c, 40°c, 50°c, 60°c), sample preparation method (blanched versus non-blanched), and sample size (3mm thick samples for uniformity during the experiment). key findings and conclusions can all be drawn based on the experiment’s results. osmotic dehydration behavior effect of pretreatment on the dehydration behavior of 3mm thick sweet potato (var. local sada) results indicate that increasing sugar solution concentration between 40% and 60% increases the efficiency of osmotic dehydration significantly due to an increase in pressure gradient caused by an increase in concentration (antonio et al., 2008). dehydration rates at 40% concentration were lower than at 50% and 60% concentration, suggesting a minimum concentration is necessary for effective moisture removal (these results align with established principles of osmosis (table 1); an increase in concentration accelerates water molecules through a semipermeable membrane that surrounds food ingredients) (jain & chauhan, 2022). temperature was an integral component of osmotic hydration (wang et al., 2025). rising from 30°c to 60°c would decrease viscosity in this sugar mixture and thus accelerate mass transfer (lagnika et al., 2021). additionally, rising temperatures boost energy kinetics for water molecules, allowing easier escape from samples. however, extreme temperatures such as 60°c may cause changes to color, texture, nutritional quality, and other aspects. these extreme changes were especially prevalent with blanched samples due to increased thermal changes (wang et al., 2025). blanching, which involves brief exposure to hot water or steam, enhances permeability within a sample’s cell structure, facilitating faster water removal during osmotic dehydration. this was particularly evident at higher sugar concentrations (50% and 60%) and temperatures between 50°c and 60°c. unblanched samples exhibited slower dehydration rates due to their intact cell walls, which presented resistance against diffusion; blanching improved dehydration efficiency but may have led to some loss of soluble solids, as seen previously. interactions among sugar concentration, temperature, and sample type (blanched vs. unblanched) revealed complex dynamics (osae et al., 2024). for instance, while a 60% sugar solution mixed with 60°c resulted in the highest dehydration rates, it might not be optimal in terms of sensory or nutritional attributes of samples; thus, a balance must be found between dehydration efficiency and product quality preservation. furthermore, blanched samples benefitted more from increased temperatures than unblanched ones, emphasizing the necessity of tailoring processing conditions according to specific characteristics of the raw material used (wu et al., 2020; pang et al., 2021). table 1: water loss over time at various temperatures and sugar solution concentrations for 3mm thick sweet potato slices (var. local sada) pa ge 79 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 76-89, 2025 effect of pretreatment on the dehydration behavior of 3mm thick sweet potato (var. kamala sundari) this research studies the dehydration characteristics of sweet potato slices from two varieties, local sada and kamala sundari, under varying conditions of sugar solution concentration (40%, 50%, and 60%), temperature, and pretreatment methods (blanched or unblanched). local sada was tested with 3mm and 5mm slices, while kamala sundari only required 3mm slices for experiments (table 2). our findings indicate that higher sugar concentrations and elevated temperatures significantly accelerate both varieties’ water loss and solid gain. however, varietal differences were evident; kamala sundari showed slower dehydration rates but superior structural integrity than local sada. blanching enhanced dehydration efficiency in both cases, leading to greater softening with local sada. table 2: water loss over time at various temperatures and sugar solution concentrations for 3mm thick sweet potato slices (var. kamala sundari) pa ge 80 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 76-89, 2025 a comparison between these varieties underscores the role that thickness and cellular structure have on dehydration kinetics. thinner slices (3 mm) dehydrated faster for local sada than thicker (5 mm), emphasizing geometry’s role in mass transfer. on the contrary, kamala sundari displayed more controlled dehydration conditions that preserved quality attributes more effectively than local sada; these insights highlight the necessity of customizing dehydration parameters to specific sweet potato varieties to optimize both efficiency and product quality; such tailored approaches can help achieve desired outcomes while mitigating adverse side effects like excessive shrinkage or nutrient loss (rastogi, 2023). effect of sugar solution concentration, temperature, blanching on dehydration behavior of 5mm thick sweet potato (var. local sada) results indicate that increasing sugar solution concentration dramatically accelerates osmotic dehydration. at 40% sugar concentration, dehydration rates were relatively lower than 50% and 60% sugar concentrations (table 3). this can be explained by the higher osmotic pressure gradient created by more concentrated solutions, which drives water out more effectively (de souza silva et al., 2011; silva et al., 2014). at every temperature condition, 60% sugar solutions demonstrated superior dehydration efficiency. these findings confirm the principles of osmosis, where an increased concentration gradient causes water molecules to migrate out from food materials into hypertonic solutions more quickly (omar et al., 2020). reducing sugar intake could have unintended side effects such as excessive shrinkage or structural collapse of sweet potato slices; dehydration effectiveness must be balanced against high-quality products for best results. temperature was an integral component in controlling osmotic hydration; higher temperatures between 30°c and 60°c resulted in greater degrees and rates of dehydration for all levels tested. as temperatures increased from 30°c to 60°c, dehydration efficiency improved across all sugar concentrations tested; at higher temperatures, the viscosity of sugar solutions was reduced, which improved mass transfer rates, while water molecules gained energy through friction, which assisted their migration away from sweet potato slices at elevated temperatures. 60°c was found to have the highest dehydration rates when combined with 50 and 60% sugar solutions. while higher temperatures may increase dehydration efficiency, they must still be used carefully to avoid adverse consequences (jany et al., 2016; potatoes et al., 2023). blanching significantly improved the osmotic dehydration process. blanched samples exhibited higher water loss and solid gain than unblanched ones across all sugar concentrations and temperatures. blanching disrupts the cellular structure, increasing membrane permeability and facilitating faster water diffusion and solute absorption. neutralizing enzymes responsible for browning dehydrated products were particularly successful at neutralizing enzymes responsible for browning at higher sugar concentrations and temperatures (50, 60, and 80%) with temperatures reaching 50°c and 60°c. unblanched samples experienced slower dehydration rates due to table 3: water loss over time at various temperatures and sugar solution concentrations for 5mm thick sweet potato slices (var. local sada) pa ge 81 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 76-89, 2025 wall-like cells offering resistance against water diffusion (rastogi, 2023). however, cell membranes in samples that were not blanched acted as barriers, slowing the dehydration process. a mixture of 60% sugar solution at 60°c and blanched samples resulted in maximum water loss, demonstrating its effectiveness as an efficient dehydration method. unblanched samples treated with 40 % sugar solution at 30°c experienced minimal water loss due to reduced osmotic pressure variation and temperature-driven diffusion. these findings highlight the importance of an efficient strategy for optimizing osmotic dehydration processes that prioritize effectiveness and quality products (rashid et al., 2020). effect of sugar solution concentration, temperature, and blanching on dehydration behavior of 5 mm sweet potato (var. kamala sundari) sada and kamala sundari varieties were investigated for dehydration behavior when subjected to various sugar concentrations (40 %, 50%, 60% and 60 %), temperatures, and pretreatment conditions (blanched and non-blanched). both varieties displayed that higher sugar concentrations and temperatures increased water loss through dehydration by osmosis; however, each variety showed different rates and amounts of dehydration. kamala sundari displayed slower dehydration rates than local sada because of its larger cells, which could aid in resisting the diffusion of moisture more efficiently. blanching aided in dehydration for both kinds, but kamala sundari showed greater structural strength, while local sada was more susceptible to collapse and shrinkage (table 4). comparative analyses of two varieties show how their distinct characteristics affect dehydration. despite similar processing conditions, kamala sundari was better at preventing dehydration while maintaining its unique characteristics than sada from the local farm. kamala sundari varieties with skins that were not blanched showed slower but more even dehydration that preserved the sensory and texture throughout dehydration, highlighting table 4: water loss over time at various temperatures and sugar solution concentrations for 5mm thick sweet potato slices (var. kamala sundari) pa ge 82 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 76-89, 2025 the importance of adjusting dehydration parameters to specific types of sweet potatoes. by tailoring the conditions for the specific variety, it is possible to get optimal results for dehydration without suffering adverse side effects like excessive shrinkage and loss of nutrients, which ultimately enhance sweet potato’s use in food services (corrêa et al., 2017). mass transfer behavior kinetics of solid gain in 3mm thick sweet potato slices (var. local sada) during osmotic dehydration the study aimed to determine the impact of sugar concentration, temperature, and the pre-treatment of the sample (blanched as opposed to. not blanched) on the behavior of mass transfer in 3mm-thick slices of sweet potato (var. local sada) in the course of the dehydration process, which took place over a 4-hour duration (table 5). the study was carried out with 40, 50%, and 60% sugar solutions and temperatures ranging between 40°c and 60°c. the process of osmotic dehydration is intrinsically timedependent. understanding the dynamics of time in the loss of water and gain of solids is essential for determining the optimal treatment parameters (mari et al., 2024). the results show an increase in sugar solution concentration had a significant impact on the mass transfer rate, specifically in terms of loss of water and gain. the water removal rate was quite low with a sugar concentration of 40 in the sample compared to 50 and 60 %. this could be due to the greater osmotic pressure gradient produced from the concentrated solution, which draws water out of sweet potato slices more efficiently. in particular, that solution with 60% sugar showed the highest water loss in all temperatures. however, it is important to remember that higher sugar concentrations led to a higher gain in solids (sugar uptake) through sweet potato slices. this is to be expected because the force for the diffusion of solutes into food items is increased with sugar concentration. while this can improve the sweetness and preservation potential of the food item, the excessive gain in solids could negatively impact sensory qualities like texture and taste (silva et al., 2014). in the initial stages of the osmotic dehydration process (approximately 60-90 minutes), the loss of water and gain in solids occurred rapidly. this can be explained by the pronounced concentration gradient between slices of sweet potato and the supertonic sugar solution that causes water dispersal from the samples and the influx of solutes. when sugar concentrations were higher (50 % and 60 %) and higher temperature (50°c or 60°c) this initial phase was more evident as blanched samples showed greater mass transfer rates compared to the unblanched samples. the temperature played an important role in determining the speed and amount of mass loss during osmotic dehydration. as temperatures increased from 40°c up to 60°c, both water loss and solid gain accelerated in all sugar concentrations. this is explained by two primary reasons: higher temperatures reduce the viscosity of sugar solution, increasing the mass transfer rate. the higher temperatures enhance the energy of the kinetic energy of solute and water molecules, making it easier for them to move through the cell membranes of slices of sweet potato (pang et al., 2021; rastogi, 2023; mari et al., 2024). notably, the highest levels of loss of water and solid gain were seen at temperatures of 60°c, specifically when combined with 50% or 60% sugar solutions. however, exposure for a long time to extreme temperatures can cause undesirable consequences like over-shortening, collapse of the structure, or degrading of heat-sensitive nutrients. so, even though increased temperatures pa ge 83 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 76-89, 2025 improve the efficiency of mass transfer, however, they should be monitored to avoid negative consequences on the quality of the product (mari et al., 2024; aćimović, 2024). the study revealed distinct variations in mass transfer behavior between unblanched and blanched samples. blanching, a pre-treatment involving short exposure to steam or hot water, appears to improve the permeability of sweet potato’s cell structure, permitting faster water removal and more solid gain when dehydration occurs via osmosis. this effect was especially evident when sugar concentrations were higher (50 % and 60 %) and at higher temperatures (50°c or 60°c). the unblanched samples had a lower rate of loss of water and solid gain, possibly because their cell walls were intact, which were more resistant to mass transport. while blanching increased the efficiency of dehydration, it could have caused some loss of soluble solids during the pre-treatment process, as was observed in earlier studies. this is a trade-off between dehydration speed and the retention of nutrients, which should be considered when selecting the pretreatment methods (peng & berry, 2018). the interaction between sugar content and temperature and sample types (blanched instead of unblanched) showed complex dynamics. combining 60% sugar solution and a temperature of 60°c produced the highest % ages of water loss and solid gain. however, this is not ideal for preserving sweet potato slices’ nutritional and sensory qualities. the blanched samples benefited more at higher temperatures than non-blanched ones, highlighting the necessity of tailoring the processing conditions to the unique nature of raw materials. these findings indicate the necessity of a comprehensive approach to maximizing osmotic dehydration processes, considering both the effectiveness and quality of the product (osae et al., 2024). table 5: solid gain dynamics in 3mm thick sweet potato slices (var. local sada) kinetics of solid gain in 3mm sweet potato slices (var. kamala sundari) during osmotic dehydration dehydration characteristics of sweet potato slices from two varieties, sada and kamala sundari, were studied under different sugar concentrations (40%, 50%, and 60%), temperatures, and pre-treatment methods (blanched and unblanched). higher sugar concentrations and temperatures significantly increased both types’ water pa ge 84 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 76-89, 2025 loss and solids gain. there were slight variations between their rates and intensities of dehydration; kamala sundari showed significantly slower dehydration rates due to its cell structure and retention characteristics compared with local sada. blanching increased dehydration efficiency for both types, yet kamala sundari had greater structural integrity, while local sada was more susceptible to swelling and collapse. even though processing conditions were similar, kamala sundari displayed more precise dehydration methods that preserved texture and quality than local sada. kamala sundari samples that had not been blanched showed slower yet more stable dehydration while maintaining taste quality, indicating the need to adjust osmotic dehydration parameters for specific varieties of sweet potatoes (table 6). utilizing optimal conditions based on a variety of characteristics can assist in reaching desired dehydration outcomes without unintended side effects such as excessive shrinkage or loss of nutrients, expanding sweet potato’s food-related applications (rastogi, 2023). table 6: solid gain dynamics in 3mm thick sweet potato slices (var. kamala sundari) kinetics of solid gain in 5mm thick sweet potato slices (var. local sada) during osmotic dehydration results demonstrate that increasing sugar solution concentration significantly alters mass transfer behavior, particularly regarding water loss and solid gain. at 40% sugar concentration there was less water removed compared to 50% and 60% concentrations due to higher osmotic pressure gradients created by more concentrated solutions creating an effective gradient to draw moisture away from sweet potato slices more effectively (table 7). of all temperature conditions studied, 60% sugar solution demonstrated the greatest water loss. however, it should be noted that higher sugar concentrations also led to an increase in solid gain (sugar uptake) by sweet potato slices, expected as solute diffusion increases with sugar concentration. although increasing solid gain may enhance the sweetness and preservation potential of the product, excessive solid accumulation may have adverse impacts on sensory qualities such as texture and flavor (antonio et al., 2008; sarker et al., 2023). temperature was an essential component in determining the rate and extent of mass transfer during osmotic dehydration, with both water loss and solid gain increasing exponentially between 40°c and 60°c for all sugar concentrations. higher temperatures decrease viscosity of sugar solution and improve mass transfer rates, while pa ge 85 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 76-89, 2025 increasing water and solute molecules’ kinetic energies to assist them in passing across sweet potato slices’ cell membranes more freely. at 60°c, the highest water loss and solid gain rates were observed, especially when combined with 50% and 60% sugar solutions. more prolonged exposure to higher temperatures can produce adverse side effects, including excessive shrinkage or structural collapse and degradation of heat-sensitive nutrients. while higher temperatures improve mass transfer efficiency, they must also be managed carefully to avoid adverse consequences on product quality (wu et al., 2020). experiments have revealed significant variations in mass transfer behavior between blanched and unblanched samples. blanching, which involves short exposures to hot water or steam, appears to increase the cell structure permeability of sweet potatoes, leading to faster water removal and higher solid gain during osmotic dehydration. this effect was particularly visible at higher sugar concentrations (50% and 60%) and temperatures between 50°c and 60°c, where unblanched samples showed slower rates of water loss and solid gain due to their intact cell walls’ more excellent resistance to mass transference. blanching may increase dehydration efficiency yet can result in the loss of some soluble solids during pre-treatment, according to previous studies (rashid et al., 2020; wu et al., 2020; kwaw et al., 2023; rastogi, 2023; ahmad & zaidi, 2023). interactions among sugar concentration, temperature, and sample type (blanched vs. unblanched) revealed intricate dynamics. at 60% sugar solution and 60°c, water loss was highest while solid gain was greatest; however, this combination may not be optimal in preserving sensory and nutritional attributes of sweet potato slices. blanched samples showed greater benefit from higher temperatures than unblanched samples, emphasizing the significance of adapting processing conditions according to each material’s specific properties. these interactions underscore the necessity of taking a holistic approach when optimizing osmotic dehydration processes, taking both efficiency and product quality into consideration (lagnika et al., 2021). for applications requiring rapid dehydration and increased sweetness, such as fruit table 7: solid gain dynamics in 5mm thick sweet potato slices (var. kamala sundari) pa ge 86 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 76-89, 2025 preservation or intermediate moisture food production, using a 60% sugar solution at 50°c-60°c with blanched samples would be most efficient. on the other hand, milder conditions (e.g., 40%-50% sugar solution at 40°c-50°c with unblanched samples) may be preferable. kinetics of solid gain in 5mm thick sweet potato slices (var. kamala sundari) during osmotic dehydration dehydration behavior of 5mm sweet potato slices from local sada was evaluated using different sugar solution concentrations (40%, 50% and 60%), temperatures and pre-treatment conditions (blanched vs unblanched). higher sugar concentrations and elevated temperatures significantly accelerated water loss through osmotic dehydration; thicker 5mm slices showed slower dehydration rates due to longer diffusion paths for moisture removal (table 8). blanching improved dehydration efficiency by increasing cell permeability but led to greater softening and structural collapse than unblanched samples which retained better texture even at slower dehydration rates (mari et al., 2024). comparison between blanched and unblanched 5mm slices illustrates the trade-offs between dehydration speed and product quality. blanching may speed mass transfer more rapidly, yet its use compromises the structural integrity of slices that are more easily prone to breakage. unblanched slices showed a more gradual and controlled dehydration process, which better protected their physical properties than that of blanching did as reported by neri et al. (2011). these results highlight the significance of optimizing processing conditions based on slice table 8: solid gain dynamics in 5mm thick sweet potato slices (var. kamala sundari) thickness and pretreatment to strike an equilibrium between efficiency and quality, increasing sweet potato applications such as intermediate moisture foods or fruit preservation while maintaining their desirable sensory attributes (rindang et al., 2024). practical implications and industrial relevance this study’s results have far-reaching ramifications for food processing industries worldwide. by studying the effects of sugar concentration, temperature, slice thickness, and pre-treatment on osmotic dehydration kinetics, our findings provide a solid framework for process optimization in industrial settings. specifically, designed dehydration systems could maximize efficiency while protecting quality sweet potato products. examples of optimal conditions identified (using a 60% pa ge 87 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 76-89, 2025 sugar solution at 50-60°c for blanched 3 mm slices, for instance) can be scaled up using continuous processing systems equipped with temperature-controlled baths and high-efficiency peristaltic pumps; such systems will ensure consistent product quality, reduce energy consumption, and reduce postharvest losses while simultaneously minimizing postharvest losses. additionally, this method could serve as a model for dehydrating other moisture crops while broadening industrial applications. future efforts should focus on conducting small-scale experiments and economic feasibility analyses to test the scalability of optimized conditions; additionally, integrating modern control systems for process management can further increase efficiency while maintaining quality throughout commercial operations. conclusions the study provides a thorough understanding of the osmotic degradation behavior of slices of sweet potato focused on two kinds (local sada as well as kamala sundari) and various parameters like sugar concentration in the solution (40, 50 60, 80%) as well as temperatures and slices’ thickness (3 mm or 5 mm) and the pre-treatment conditions (blanched as opposed to. non-blanched). the results highlight the crucial importance of these variables in determining the effectiveness of dehydration and solid gain as well as the quality of the product. the higher sugar levels and the elevated temperatures generally increased water loss and solid gain in all tests. however, differences between the different species were apparent in kamala sundari, which showed slower but controlled dehydration than local sada, which demonstrated higher removal of moisture but higher vulnerability to the collapse of the structure. slice thickness had a significant impact as thin slices (3 mm) dehydrated faster than those with thicker slices (5mm); however, the latter exhibited better structural integrity throughout processing. blanching has been found to accelerate dehydration through increasing cell permeability, but it also weakened texture, particularly in smaller slices and the local sada type. although less prone to drying, the samples that were not blanched maintained more physical characteristics, making them suitable for use in applications where texture is essential. these findings highlight the importance of adjusting the dehydration parameters, including the sugar content, temperatures, and pre-treatment, to the unique features of sweet potato varieties and the desired characteristics of the product. the study provides valuable insights for the food processing industry by optimizing osmotic dehydration conditions for specific sweet potato varieties, reducing post-harvest losses, and enhancing product quality. these findings also apply to other high-moisture crops, broadening food preservation strategies. future research should explore alternative osmotic agents, integrate advanced drying techniques, and assess the economic feasibility of industrial-scale implementation. this study advances food dehydration science, offering practical guidance for both research and industry applications. references aćimović, m. 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(2020). influence of ultrasonic pretreatments on drying kinetics and quality attributes of sweet potato slices in infrared freeze drying (irfd). lwt, 131(july), 109801. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.lwt.2020.109801 pa ge 1 pa ge 99 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) antibiotic susceptibility pattern of microorganisms found in fura de nono sold in different markets in makurdi benue state ato joy iember1*, ogbonna innocent okonkwo2 volume 3 issue 2, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i2.3738 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: september 02, 2024 accepted: october 10, 2024 published: november 30, 2024 fura de nono, a traditional fermented dairy and millet product popular in nigeria, is widely consumed for its nutritional value. however, its production, often under unsanitary conditions, raises concerns about microbial contamination and public health risks. this study investigates the microbial load in fura de nono samples collected from local markets in makurdi, nigeria, assessing the presence of pathogenic bacteria and fungi. using standard microbiological techniques, including colony counting and biochemical tests, the study identified harmful microorganisms such as escherichia coli, staphylococcus aureus, proteus vulgaris, and salmonella species. antibiotic susceptibility tests revealed resistance in certain isolates, posing additional risks to consumers. the findings underscore the urgent need for improved sanitation practices among vendors, routine microbiological testing, and better regulatory enforcement to ensure food safety. the study concludes with policy recommendations to enhance hygiene practices and establish a certification system for vendors to protect public health. keywords antibiotic resistance, fura de nono, hygienic practices, microbial analysis, microbial contamination 1 department of epidemiology and evidence-based medicine, f. erismann institute of public health, i. m. sechenov first moscow state medical university, moscow, russia 2 department of microbiology, joseph sarwuan tarka university, makurdi, benue state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: atojoyiember@gmail.com introduction milk is a liquid secreted by mammary glands of the female mammals. it serves as an important source of protein than most other foods. milk is not 100 percent source of protein, since it is relatively poor in sulphureted amino acids such as methionine (essential) and cysteine (non essential) as well as tryptophan and histidine. curiously, children need less methionine and cysteine than adult. because of this, cow milk meets the protein requirements of infancy quite well. according to wodnerkos and yitayal (2003), milk is primarily composed of water, protein in colloidal suspension, lactose and lipids in emulsion, inorganic salts in solution, vitamins, enzymes, gases, and other things. along with being a great provider of calcium and phosphorus for healthy bones and teeth, milk also has notable levels of riboflavin, vitamin b1, vitamin b6, vitamin b12, and vitamin a (yirsaw, 2004). milk provides a range of essential nutrients, including carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals, all of which contribute to its high nutritional value. the specific composition of milk varies depending on the species, but cow’s milk typically contains around 3.4% protein, 3.6% fat, and 4.6% lactose, providing about 68 kcal per 100 g (goff & douglas, 2010). the carbohydrate lactose is the primary sugar found in milk, contributing to its sweet flavor and providing a readily digestible energy source. additionally, lactose aids in calcium absorption, promoting bone health (muir et al., 1992). the protein content in milk is composed of two main types: casein and whey. casein accounts for about 80% of the protein in milk and is responsible for its white color and ability to form curds, which is essential in cheese production (goff, 2010). whey proteins, although less abundant, are water-soluble and offer a high biological value due to their complete amino acid profile, making them highly nutritious and easily digestible. milk fat, meanwhile, varies depending on factors such as feed and environmental conditions but is rich in essential fatty acids and provides the characteristic texture and richness to dairy products (goff, 2010). in many african countries, including nigeria, nono—a fermented milk product made from locally sourced cow milk—plays a significant role in local diets. nono is made from non-pasteurized cow milk collected in a container called calabash, and allowed to ferment naturally for 24 hours (uzeh, 2006). it is categorized into two types, with the term “nono” commonly referring to the type known as kindirimu. another notable product, fura da nono, combines this fermented milk with a cereal mix made from millet, creating a nutritious beverage enjoyed for its taste and health benefits. milk if not given the right conditions because of its high-water activity and nutritional content, it serves as a wonderful medium for many different types of microorganisms to grow. (mesfin et al., 2017). if milk is not handled properly, it can become contaminated easily and deteriorate quickly. fura da nono is fermented milk-cereal mix that is highly nutritious on a two in one beverage product. it consists of a cereal fura and nono which is a locally fermented milk with a consistency that is thick but not quite as thick as yoghurt. traditionally fura da nono is usually prepared by mashing millet into powdery form and mixing the powdered millet with hot water in a bowl to make dough, allowing the dough to cool and solidify and finally mixing the mashed millet (fura) with fermented milk (nono) and served to customer (abbas et al., 2020). pa ge 10 0 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 99-106, 2024 fura is a porridge typically made from cereal grain millet (pennisetum glaucum). there are a variety of millets that are specially used for fura production. millets ‘gero’ is one of the commonly used varieties. the preparation process involves powdering millet together with other spices like pepper and ginger, and then shaping the mixture into tiny balls by compressing between the two palms after adding a little amount of hot water. next the dough is then boiled for about 30 minutes in boiling water and and coated with the remaining dried flour (jideani et. al., 2010). the dough ball can be served by mashing them into fermented milk (nono) or water, sugar may be added to taste. this local milk product in nigeria is mainly carried out by nomadic fulani’s from the northern part of the country in villages where the producers are ignorant of the life and safety standard of the product but distribute it at will to consumers (okonkwo, 2011). fulani men milk the cows and thereafter, distribute the milk to the women in the encampment (fulani farm stead) who later process the milk into various product like fura da nono, cheese and fermented milk (nono) etc. (uzeh et al., 2006). the consumer’s expectation of processed milk is that it should have the typical appearance of milk, be free from extraneous matter and should have a clean and slightly sweet taste, with no abnormal odors or taints. apart from the microbial flora of raw milk being of great importance as regards to hygiene and food safety, raw milk should be unadulterated and free of taints contaminants. since nono is produced by illiterate fulani’s in villages with poor knowledge of shelf-life and safety standards, handlers of these products may unknowingly introduce pathogenic microorganisms into the products during milking and also by using unsanitized milking equipment. since the products does not undergo further processing before being sold for consumption, it makes the food a potential source of health risk for consumers. many dairy products, even those made from pasteurized milk have been associated with food borne diseases. in developing countries like nigeria, it has been unusual to find microorganisms in fura da nono drinks. this is because milk is an excellent medium for microbial growth and also because of improper handling in fura da nono production. raw milk and raw milk products can be contaminated with bacteria that can cause serious illness, hospitalization or death. these harmful bacteria include campylobacter jejuni, bacillus cereus, shiga toxin producing e. coli (e.coli o157:h7), coxiella burnetii, listeria monocytogenes, mycobacterium tuberculosis, mycobacterium bovis, mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis, salmonella spp, yersinia enterocolitica, and certain strains of staphylococcus aureus which are capable of producing highly heat-stable toxins brucella, streptococcus pyogenes (anyanwu, 2019; fagbemigun, 2021) once the microbes get into the milk, they multiply rapidly because milk is an excellent medium for their growth (okonkwo, 2011). the presence of coliform bacteria in fura da nono drinks could be due to the presence of dough. this is a source of concern in nigeria because consumers have a strong preference for this traditionally produced and processed milk and millet products. it is therefore suggested that the microbial analysis of fura da nono should be carried out periodically as quality assurance measures. the addition of growth-inhibiting ingredients, adjusting the storage conditions to hinder the growth of microorganisms, and proper sanitation at every stage of handling and processing will help reduce the microbial level of fura da nono contamination (shehu et al., 1990; shehu et al., 2000). relevant agencies like nafdac should put in place an irreducible minimum standard to producers and need to ensure and enforce strict compliance to this minimum standard all for production sectors in nigeria. this research was aimed at evaluating the resistance or susceptibility pattern of microorganisms isolated from fura de nono using standard antibiotics kit. materials and methods sample collection a total of 20 samples of nono and fura were purchased from fulani hawkers using random sampling method from two different locations: north bank and wadata markets within makurdi metropolis. purchase samples were transported to the university microbiology laboratory in sterile corked plastic tubes packed in iced container where analysis was carried out within two hours of collection. microbiological analysis tenfold serial dilution of fura da nono samples were made before being place on the media to count for colonies. inoculation of fura samples was done using spread plate techniques while that of nono was done using the pouring plate techniques. aliquot of 0.1ml of dilutions of 102 and 1010 of each fura samples were pipette aseptically and dropped on a freshly prepared media and surface plated. the following media were used to isolate and count the organisms: nutrient agar (na) (biotech lab. ipswich, uk) for total aerobic and anaerobic microorganism counts, eosine methylene blue agar (emba) (himedia laboratories pot ltd, india) for e. coli, desoxycholate citrate agar (dca) for salmonella and shigella spp, potato dextrose agar for yeasts and mould counts, mcconkey agar for total coliform counts, man-rogosa-sharpe agar (mrs) for lactic acid bacteria count, mannitol salt agar for staphylococcus aureus spp. all culture media were prepared according to manufacturer’s instruction. media were sterilized by autoclaving at 121°c for 15 min except dca which involved only boiling over gauze. using a digital illuminated colony counter (gallen kamp, loughborough, leicestershire, uk), plates containing 30-300 colonies were counted after incubation. the computed results were expressed as colony forming unit (cfu) per ml by multiplying the average number of colonies from the observed triplicates by the reciprocal of the dilution factor. number of organisms = number of colonies * dilution factor/volume of inoculum. pa ge 10 1 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 99-106, 2024 identification of isolates gram staining and microscopic identification: subcultured colonies on nutrient agar were gram stained. a small portion of 24 hours old colony was taken using a sterile wire loop and emulsified in a drop of distilled water on a clean glass slide and fixed by passing the smeared slide rapidly over a flame. the smear was covered with a crystal violet for about 30-60 seconds, rinsed with water and flooded with lugol’s iodine for 30-60 seconds and then rinsed under a running tap, rapidly decolorized with acetone (75% alcohol reagent) for 30 seconds and then rinsed with water and then counter-stained with safranine(red) for 1 minute and rinse under a slow running tap then the slides were air dried. a drop of oil immersion was added to the sliding containing the specimen, it was observed under the microscope using x100 objective lens (cheesbrough, 2003). gram positive appeared purple while gram negative organisms appeared pink. biochemical identification of isolates the biochemical tests for the identification of the isolates were: motility test to determine whether an organism is motile or not. catalase test to determine the ability of an organism to produce catalase enzymes. oxidase test use to identify bacteria that can produce cytochrome c oxidase, an enzyme of the bacteria electron chain. coagulase test to determine the ability of an organism to convert fibrinogen to fibrin in blood plasma. citrate test to determine if an organism is capable of utilizing citrates as its sole source of metabolism with resulting alkalinization of the medium. indole test to detect the ability of an organism to break down tryptophan to pyruvate and indole. urease test to determine the ability of an organism to split urea in the presence of water to release ammonia and carbon(iv) oxide. the ammonia combines with co2 and h2o to form ammonium carbonate which turns the medium alkaline, turning the phenol red indicator from its original orange-yellow color to bright pink. the biochemical test were carried out on isolates according to cowan and steel (1965) and cheesbrough (2004) procedures. identification of fungi isolates fungi isolates were done using the method described by benson, (1990). the fungal isolates underwent additional microscopy using acetone and lactophenol on cotton blue stain placed on a clean grease slide. each isolate was confirmed using microgen identification. the cultural and morphological traits of the isolates, such as hyphae (septation), reproductive structure (sporangia/conidia) in chain or single, type of spore, etc., were observed and served as criteria used for identification. antibiotic susceptibility test the isolated organisms were tested against routinely used commercially available antibiotics. the multi-susceptibility optudisc (manufactured by optun laboratories, nigeria ltd, aba) for gram positive and gram-negative organisms were used. results and discussion table 1 describes the cultural and morphological characteristics of various bacterial isolates. each bacterial species displays distinct features on nutrient agar (na) and macconkey agar (ma). for example, escherichia coli appears flat and creamy with an even edge on na, while table 1: cultural and morphological characteristics of the bacterial isolates na ma suspected organism flat and creamy with an even edge. reddish pink, smooth circular lf colonies escherichia coli creamy smooth raised and very mucoid colonies very mucoid, pink and smooth, lf klebsiella sp creamy flat smooth colonies deep pink dull colonies with rough edges lactobacillus sp light green with fruits smell pale nlf colonies pseudomonas sp golden yellow, smooth mucoid and raised pink smooth lf colonies staphylococcus aureus creamy, shiny with putrefactive odour pale smooth and discrete nlf colonies with irregular edges proteus sp creamy flat smooth pale rough, shiny nlf colonies salmonella sp creamy brown flat and glittering colonies pink flat and dull face lf colonies streptococcus sp flat, creamy small and slightly rough shiny deep pink dull and small colonies staphylococcus epidermidis creamy and swarmy colonies pale, mucoid and smooth nlf colonies proteus vulgaris key: lf= lactose fermenting, nlf= non lactose fermenting, ngo= no growth observed, sp= species pa ge 10 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 99-106, 2024 on ma, it forms reddish-pink smooth circular colonies, indicating lactose fermentation (lf). other organisms like klebsiella sp. and staphylococcus aureus are also lactose fermenters, showing pink smooth colonies. in contrast, pseudomonas sp. and proteus sp. are nonlactose fermenters (nlf), presenting pale, smooth, and discrete colonies on ma. the table effectively highlights the variability in colony morphology across different species, which aids in their identification. microscopic and biochemical test table 2: microscopic and biochemical characteristics of the bacterial isolates gram reaction mot cat coa g cit ind ure oxi suspected organism -ve rods in chains +ve +ve -ve +ve +ve -ve -ve escherichia coli +ve cocci in clusters +ve +ve -ve +ve +ve staphylococcus aureus +ve cocci in clusters +ve +ve -ve +ve -ve staphylococcus epidermidis +ve rods in chains +ve +ve -ve +ve +ve +ve -ve lactobacillus sp -ve rods in clusters and chains -ve +ve +ve +ve +ve +ve -ve proteus sp -ve rods in pairs and short chains -ve +ve -ve +ve -ve +ve -ve klepsiella sp -ve rods appearing singly and scattered -ve +ve +ve +ve +ve -ve -ve salmonella sp -ve rods in clusters and chains -ve +ve +ve +ve +ve +ve +ve proteus sp -ve rods slightly curved -ve +ve +ve +ve +ve -ve +ve pseudomonas sp +ve cocci in chains -ve -ve +ve +ve +ve +ve streptococcus sp key: cit = citrate, ind = indole, urea = urease, oxi = oxidase, cat = catalase, mot = motility, sp species coag = coagulase, -ve = negative, = not done, +ve = positive table 2 details the microscopic and biochemical characteristics of various bacterial isolates, focusing on their gram reactions, motility, and enzyme activities. the gram stain distinguishes bacteria as either grampositive or gram-negative, with the latter staining pink. the motility test identifies bacteria that can move, with different patterns observed. enzymatic tests like the catalase test, which detects the production of the catalase enzyme, show bubbling in positive results. similarly, the coagulase test indicates enzyme production by clumping of the organism. these initial tests provide foundational data for bacterial classification. further biochemical tests like the indole, urease, and oxidase tests offer more precise identification. the indole test detects tryptophan breakdown, with a bright pink layer indicating a positive result. the urease test identifies bacteria that produce urease, turning the medium pink when positive. finally, the oxidase test reveals cytochrome c oxidase activity, with a blue-purple color change within 10 minutes signaling a positive result. these biochemical characteristics are key to distinguishing species and are critical in clinical diagnostics percentage of occurrences of bacteria isolates table 3: percentage of occurrences of bacteria isolates in fura de nono from hawkers in north bank market isolates frequency of bacterial isolates (cfu/ml) percentage occurrence (%) klebsiella sp 10 25.64 proteus vulgaris 12 30.76 staphylococcus epidermidis 2 5.12 e. coli 4 10.25 staphylococcus aureus 2 5.12 lactobacillus sp 7 17.94 pseudomonas sp 2 5.12 total 39 100 x2 = 28.00, df = 16 (p<0.05) the table 3 above from the study presents the percentage of bacterial isolates found in “fura de nono” from hawkers at north bank market. it lists seven types of bacteria, with proteus vulgaris being the most prevalent at 30.76%, followed by klebsiella sp at 25.64% and lactobacillus sp at 17.94%. other bacteria, such as e. coli, staphylococcus pa ge 10 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 99-106, 2024 epidermidis, staphylococcus aureus, and pseudomonas sp, show much lower occurrences, all hovering around 5.12%. the total frequency of bacteria isolates was 39 cfu/ml, and the statistical analysis yielded a chi-square (x²) value of 28.00 with 16 degrees of freedom (p<0.05), indicating a significant distribution of these isolates. table 4: percentage of occurrences of bacteria isolates in fura de nono from hawkers in wadata market isolates frequency of bacterial isolates (cfu/ml) percentage occurrence (%) klebsiella sp 3 7.31 proteus vulgaris 3 7.31 proteus sp 5 12.19 streptococcus 3 7.31 e. coli 8 19.51 salmonella sp 3 7.31 pseudomonas 2 4.87 staphylococcus aureus 4 9.75 staphylococcus epidermidis 3 7.31 lactobacillus sp 4 9.75 total 41 100 x2 = 40.00, df = 16 (p<0.05) the results from table 4 provides data on the percentage occurrences of bacterial isolates in “fura de nono” sold by hawkers at wadata market. a total of 41 cfu/ml of bacterial isolates were recorded, with e. coli being the most prevalent at 19.51%. other bacteria like proteus sp accounted for 12.19%, while staphylococcus aureus and lactobacillus sp each made up 9.75% of the isolates. the remaining bacteria, including klebsiella sp, proteus vulgaris, streptococcus sp, and others, each had lower percentages around 7.31% or less. the chi-square (x²) value of 40.00 with 16 degrees of freedom (p<0.05) suggests significant variation in the distribution of these isolates. result of susceptibility of the bacterial isolates table 5: antibiotic resistance pattern of the bacteria isolated from the fura de nono sample a nt ib io tic s c on c (m cg ) k le bs ie lla s p pr ot eu s vu lg ar is pr ot eu s sp st re pt oc oc us s p e .c ol i s p sa lm on el la s p ps eu do m on as st ap hy lo co cc us au re us st ap h. e pi de rm id is la ct ob ac ill us sp tarivid 10 20 21 24 8 16 25 10 23 25 35 reflacine 10 25 20 16 26 30 5 12 30 28 18 ciproflox 10 17 27 32 35 18 6 25 17 11 10 augmentin 30 17 14 15 19 23 25 16 10 15 14 gentamycin 10 14 21 17 12 13 14 20 15 23 21 streptomycin 30 15 20 14 22 16 10 24 21 30 25 ceрorex 10 13 20 23 10 18 24 23 17 20 12 nalidixic acid 30 15 24 14 20 10 12 11 29 22 15 septrin 30 20 29 21 10 16 13 12 26 15 16 amplicin 30 12 15 11 10 25 16 15 11 17 15 pefloxacin 10 39 29 32 20 35 22 27 28 12 13 gentamycin 10 20 15 18 10 17 30 35 14 12 19 ampliclox 30 15 10 13 16 20 30 25 26 28 11 zinnace 20 21 22 27 10 15 12 35 38 25 27 amoxacilin 30 8 15 12 11 39 21 25 17 35 20 ciproflaxacin 25 37 31 30 25 15 13 39 16 23 24 pa ge 10 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 99-106, 2024 microscopic and biochemical test antibiotic resistance profiles of isolates show that klebisiella sp was highly sensitive to pefloxacin (39 mm), streptomycin (38 mm), ciproflaxacin (37mm) and rocephin (37 mm). it was highly resistant to amoxacilin (8mm). proteus sp were sensitive to streptomycin and resistant to most other antibiotic tested. s. aureus was more sensitive to reflacine (30mm). nalixidic acid (29mm). zinnacef (38mm). rocephin (36mm). the organism was resistant to augmentin (10mm), ampicilin (11mm) streptococcus sp was more sensitive to ciproflox (35mm). reflacin (26mm), ciproflaxacin. (25mm). the organism was resistant to zinnacef (10mm), gentamicin (10mm), ampicillin (10mm), sceptrin (10mm), tarivid (8mm). e. coli was more sensitive to reflacine (30mm), pefloxacin (35mm). amoxicillin (39mm), streptomycin (38mm), sceptrin (30mm). the organism was resistant to nalixidic acid (10mm). salmonella sp was sensitive to gentamicin (30mm), ampiclox (36mm) and was resistant to reflacine (5mm). ciproflox (6mm). pseudomonas was sensitive to gentamycin (35mm), zennacel (35mm). ciprofloxacin (39mm), erythromycin (30mm). the organism was resistant to tarivid (10mm). the result from table 6 outlines the macro and micro streptomycin 10 38 33 15 18 38 25 20 18 15 34 septrin 30 20 12 10 17 30 21 28 18 16 12 erthromycin 10 20 14 12 11 15 17 30 19 17 35 rocephin 25 35 16 20 23 14 27 25 36 13 14 key: cit = citrate, ind = indole, urea = urease, oxi = oxidase, cat = catalase, mot = motility, sp species coag = coagulase, -ve = negative, = not done, +ve = positive table 6: macro and micro characteristics of fungal isolates on potatoes dextrose agar colony characteristics microscopic appearance suspected fungal suspected fungal gray, blackish-brown or black surface with gray periphery, black on reverse colorless, septet with chains of micro conidia alternaria bluish-green with sulphur yellow areas on the surface septate hyphae with chains of radiate conidia on conidiophores aspergillus sp creamy and yellowish colonies which are pasty and glittering round conidia occurring singly and in small clusters with pseudo-hypae candida sp white to dark gray mycelium with profuse cottony growth elliptical spores, colorless and non-septet hyphae with sporangiospores. mucor sp blue to green moldy and velvety appearance with milkywhite on reverse. conidiophores bears sterigma with chains of conidia,parallel in arrangement. penicillium sp white colony growth with black spots on the tip, some gray. non-septet colorless hyphae and mycelium with rhizoid and solon sporangiospores present rhizopus sp rapidly growing, flat, smooth, moist, dull and creamy colonies which are large and circular. unicellular multilateral and ellipsoid blastoconidia saccharomyces’s characteristics of fungal isolates on potato dextrose agar, detailing both colony characteristics and microscopic appearances of various fungi. for instance, alternaria presents with a grayish-black surface, while microscopically showing colorless septate with chains of micro conidia. aspergillus sp is bluish-green with sulfuryellow areas and has septate hyphae with radiate conidia. candida sp displays creamy yellow colonies, while penicillium sp is blue-green with a velvety appearance. the table provides a clear comparison of colony morphology and microscopic traits, aiding in fungal identification based on both visual and microscopic features. table 7: mean bacteria count for fura de nono samples collected from different locations in makurdi cfu/ml sample s aureus lactic acid bacteria salmonella shigella total viable counts coliform counts escherichia coli total fungal count nono 1.00 ± 0.63° 42.40± 9.77° 6.00± 3.84° 7.00± 3.53° 1.40 ± 0.67° 1.80± 0.96° 6.00±1.14° fura 4.20 ± 1.74° 44.20± 29.89° 179.40± 150.42° 224.601± 66.08° 158.80± 72.50° 98.80± 14.77° 6.60±1.88° pa ge 10 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 99-106, 2024 values for a given group in a column followed by same letter as superscript are not significantly different according to duncan’s multiple comparison procedure (at p 0.05). the result from table 7 compares the mean bacterial count of fura de nono samples collected from different locations in makurdi, showing the presence of various bacteria such as s. aureus, lactic acid bacteria, salmonella shigella, coliforms, e. coli, and total fungal counts. the bacterial counts vary significantly across samples. for instance, nono 2 has the highest lactic acid bacteria count (233.80 cfu/ml), while fura 2 exhibits the highest total viable counts (500.00 cfu/ml) and e. coli (455.20 cfu/ ml). these variations highlight the microbial differences based on sample location and type, with some counts exceeding typical safety thresholds, suggesting potential contamination risks. conclusion the microbial analysis of fura de nono samples collected from various locations in makurdi, benue state, nigeria, indicates significant bacterial contamination, posing a public health risk. high levels of bacteria such as escherichia coli, staphylococcus aureus, and proteus vulgaris were found, with certain bacterial counts exceeding safe limits. these findings suggest inadequate hygiene practices during the preparation, storage, and sale of fura de nono by local vendors. the variability in bacterial counts across different samples highlights inconsistent sanitary measures and a lack of proper food safety protocols among vendors. this situation creates the potential for foodborne illnesses and underscores the need for immediate action to safeguard public health. recommendations to address the public health risks posed by contaminated fura de nono in makurdi, several policy measures should be introduced. first, it is essential to improve sanitation practices among vendors. the benue state government, in collaboration with health authorities, should develop and implement food safety training programs targeting fura de nono producers and sellers. these programs should cover proper handling, personal hygiene, and the use of clean, potable water during preparation. additionally, the enforcement of hygiene standards must be strengthened through regular inspections and the application of penalties for non-compliance. second, the introduction of routine microbiological testing is necessary to ensure the safety of dairy products sold in local markets. health authorities should conduct regular, random checks on fura de nono sold by vendors, testing for harmful bacteria such as e. coli and salmonella. these tests will help in identifying contamination early and preventing unsafe products from reaching consumers. public health awareness campaigns should also be launched to inform both vendors and consumers about the risks associated with poor hygiene in dairy production. consumers need to be educated on recognizing safe products and purchasing from reliable vendors, while vendors should be encouraged to adopt best practices to maintain the safety of their products. furthermore, a certification system should be established to regulate fura de nono vendors. only vendors who meet the required food safety and hygiene standards should be granted a license to sell, ensuring that consumers can trust the quality of their purchases. this regulatory framework would not only improve food safety but also promote the economic well-being of certified vendors. finally, cold chain infrastructure must be implemented to maintain the quality and safety of fura de nono throughout its transportation and sale. keeping the product at lower temperatures can significantly reduce bacterial growth, thereby minimizing the risk of contamination. the provision of adequate refrigeration and storage facilities for vendors, especially during transportation, would play a crucial role in ensuring food safety in makurdi and beyond. references abbas, b. y., kalgo, z. m., gulumbe, b. h., danlami, b. m., aliyu, b., obi, c., & salihu, a. a. (2020). microbiological quality assessment of fura da nono production in kebbi state, nigeria. equity journal of science and technology, 7(2), 45–48. ahmed, z. a., & kasim, m. h., & others. (2022). assessment of hygiene practices and bacteriological quality of raw cow milk of selected dairy farm in dessie, ethiopia. american journal of aquaculture and animal science, 1(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.54536/ ajaas.v1i1.1071 buddingh, g. (1995). manual of determinative bacteriology (8th ed.). the williams and wilkins company. the american journal of tropical medicine and hygiene, 24(1995), 550–550. cheesbrough, m. (2006). district laboratory practice in tropical countries: part 2 (2nd ed.). cambridge university press. cowan, s. t., & steel, k. j. (1965). manual for the identification of medical bacteria. cambridge university press. fagbemigun, o., cho, g. s., rösch, n., brinks, e., & others. (2021). isolation and characterization of potential starter cultures from the nigerian fermented milk product nono. microorganisms, 9(3), 640. https:// doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9030640 fuerst, j. a. (2014). microorganisms—a journal and a nono 2 0.80± 0.80° 233.80± 108.86° 1480± 12.02° 288.80± 5.57° 53.40± 29.19° 111.40± 97.35° 7.40±0.74° fura 2 52.40± 26.49° 32.40± 110.18° 316.80± 88.42° 500.00± 0.00° 30.00± 180.41° 455.20± 85.12° 9.20±3.00° **values are mean standard error of mean (n 5) pa ge 10 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 99-106, 2024 unifying concept for the science of microbiology. microorganisms, 2(4), 140–146. https://doi. org/10.3390/microorganisms2040140 khalil, i., & anwar, n. (2016). isolation, identification, and characterization of lactic acid bacteria from milk and yoghurts. research and reviews: journal of food and dairy technology, 4(3), 17–26. reller, l. b., weinstein, m., jorgensen, j. h., & ferraro, m. j. (2009). antimicrobial susceptibility testing: a review of general principles and contemporary practices. clinical infectious diseases, 49(11), 1749–1755. https://doi.org/10.1086/647952 mesfin, z., bedaso, m., & yoseph, m. (2017). hygienic practices and bacteriological quality of raw cow milk along the milk supply chain in sidama highlands of southern ethiopia. in proceedings of the 25th annual conference of the ethiopian society of animal production (esap), haramaya university. anyanwu, n. c. j. s. (2019). microbiological and comparative analysis of indigenous and semiindustrial fermented milk drinks (fura da nono and fura da yoghurt) sold in nigeria’s capital. international journal of bioassays, 8(1), 5716–5723. okonkwo, o. i. (2011). microbiological analyses and safety evaluation of nono: a fermented milk product consumed in most parts of northern nigeria. international journal of dairy science, 6, 181–189. shehu, a., aliyu, m. a., & sani, s. (1990). preservatives and storage techniques for traditional african foods. uzeh, e. r., ohelen, e. r., & rojugbokan, k. a. (2006). microbial and nutritional qualities of dairy products: nono and wara. nature and science, 4(3), 37–40. jideani, v. a., oloruntoba, r. h., & jideani, i. a. (2010). optimization of fura production using response surface methodology. international journal of food properties, 13(2), 272–281. https://doi. org/10.1080/10942910802331496. woldecherkos, a., & yitayal, t. (2003). food hygiene part ii. ethiopia public health training initiative, gonder university. yirsaw, w. (2004). bacteriological quality of bovine milk in smallholder dairy farms in debre zeit, ethiopia (master’s thesis, addis ababa university). pa ge 1 pa ge 30 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) improving tomato juice preservation: the role of ginger, garlic, and lemon extracts ayong mary assumpta fulai1*, ndi betrand bongjo2, ogbene gillian igbum2 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i1.3929 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: october 20, 2024 accepted: november 27, 2024 published: february 28, 2025 tomato juice was successfully produced and treated with 3 different plant extracts and their combinations. the study had 9 samples, sample tj being the control (without preservative), and sample tsb (with sodium benzoate). the remaining samples were treated with 1 % of the extracts and their combinations as follows: tz (1 % ginger), ta (1 % garlic), tc (1 %lemon), tza (1 % ginger+garlic), tzc (1 % ginger+lemon), tac (1 % garlic+lemon) and tzac (1 % ginger+garlic+lemon). the samples were analyzed for phytochemical and antioxidant activity and also subjected to storage studies, during which ph, tta, tss, and microbial counts were evaluated. the total phenolic content ranged from 1.50 to 2.80 mggae / 100 ml, the total flavonoid content ranged from 1.02 to 1.22 mgqe / 100 ml, and the frap values ranged from 1.23 to 4.76 mgaae / 100 ml. for storage studies, ph and tss decreased with storage time while tta and microbial load increased accordingly. however, the microbial load of the samples was within the limits recommended by icmsf. it can be concluded that tomato juice can be conveniently preserved with natural plant extracts which give the juice improved nutrients, antioxidant activity, and a relatively stable shelf life. keywords antioxidant activity, natural plant extracts, preservatives, shelf-life 1 centre for food technology and research, benue state university, makurdi, nigeria 2 department of chemistry, benue state university, makurdi, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: maryayong2@gmail.com introduction preservatives, whether natural or synthetic chemicals are substances added to products such as foods and biological samples to prevent decomposition due to microbial action or undesirable chemical changes (shaikh et al., 2016). they are additives added to food to preserve food and extend shelf life. they are commonly used in various foods to extend shelf life, often through mechanisms such as reducing water availability, increasing acidity, and changing the redox potential. some chemical preservatives, such as sorbate and benzoate, can improve the shelf life of beverages but may have negative effects on consumer health. the current trend leans towards biological preservatives, ginger and lime being examples. ginger is known for its antioxidant and antimicrobial properties, while lime has been used to preserve juices effectively (arawwawala & hewageegana, 2017). lemon is also considered a good biological preservative with antimicrobial effects and can replace chemical preservatives (olaniran et al., 2020). the demand for healthy foods and beverages without chemical additives has led to the increased use of natural preservatives, as they have been shown to be effective in reducing microbial growth (yusuf et al., 2018; el-saadony et al., 2020). therefore, this study was carried out to ascertain the effects of ginger, garlic and lemon extracts on the shelflife extension of tomato juice. materials and methods material acquisition raw materials; tomatoes, ginger, garlic and lemon were purchased from wurukum market, in makurdi benue state, nigeria. preparation of tomato juice this was done using the procedure described by mahmud et al. (2009). after washing / cleaning, the tomatoes were peeled with a stainless-steel knife and sliced. then the blanching was done using hot water at 65 ° c for 5 minutes. the seeded portion of the tomato was removed and the flesh was collected. the flesh was cut into small pieces and crushed in an electric blender to get a fine pulp. sugar and other preservatives were added. homogenization or mixing was done. after homogenization, pasteurization was performed at 75 °c for 3 minutes. production of lemon extract (juice) this was done as described by jacob et al. (2017). fresh and mature lemon fruits were sorted to remove damaged and spoilt ones. they were properly washed with potable water, cut into halves, and the juice was extracted by pressing the fruit pieces in a manually operated juice extractor. the juice was passed through a single layer of muslin cloth to remove solids and pulp materials. preparation of ginger and garlic extracts before use, ginger and garlic were washed under running water, peeled, and diced into cubes separately. the respective diced cubes (100 g) were mixed with 100 ml of distilled water using a grinder (kenwood) for 5 min and allowed to stand for 30 min. the suspensions were filtered, and the filtrates were poured into labeled clean bottles (olaniran et al., 2020) to obtain the extracts. treatment of tomato juice with extracts ginger, garlic, lemon and their various combinations were prepared as in table 1. ginger-garlic, gingerpa ge 31 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 30-36, 2025 lemon, garlic-lemon and ginger-garlic-lemon mixtures were obtained by mixing equal volumes of the different filtrates and homogenized for 60 s (olaniran et al., 2020). this was done to obtain 1 % (v/v). the chemical additive, sodium benzoate (0.05 % w / v), was added aseptically to another 100 ml of tomato juice, with another 100 ml of tomato juice container serving as a control (without preservative). were then incubated for an hour, at room conditions (ordonez et al., 2006). the absorbance was estimated at 430 nm. total flavonoids in the samples were measured as qe (µg/ml), using the quercetin acid standard. determination of antioxidant activity ferric-reducing antioxidant potential (frap) assay method the frap working solution was freshly prepared each time and was made of 0.3 m acetate buffer (ph=3.6), 0.01 m tptz (2, 4, 6-tripyridyl-sthiazine) in 0.04 m hcl and 0.01 m fecl3.6h2o mixed in a 10: 1: 1 (v / v / v) ratio and stored in an amber bottle. then 2 ml of the frap working solution was mixed with 75 μl of the sample (filtrate) and the absorbance read 593 nm after 20 min of incubation at 37 ° c against the blank (acetate buffer). the frap content was expressed as mg of quercetin equivalents used as a standard solution (50-600 μm) (škerget et al., 2022). microbiological analyses total bacteria and total fungi count was determined. the samples were analyzed at 2-week intervals for 4 weeks. a milliliter (1.0 ml) of each juice sample was transferred to a 10 ml sterile normal saline, separately. the mixtures were vigorously shaken and then 0.1 ml of each mixture was inoculated on a nutrient agar plate (na) and sabouraud dextrose agar (sda) plate for bacteria and fungi, respectively, using the spread plate method described with slight modifications (deedam et al., 2020a). the inoculated na plates were incubated at 37°c for 24 hours while the inoculated sda plates were incubated at ambient temperature for 5 days. after incubation, colonies counted in the na and sda plates were used to calculate the bacterial and fungal population, respectively, with the aid of equation 5. population (cfu⁄ml)=(number of colonies counted×10 ml)/(0.1 ml×1 ml) (2) results and discussions phytochemical and antioxidant properties of juice samples the phytochemical and antioxidant properties of the juice samples are presented in table 2. the total phenolic content of the juice samples reported is lower than those reported by ndife et al. (2022a). this could be due to the difference in the raw material used as well as the processing method. other studies have reported a similar situation for ginger-free tomato paste preserved with ginger (olaniran et al., 2013). reports have shown that high phenolic content results in high antioxidant activity. they are one of the main groups of nonnutritive dietary components that have been associated with the inhibition of cancer, atherosclerosis, and the amelioration of agerelated degenerative brain disorder (aderinola, 2018). the total flavonoid content in the juice samples produced ranged from 1.03 mgqe/100 ml to 1.22 mgqe/100 ml. these are lower than results reported by ndife et table 1: percentage of sample composition sample code juice treatment tj pure tomato juice tsb 0.05 % sodium benzoate tz 1 % ginger extract ta 1 % garlic extract tc 1 % lemon juice extract tza 1 % (ginger+garlic) tzc 1 % (ginger+lemon) tac 1 % (garlic+lemon) tzac 1 % (ginger+garlic+lemon) evaluation of physicochemical properties hydrogen potential (ph) 10 ml of each sample was dispensed into a sterile beaker, diluted with 10 ml of distilled water, and thoroughly mixed. samples were allowed to equilibrate and ph readings in triplicate were recorded (hannah model) (yakum et al., 2024). titratable acidity total titratable acidity (tta) was performed as described by aoac, (2015). two milliliters of the juice sample were diluted with 50 ml of distilled water. 4 drops of phenolphthalein were added to the mixture as an indicator and titrated against 0.1 m naoh. the titratable acidity was calculated using the equation. tta=(vnaoh× mnaoh× 64.04)/vs (1) where mnaoh = the molecularity of naoh used, vnaoh = the volume (in ml) of naoh used, 64.04 = the equivalent volume of citric acid. total soluble solutes total soluble solutes (tss) were determined using the refractometry method with a refractometer (abbe dra1, atogo, tokyo, japan) as described by el-sayed et al. (2018). phytochemical composition and antioxidant activity total phenolic compounds (tpc) total phenolic compounds (tpc) were evaluated in juice samples as gae/ml, following the folin-ciocalteu method (škerget et al., 2022), total flavonoids an aliquot of 3 ml of 10 g/l of alcl3 ethanoic solution was added to 0.5 ml of each juice sample, the mixtures pa ge 32 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 30-36, 2025 al. (2022a). flavonoids, like phenols, are also known to possess strong antioxidant activity and their impact on aroma release with the overall result of making the juice acceptable. the frap values in this study indicate that all values were significantly different (p<0.05) from each other, with most treatment samples having significantly higher values than the control. this could be due to the effect of the preservative or additive added. however, the results in this study are lower than those reported by several authors (aderinola, 2018; ndife et al., 2022; olaniran et al., 2013). table 2: phytochemical and antioxidant properties of juice samples sample total phenols (mggae/100 ml) total flavonoids (mgqe/100 ml) frap (mgaae/100 ml) tj (no additive) 2.66f±0.01 1.10b±0.00 1.41b±0.02 tsb (0.05 % sodium benzoate) 2.76fg±0.00 1.13c±0.01 1.68c±0.09 tz (1 % ginger) 2.28e±0.02 1.14c±0.01 2.20d±0.10 ta (1 % garlic) 2.06d±0.00 1.03a±0.01 1.25a±0.01 tc (1 % lemon) 1.97d±0.00 1.02a±0.00 2.15d±0.06 tza (1 % ginger+garlic) 1.51a±0.00 1.22e±0.00 4.75g±0.07 tzc (1 % ginger+lemon) 1.83c±0.00 1.20d±0.00 4.76g±0.05 tac (1 % garlic+lemon) 1.70b±0.00 1.11b±0.01 4.61f±0.01 tzac (1 % ginger+garlic+lemon) 2.81g±0.00 1.21de±0.00 4.50e±0.00 values are mean ± standard deviation of the determination in triplicate. means in the same column with the same superscript are not significantly different (p>0.05) table 3: ph of juice samples during storage sample week 0 week 1 week 2 week 3 week 4 % decrease tj (no additive) 5.8c±0.1 5.7f±0.1 5.4g±0.0 4.5c±0.2 4.0a±0.0 45.0 tsb (0.05 % sodium benzoate) 5.6b±0.1 5.5d±0.1 5.1de±0.0 4.9e±0.0 4.5b±0.1 24.4 tz (1 % ginger) 5.7bc±0.0 5.4c±0.0 4.8c±0.6 4.8de±0.1 4.8c±0.0 18.8 ta (1 % garlic) 5.8c±0.1 5.7e±0.1 5.1e±0.1 4.7d±0.1 4.6b±0.0 26.1 tc (1 % lemon) 5.7bc±0.1 5.8ef±0.0 5.0d±0.1 4.9e±0.0 4.5b±0.1 26.7 tza (1 % ginger+garlic) 4.9a±0.1 4.4a±0.1 4.3a±0.1 4.2b±0.6 4.0a±0.1 22.5 tzc (1 % ginger+lemon) 6.2d±0.2 6.0g±0.0 5.9h±0.1 5.4g±0.1 5.4e±0.0 14.8 tac (1 % garlic+lemon) 4.9a±0.1 4.8b±0.1 4.4b±0.1 4.1a±0.2 4.1a±0.1 19.5 tzaci (1 % ginger+garlic+lemon) 5.8bc±0.0 5.7ef±0.1 5.2f±0.1 5.2f±0.0 4.9d±0.1 18.4 values are mean ± standard deviation of the determination in triplicate. the means in the same row with the same superscript are not significantly different (p>0.05) table 4: total titratable acidity (%) of juice samples during storage sample week 0 week 1 week 2 week 3 week 4 % increase tj (no additive) 0.28e±0.00 0.28f±0.00 0.28d±0.02 0.31d±0.00 0.43i±0.00 54.27 tsb (0.05 % sodium benzoate) 0.34g±0.01 0.36i±0.00 0.37g±0.00 0.41g±0.00 0.42h±0.00 22.55 tz (1 % ginger) 0.26d±0.00 0.27e±0.00 0.30e±0.00 0.31d±0.00 0.31e±0.00 17.31 ta (1 % garlic) 0.23c±0.01 0.23d±0.00 0.25c±0.00 0.26c±0.00 0.27d±0.00 21.42 tc (1 % lemon) 0.19a±0.00 0.21c±0.00 0.24b±0.00 0.23a±0.00 0.25b±0.00 29.79 tza (1 % ginger+garlic) 0.34g±0.01 0.35h±0.00 0.36g±0.00 0.37f±0.00 0.38g±0.00 12.12 tzc (1 % ginger+lemon) 0.31f±0.00 0.32g±0.00 0.32f±0.00 0.34e±0.01 0.35f±0.00 13.49 tac (1 % garlic+lemon) 0.20b±0.00 0.20a±0.00 0.24bc±0.00 0.25b±0.00 0.26c±0.00 28.55 tzaci (1 % ginger+ garlic+ lemon) 0.19a±0.00 0.20b±0.00 0.22a±0.01 0.23a±0.01 0.22a±0.00 17.17 values are mean ± standard deviation of the determination in triplicate. means in the same column with the same superscript are not significantly different (p>0.05) pa ge 33 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 30-36, 2025 as noticed, garlic extract-treated juice samples tended to have lower antioxidant potential (ta, tza and tac samples). this agrees with studies by ndife et al. (2022a). the variation in values could be attributed to the constituents of bioactive compounds in the raw materials. the antioxidant properties of the samples are in agreement with the report by (wern et al., 2017) on the redox potential of juices, as well as from reports by (bhati & raghuvanshi, 2021; vichaibun & kanchanaphu, 2019). the reduction power indicates the potential of juices to serve as systemic protectants against oxidation and damage by free radicals in cells. storage studies in juice samples ph of the juice during storage table 3 shows the change in ph during storage of tomato juice. a maximum decrease (45.0 %) in ph was observed in the juice sample that had no added preservative (sample tj) compared to the test samples with natural preservatives. the samples with natural preservatives were observed to have a relatively steady decrease, unlike the control samples tj and tsb. this decrease in ph could be due to the biochemical degradation of sugars by colonizing microorganisms that results in the production of acids (sharmin et al., 2019). this ph decrease has also table 5: total soluble solutes (obrix) of juice samples during storage sample week 0 week 1 week 2 week 3 week 4 % decrease tj (no additive) 9.25e±0.25 9.00g±0.00 8.90g±0.00 8.70g±0.00 8.05e±0.15 12.96 tsb (0.05 % sodium benzoate) 9.00d±0.00 8.80f±0.00 8.65f±0.05 8.58f±0.01 8.44h±0.01 6.28 tz (1 % ginger) 9.00d±0.00 9.00g±0.00 8.70f±0.00 8.67g±0.01 8.62i±0.00 4.22 ta (1 % garlic) 8.00a±0.00 8.05c±0.05 7.90c±0.00 7.88b±0.01 7.50a±0.00 6.25 tc (1 % lemon) 8.55b±0.05 8.50e±0.00 8.35e±0.05 8.00d±0.00 8.00d±0.00 6.43 tza (1 %ginger+garlic) 8.00a±0.00 8.00b±0.00 7.80b±0.00 7.65a±0.05 7.69c±0.00 3.88 tzc (1 %ginger+lemon) 9.00d±0.00 9.00g±0.00 8.70f±0.00 8.45e±0.05 8.10f±0.00 10.00 tac (1 %garlic+lemon) 8.00a±0.00 7.85a±0.01 7.70a±0.00 7.66a±0.01 7.60b±0.00 5.00 tzaci (1 ginger+ garlic+ lemon) 8.60c±0.10 8.25d±0.25 8.14d±0.24 7.96c±0.37 8.20g±0.09 4.69 values are mean ± standard deviation of the determination in triplicate. means in the same column with the same superscript are not significantly different (p>0.05) table 6: total bacteria counts (cfu / ml) of juice samples during storage sample week 0 week 2 week 4 tj (no additive) nil 70×103 25×105 tsb (0.05 % sodium benzoate) nil 12×103 61×104 tz (1 % ginger) nil 12×103 11×103 ta (1 % garlic) nil 11×103 32×103 tc (1 % lemon) nil 14×103 27×103 tza (1 % ginger+garlic) nil 10×103 19×103 tzc (1 % ginger+lemon) nil 12×103 20×103 tac (1 % garlic+lemon) nil 15×103 28×103 tzaci (1 % ginger+garlic+lemon) nil 8×103 12×103 table 7: total fungal counts (cfu / ml) of juice samples during storage sample week 0 week 2 week 4 tj (no additive) 50×103 50×103 20×106 tsb (0.05 % sodium benzoate) nil 12×103 60×103 tz (1 % ginger) nil nil 24×103 ta (1 % garlic) nil 13×102 30×103 tc (1 % lemon) nil 18×102 17×103 tza (1 %ginger+garlic) nil nil 28×102 tzc (1 %ginger+lemon) nil 10×103 32×103 tac (1 %garlic+lemon) nil 11×103 17×103 tzaci (1 %ginger+garlic+lemon) nil nil 14×103 nil-no observable growth pa ge 34 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 30-36, 2025 been known to affect the sensory properties of fruit juice and blends (adubofuor et al., 2010). ph is known to affect or support the growth of most microbes within the range of 6.6-7.5 and common bacteria grow well over a range of ph of 6 to 9 (atlas, 1994). as a result, the relatively lower ph of the samples with natural preservatives would effectively delay the growth of most microorganisms (olalekan et al., 2017). total titratable acidity (tta) of juice samples during storage as observed in table 4, the samples with natural preservatives were relatively resistant to increase in tta. this increase in tta could be due to the biochemical degradation of sugars by colonizing microorganisms resulting in the production of acids (sharmin et al., 2019). a similar result was gotten by (alam et al., 2013) indicating that the acidity in fruit juices increases during processing and storage. similar results have been reported (olaniran et al., 2020; olaniran et al., 2020; olaniran et al., 2013). total soluble solutes of juice during storage table 5 presents the results for the total soluble solutes. in general, most samples experienced a decrease in tss during the 4-week period, suggesting a gradual decrease in the concentration of soluble solids in tomato juice. a significant reduction in tss is known to be influenced by various factors, such as the specific preservatives used, their concentrations, and the storage conditions of the tomato juice. as seen, a maximum decrease (12.96 %) in tss was observed in the juice sample that did not contain preservatives (sample tj). the samples with natural preservatives had a significantly lower percentage decrease with respect to sample tj. the samples with natural preservatives were relatively resistant to tss decrease and were not significantly different from the sample with the chemical preservative (sample tsb). this decrease in tss could be due to the biochemical degradation of sugars by colonizing microorganisms resulting in the production of acids, ethyl alcohol, carbon dioxide and water (sharmin et al., 2019; ullah et al., 2015). similar results have been reported showing a decrease in tss values with storage time (olaniran et al., 2020; sharmin et al., 2019; ullah et al., 2015). however, da silva et al., (2016) got results which contradict this study in that they recorded an increase in tss values when they produced a ready-to-serve blend of carrot and kinnow drink with ginger extract. microbial qualities of juice samples during storage total count of bacteria from juice samples as observed in table 6, juice samples treated with natural preservatives showed remarkably lower bacteria counts than sample tsb (with sodium benzoate as a chemical preservative). similar results have been reported (ekanem & ekanem, 2019; el-hanafy, 2014; okokon & okokon, 2019). sharmin et al. (2019) got bacteria counts in the order of 104 for tomato juice treated with chemical preservatives. the combination of the natural preservatives of ginger, garlic, and lemon as a preservative in this research was quite effective during storage as microbial growth was greatly inhibited. this could be the result of a synergistic effect of ginger, garlic, and lemon. several studies have been advanced to support this (adekalu et al., 2009; ekanem & ekanem, 2019; mshelia et al., 2018; olaniran et al., 2020). it has been noted that the major challenge in the spoilage of fresh juice is to ensure a stable ph, natural microflora and chemical composition of fruit juice (ndife et al., 2022). the results of this study are within acceptable limits (<105) for fruit juice as all the treated juice samples had bacteria counts in the order of 103 to 104 recommended by the international commission on microbiological specifications for foods (icmsf) (ameh et al., 2015). total fungal counts of the juice samples a study by sharmin et al. (2019) reported fungal counts in the order of 103 to 104 for tomato juice treated with chemical preservatives. the results as in table 7 agree with several studies in which ginger, garlic, and lemon have been used in the preservation of fruit juices (ameh et al., 2015; el-hanafy, 2014; ogori et al., 2021; olaniran et al., 2013). conclusion the treated juice samples had significantly higher antioxidant activity compared to the control samples tj and tsb, meaning that the juice produced can serve as a functional food. the treated juice samples exhibited greater storage stability than the control sample tj and tsb (with sodium benzoate as chemical preservative). this was noticed with the relatively stable storage parameters of ph, tta, and tss under ambient conditions. at the end of week 4, the treated juice samples had significantly lower microbial counts than the control samples tj and tsb. the results of this study demonstrate that ginger, garlic, and lemon extracts have remarkable potential as natural preservatives for tomato juice. the observed effectiveness of these extracts in preserving the juice surpasses that of the conventional synthetic preservative, sodium benzoate. this suggests a promising alternative to food preservation methods, especially for those seeking natural and sustainable options. further research into the mechanisms underlying the preservative properties of these natural extracts and their potential applications in other food products is warranted. embracing such natural alternatives could lead to safer and more environmentally friendly food preservation practices in the future. references adekalu, a. o., olatunde, i. g., echendu, b. m., adepoju, t. c., & fajemisin, o. o. 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(2018). chemical composition, phytochemical and mineral profile of garlic (allium sativum). journal of bioscience and biotechnology discovery, 3(5), 105–109. https://doi. org/10.31248/jbbd2018.073 pa ge 1 pa ge 36 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) complementary foods formulated from orange-flesh sweet potato, soybean, and date palm flour blends improves the proximate, rheological and sensory properties of children’s formulas peter abuengmoh1*, dick iorwuese gernah2, dinnah ahure3, kelly ndombow yakum1 volume 3 issue 2, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i2.3032 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: june 24, 2024 accepted: july 26, 2024 published: july 30, 2024 this study evaluated the proximate, rheological and sensory properties of complementary foods produced from orange flesh sweet potato, soybean and date palm flour blends. complementary foods were produced from orange flesh sweet potato (ofsp), soybean and date palm flour blends. the samples were formulated by material balancing with all samples having 16% protein/ 100g. the samples were coded as con, cfa, cfb, cfc, cfd and cfe with sample con being the control. the samples were subjected to rheological and sensory analysis using standard method. their proximate composition were; moisture (2.517.38%), ash (2.27-3.02%), fibre (2.11-4.22%), fat (9.13-10.11%), protein (15.12-16.11%), and carbohydrate (63.06-65.01%). rheological properties of the gruels were as follows; consistency index (m) (90.57-186.21 nsn/m2), flow behaviour index (n) (0.256-0.411), coefficient of regression (r2) (0.9765-0.9928) and standard error (0.318-0.405). the sensory attributes gave the following results; appearance (7.778.07), aroma (7.20-8.63), taste (6.808.23), mouth feel (6.878.27), and overall acceptability (6.808.33) and these results when interpreted on appoint hedonic scale. higher scores generally indicated better sensory attributes and overall acceptability of the food formulation which was observed in sample cfb and con. there were significant differences between most of the bread samples at (p< 0.05). keywords ofsp, soybean, dates, complementary foods 1 department of chemistry, faculty of science, benue state university, center for food technology and research, makurdi, nigeria 2 department of food science and technology federal university of agriculture, makurdi, benue state, nigeria 3 department of food science and technology, university of mkar, benue state nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: abuengmohpeter@gmail.com introduction any nutritious solid, semisolid, or liquid food that babies eat in addition to breast milk or formula is considered complementary food (cf) (okoronkwo et al., 2023). when breast milk, which is traditionally the best and safest option for infants, is unable to meet the growing child’s nutritional and energy needs, these foods are often offered between four and six months of age (amagloh et al., 2012). when a baby is breastfed, the world health organization (who) defines “complementary feeding practice” as the introduction of solid foods other than breast milk. thin porridges or gruels are the most common preparations for complementary foods. supplemental feeding may help babies get all the nutrients they need when breast milk is not enough. according to alemayehu et al. (2014), most infants require supplementary foods beyond breast milk to ensure adequate energy and nutrition for healthy growth, and this process starts at 6 months when the baby starts to move from exclusively breastfeeding to semi-solid foods. it continues until the baby is 24 months old. the only way to do this is to make sure the babies eat these meals in the right amounts and in a clean environment. the most important thing is to make sure that a child’s dietary needs are met regardless of what they eat, absorb, and use. infant malnutrition is mostly caused by a lack of skill in using the available basic ingredients, rather than the nation’s economic state. among the world’s most significant, adaptable, and underappreciated food crops is the sweet potato, scientifically known as ipomoea batatas l. (olatunde et al., 2020). subterranean sweet potatoes are rich in soluble carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins; their flesh may be any shade from white to cream to yellow to purple to orange. the roots of sweet potatoes are a great source of nutrients and provide a wide range of sensory attributes due to their varied flavors, textures, and colors. although sweet potatoes are rich in energy and other micronutrients like vitamin a, vitamin c, potassium, iron, and zinc, they are low in protein and fat. to make up for this, you can add legumes like soy beans to your sweet potato recipe to increase the protein content. products made from soybeans (glycine max l.) are a great alternative to meat and dairy because they provide a variety of vitamins and minerals, as well as a “complete” protein profile that includes almost all of the necessary amino acids (with the exception of methionine). a growing number of people in sub-saharan africa are turning to soybean flour for its purported high protein, fat, and nutritional content (mmari et al., 2017). the food product’s flavor and texture are just as important as its nutritional value and must be considered in meeting the needs of the target consumers. for these reasons, date palm fruit is an essential ingredient for sweeteners and nutritional enhancement of the acceptability of the food. date palm fruit (phoenix dactylifera l.) is a good source of pa ge 37 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 36-43, 2024 sugar (around 70–80 % sugar content), depending on the species and maturity stage of the fruits and it is made of glucose, fructose, and sucrose which are easily absorbed by the body to provide energy (abdul et al., 2022). date fruit contains a considerable amount of moisture (12– 14), crude fiber (4.5–5.0), protein (2.0–2.5), fat (1.8–2.4), and ash (1.7–1.9) which is essential for children’s growth and developments (abdul et al., 2022). dates is also rich in antioxidants and phenolic compounds and also contain antimicrobial properties (abdul et al., 2022). this will help to improve the storage stability of the complimentary food formulations. statement of the problem protein energy malnutrition (pem) pem is a major nutritional problem especially in children and pregnant mothers in sub-saharan africa. pem is commonly caused by deficiency of protein in quantity and quality. micronutrient deficiencies (mnd) mnd is caused by insufficient supply of vitamins and minerals needed for growth, development and to maintain optimal health. mnd can cause several serious health issues such as; lack of iron, vitamin a, b12 and folic acid can lead to anemia causing fatigue, weakness , shortage of breath and dizziness. underutilization of good protein sources from crops the growing global urge to switch from an animalbased protein diet to a vegetarian-based protein diet has accelerated the demand for the utilization of crops with high quality protein in the food industry. under-utilized crops like soybeans can offer significant potential for food security, nutritional requirements. post-harvest losses of locally available crops locally accessible ingredients such as orange-flesh sweet potatoes are highly perishable, despite the fact that they are highly available and nutritionally rich hence converting them to flour and using to formulate complementary foods reduces post-harvest losses (eucharia et al.,2024). aim the study aims to evaluate the quality of complementary foods produced from orange flesh sweet potato, soybean and date fruit flour blends specific objectives i to determine the proximate composition complementary food formulations, ii. to determine rheological properties (viscosity versus shear rate at 40oc) of gruels prepared from complementary food formulations iii. to determine the sensory attributes of gruels prepares from complementary food formulations methodology the research used a combination of quantitative approach to determine the proximate composition (aoac 2015) of food formulations and a qualitative approach to evaluate the rheological and sensory properties of gruels prepared from complementary food formulations. procurement of materials sweet potato was obtained from the national roots and crops research institute (nrcri), umudike. soybeans, and dates palm fruits were obtained from the wurukum market, makurdi. nestle cerelac was obtained from a local supermarket in makurdi. procured materials were taken to the cefter food processing laboratory, benue state university for processing. equipment standard equipment from the cefter food processing laboratory was used for the processing of the products. this equipment included but not limited to knives, bows, trays, driers, blender, mixer, oven, sieves (0.5 mm), measuring cylinder and weighing scale. standard analytical equipment from the chemistry laboratory were used for lab analysis. preparation of raw materials standard processing procedures and chemicals were used in the preparation of the flours and complementary food formulations. sweet potato flour mature orange-flesh sweet potato tubers (ipomoea batatas), were cleaned and trimmed manually using knives. they were washed, peeled and sliced using a manual food slicer into smaller sizes of approximately 10 mm thickness to facilitate the drying process. the sliced sweet potatoes were blanched for 5 mins at 70oc and dried in an air circulating oven (gallenkamp s/no 90/02/190, uk) at 60oc for 48 h according to the method of (marcel et al., 2021) with slight modification. the dried samples were milled to pass a 0.5 mm sieve for flour blends (truong et al., 2018). soybean flour before being soaked for 24 hours, the soybean seeds were separated from large impurities like stone, sticks and rinsed. after the beans were soaked, they were strained through a sieve to remove any excess water. to make decortication easier and to inactivate the enzyme activity, the beans were cooked for 30 minutes. robbing between palms was used to dehull the soybeans, and then potable water was used to drain off the skins. afterwards, it was roasted for 30 minutes at 120°c after being oven dried for 48 hours in a hot-air oven. a laboratory mill (laboratory blender of type km 901d; kenwood electronic, hertfordshire, uk) was used to grind the roasted beans into flour. a 0.5 mm mesh sieve was used to filter the flour (olatunde et al., 2020). pa ge 38 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 36-43, 2024 date palm flour the date flour was prepared by sorting the date palm nuts to remove all foreign particles and washed. it was followed by de-seeding through manually cutting the nut using a knife and removing the seed. the inside was cleaned and size reduction of the nut was done in order to ensure efficient drying and milling processes. the pulp with the pericarp was then oven dried at 60°c for 72 h (ahaotu et al., 2021). the dried pulp was milled into fine flour using a laboratory blender. the flour was then sieved through a 0.5 mm mesh sieve (british standard) to obtain fine homogeneous particle size flour and packaged. food product and diet formulation table 1 displays the various amounts of orange-fleshed sweet potato flour, soybean flour, and date palm fruit flour that were combined to create different types of complementary food formulations. these flours were created from varying levels and percentages of flour replacement. based on the protein content, these ratios were determined to provide 16 g of protein per 100 g of food, in accordance with the recommendations made by the world food programme (2018) and the united nations children’s fund (2016) for baby meals. based on the treatment combinations, five samples were produced using material balancing: cfa, cfb, cfc, cfd, and cfe. the diets were kept in 500 ml plastic containers with airtight lids and packed in low density dark-colored polyethylene bags. they were kept at room temperature with nestle cerelac used as the control. preparation of porridges five composite flours (cfa, cfb, cfc, cfd & cfe) from different blends of orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, soybeans and date palm fruit (table 1) and control sample (nestle cerelac) were used to prepare porridges by mixing 50 g of flour in 150 ml of water and boiled for 10 m with continuous stirring until the porridge is cooked (marcel et al., 2021). table 1: sample formulation of complimentary food samples orange-fleshed sweet potato (%) soybean flour (%) date (%) boiled/oven-dried sun-dried/toasted con / / / / cfa 57.5 42.5 / / cfb 48 42 / 10 cfc 48 21 21 10 cfd 58 / 42 / cfe 47.5 / 41.5 10 key con nestle cerelac cfa boiled and oven-dried soy flour/orange fleshed sweet potato cfb date palm, boiled and oven-dried soy flour/orange fleshed sweet potato cfc date palm, boiled and oven-dried/sun-dried and toasted soy flour/orange fleshed sweet potato cfd non-sweetened sun-dried and toasted soy flour/orange fleshed sweet potato cfe sweetened sun-dried and toasted soy flour/orange fleshed sweet potato analysis proximate composition of complementary food samples using the analytical technique outlined in aoac (2012) publication, the complementary foods were measured for moisture, protein, fat, ash, and crude fiber. the sum of the percentages of fat, moisture, ash, crude fiber, and protein content was subtracted from 100 to get the total carbohydrate. determination rheological properties (viscosity versus shear rate) at 40oc gruels prepared from the complementary food samples were subjected to rheological studies by measurement of their viscosity using a viscometer. this was done at different share rates (5, 10, 20, 50 & 100 rpm) using spindle 4 at 40℃ as described in the method used by (okoronkwo et al., 2023) with slight modifications. the relationship between viscosity and share rates at 40℃ of gruels samples obtained from the complementary food formulations were investigated using power law model described by (ndombow et al., 2024). pa ge 39 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 36-43, 2024 sensory evaluation of porridges from formulated complementary flour blends a panel of twenty (20) nursing mothers or caregivers from cefter, benue state university, makurdi who attended to children between 6 months and 2 years old were deployed to evaluate the coded gruels based on several sensory qualities. according to (abuengmoh et al., 2022), the panelists were given a 9-point hedonic scale to rate the samples based on their appearance, aroma, mouth feel, taste, and overall acceptability. a score of 1 indicates a strong dislike, 2 indicates a dislike, 3 indicates a moderate dislike, 4 indicates a slight dislike, 5 indicates neither a like nor a dislike, 6 indicates a slight like, 7 indicates a moderate like, 8 = a very much like, and 9 indicates an extreme like. statistical analysis the experiments were repeated three times and the findings were analyzed using one way anova. the multiple ranges duncan’s test (p < 0.05) using the statistical software of statistical package for the social sciences (spss), version 28, was used to distinguish the groups. when applicable, we computed and reported means and standard deviations; we evaluated differences at the 95% significance level (yakum et al., 2024). the rheological properties (relationship between viscosity and share rates) of gruel samples obtained from the complementary food formulations were analyzed using the power law model and results presented in table 3 (ndombow et al., 2024). results and discussion proximate composition of bread samples from wheat, banana and mango flour blends the proximate compositions of samples were as shown in table 2 table 1: sample formulation of complimentary food samples moisture (%) ash (%) fiber (%) fat (%) protein (%) cho (%) con 2.51d±0.23 3.02a±0.36 4.22a±0.54 10.11a±0.31 15.12b±0.21 65.01a±0.04 cfa 7.38a±0.21 2.27b±0.13 2.11c±0.24 9.18c±0.25 16.00a±0.28 63.06b±0.67 cfb 6.84b±0.63 2.30b±0.16 2.35b±0.12 9.32b±0.16 16.03a±0.03 63.16b±0.01 cfc 6.64b±0.41 2.32b±0.21 2.37b±0.31 9.35b±0.32 16.11a±0.26 63.21b±0.53 cfd 7.04ab±0.15 2.31b±0.11 2.16c±0.43 9.13c±0.53 16.03a±0.18 63.33b±0.27 cfe 6.37c±0.17 2.32b±0.09 2.38b±0.23 9.27b±0.13 16.05a±0.29 63.61b±0.18 values are means ± standard deviation of triplicate determinations. mean scores within the columns with the same letters are not significantly different (p>0.05). key: con, cfa, cfb, cfc, cfd, cfe same as in table 1 moisture content of complementary food formulations by material balancing moisture content ranged from 2.51% in sample con (nestle cerelac) to 7.38% sample cfa. there was significant (p < 0.05) reduction in moisture content from the samples without dates to the samples with date palm pulp flour. there was a more significant (p < 0.05) reduction in moisture content from all the other samples to sample con. the addition of date palm pulp flour, led to a decrease in moisture content. this can be because of the ingredients in the food formulations and the way it was processed, specifically with regard to the soy bean flour. this conclusion is consistent with what was found in the study by bello et al. (2020). the research found that the flour samples had a decreased moisture content, which means that the microbe activity would be lowered as well, extending the shelf life of the flour (bello et al., 2020). the fao/who has advised a safe limit of less than 10% moisture for the complementary food formulations, since greater moisture levels might impact the food’s storage quality. ash content of complementary food formulations by material balancing the ash content of the complementary food formulations ranged from 2.27% in sample cfa to 3.02% in sample con (nestle cerelac). the ash content increased insignificantly with addition of date palm pulp flour. this could be as a result of increased minerals in date palm pulp flour. ash content is considered very essential as it gives a measure of the mineral elements that can be obtained from the food sample (ashum kumea, 2018). there was a significant (p< 0.05) increase in ash content from all the other samples to sample con. the presence of milk in nestle cerelac accounts for the high ash content observed in that sample. crude fiber content of complementary food formulations by material balancing the crude fiber content of the complementary food formulations ranged from 2.11% in sample cfa to 4.22% in sample con (nestle cerelac). the crude fiber content increased insignificantly with addition of date palm pulp flour. the increase in crude fiber content observed from the addition of date palm pulp flour is a reflection of it being rich in roughage. crude fiber content is considered very essential as it gives a measure of the bulk in the food sample (ashum kumea, 2018). there was a significant (p < 0.05) increase in crude fiber content from all the other samples to sample con. the presence of maize in nestle cerelac accounts for the high crude fiber content observed in that sample. pa ge 40 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 36-43, 2024 fat content of complementary food formulations by material balancing the fat content ranged from 9.13 % in sample cfd to 10.11% in sample con. the fat content increased significantly (p < 0.05) with addition of date palm pulp flour. the increase in fat content observed from the addition of date palm pulp flour is a reflection of it being rich in fatty acids. fat content is considered very important in food products as it gives a measure of the energy value of that food. it also influences oxidative rancidity of flours hence must be highly considered in food processing (ashum kumea, 2018). there was a significant (p < 0.05) increase in fat content from all the other samples to sample con. the increased fat level detected in nestle cerelac is due to the milk powder that is in the sample. in general, the samples have a low fat content, which might be useful for storing flour samples. bello et al. (2020) have made a similar finding. due to the prevention of oxidative rancidity, these authors found that products with low quantities of fat had an extended shelf life. crude protein content of complementary food formulations by material balancing the crude protein content ranged from 15.12 % in sample con to 16.11% in sample cfc. the crude protein content increased insignificantly (p < 0.05) with addition of date palm pulp flour. the high amino acid content of date palm pulp flour explains why its addition raises the crude protein concentration. consistent with previous research, this data suggests that the biochemical activities of germinating seeds during malting are responsible for the higher protein content of the meal formulations (bello et al., 2020). from all the other samples to sample con, the crude protein level decreased significantly (p < 0.05). crude protein content is considered very important in food formulations because they make up the building blocks of the body hence playing a vital role in growth and repairs of damaged tissues. carbohydrate content of complementary food formulations by material balancing the carbohydrate content of the complementary food formulations ranged from 63.06% in sample cfa to 65.01% in sample con (nestle cerelac). the carbohydrate content increased insignificantly with addition of date palm pulp flour. this could be as a result of increased sugar in date palm pulp flour. carbohydrate content is considered very essential as it gives a measure of the mineral elements that can be obtained from the food sample (ashum kumea, 2018). there was a significant (p< 0.05) increase in carbohydrate content from all the other samples to sample con. the presence of starch in maize and added sugar in nestle cerelac which are the building blocks of carbohydrates could account for the high carbohydrate content observed in that sample. these measurements provided an understanding of the proximate composition of the different complementary food formulations. by comparing the moisture, ash, fiber, fat, protein, and carbohydrate content of each sample, we can assess their nutritional characteristics and make informed dietary evaluations. table 3: rheological properties (viscosity versus shear rate) at 40o c power law parameters con cfa samples cfb cfc cfd cfe intercept 5.227 4.568 4.506 4.508 4.562 4.519 m(nsn/m2) 186.213 96.337 90.571 90.748 95.762 91.763 slope -0.589 -0.733 -0.730 -0.738 -0.732 -0.744 n 0.411 0.267 0.270 0.262 0.267 0.256 r2 0.993 0.989 0.986 0.984 0.990 0.977 s.e 0.318 0.397 0.396 0.401 0.396 0.405 key: m: consistency index, n: flow behavior index, r2: coefficient of regression s.e: standard error, con, cfa, cfb, cfc, cfd, cfe same as in table 1 rheological properties (viscosity versus shear rate) at 40℃ of gruel samples using the power law model the relationship between viscosity and share rates at 40℃ of gruel samples obtained from the complementary food formulations were investigated using power law model and results presented in table 3. consistency index (m) of complementary food formulations at 40℃, consistency index (m) of the various complementary food formulations ranged between 90.57 nsn/m2 in sample cfb made of boiled and oven-dried soy flour/orange-fleshed sweet potato to 186.21 nsn/m2 in sample con. the samples with date palm pulp flour had a significantly (p<0.05) low consistency index from the samples that had only soy bean flour and orange-fleshed sweet potato flour. there was an increase in the consistency index for complementary food formulations without date palm pulp flour. this implies that the introduction of date palm pulp flour to the complementary food formulations decreased the consistency index of the food formulation. sample con had a significant (p<0.05) difference from the other samples and had a high consistency index. the consistency index values were related to the viscosity. pa ge 41 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 36-43, 2024 flow behavior index (n) of complementary food formulations at 40℃, flow behavior index (n) were all n<1. the flow behavior index (n) of the various complementary food formulations ranged between 0.256 in sample cfe to 0.411 in sample con. there was no significant (p<0.05) difference in flow behavior index (n) amongst the complementary food formulations except sample con. sample con had a significant (p<0.05) difference from all the other samples and had a high flow behavior index (n). this is surely due to the fact that it is composed of maize which gelatinised to make it very thick hence significantly increasing the flow behavior index of that sample. for all the samples, flow behavior index (n) is less than 1 (n < 1), inferring that it is a pseudoplastic fluid. pseudoplastic fluids are those fluids whose behavior are time independent and have a lower viscosity at higher shear rates and produce less resistance. the flow behavior index provided information about the effect of shear rate on the fluid. this is similar to the work done by (perrechil et al., 2010) on commercial italian salad dressings. coefficient of regression (r2) of complementary food formulations coefficient of regression (r2) determines the proportion of variance in the dependent variable that can be explained by the independent variable. at 40℃, the coefficient of regression (r2) of the various complementary food formulations ranged from 0.9765 in sample cfe to 0.9928 in sample con (nestle cerelac). there was no significant (p<0.05) difference in the coefficient of regression amongst the complementary food formulations. they were all approximately 1. this implies that the coefficient of regression in this model predicts almost a 100 % relationship between the dependent and independent variables. for this study, coefficient of regression ranges from 0.9765 for sample cfe to 0.9928 for commercial nestle cerelac, which means that the model predicted 97% of the relationship between viscosity and shear rates for sample cfe while for commercial nestle cerelac, it predicted 99% of relationship between viscosity and shear rates standard error (s.e) of complementary food formulations at 40℃, the standard error of the various complementary food formulations ranged from 0.318 in sample con to 0.405 in sample cfe. there was no significant (p<0.05) difference in standard error amongst the complementary food formulations except sample con made of nestle cerelac. sample con had a significant (p<0.05) difference from all the other samples and had a low standard error. the consistency index values were related to the viscosity and the flow behavior index provided information about the effect of shear rate on the fluid (perrechil et al., 2010). for instance, when the gruel is forced out through pipes, it flows out smoothly from the pipe due to the low viscosity at high flow rate. however, after it is poured out, it does not flow and its increased viscosity allows it to be rigid. this information is important to consider in the food industry when transferring fluid foods through pipes or the choice of the size of pipe to use for packaging. table 4: sensory evaluation of complementary food formulations samples appearance aroma taste mouth feel overall acceptability con 8.07a±0.83 8.63a±0.61 8.20a±0.61 8.20a±0.61 8.33a±0.61 cfa 7.77d±1.07 6.77c±0.94 6.87d±1.01 6.87d±0.86 6.80d±1.03 cfb 7.93b±1.07 7.93b±0.74 8.23a±0.94 8.27a±0.87 8.27a±0.83 cfc 7.83c±0.91 7.80c±0.76 7.90b±0.85 7.67b±0.66 7.53b±0.78 cfd 7.73d±0.98 7.50d±1.01 7.47c±0.73 7.23c±0.68 7.03c±0.76 cfe 7.80c±1.20 7.20e±1.10 6.80d±0.89 6.87d±0.86 6.73d±0.91 values are means ± standard deviation of triplicate determinations. mean scores within the columns with the same letters are not significantly different (p>0.05). key: con, cfa, cfb, cfc, cfd, cfe same as in table 1 sensory evaluation of complementary food formulations the sensory scores of the gruels prepared from both the control and formulated samples showed significant (p<0.05) differences in appearance, aroma, taste, mouth feel and overall acceptability. appearance scores of complementary food formulations the appearance scores of the complementary food formulations ranged between 7.77 in sample cfa to 8.07 in sample con. the samples with date palm pulp flour had a chocolate brown appearance and was preferred by many panelists hence showed a significant (p<0.05) difference from the samples that had only soy bean flour and orangefleshed sweet potato flour. sample con (nestle cerelac) had a cream white appearance and was the most preferred by sensory panelists. there was a significant (p<0.05) difference between sample con and all the other samples. aroma scores of complementary food formulations the aroma of the various complementary food formulations ranged between 7.20 in sample cfe to 8.63 in sample con. the samples with date palm pulp pa ge 42 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 36-43, 2024 flour had a significant (p<0.05) difference in aroma from the samples that had only soy bean flour and orangefleshed sweet potato flour. this was with the exception of sample cfe that recorded the lowest score in aroma. this implies that the introduction of date palm pulp flour to the complementary food formulations brought in some flavor components that enhanced the aroma of the food formulation. the increase in aroma is of great significance, as it is reported to increase the acceptability of the food formulation to infants. in a similar work carried out by (bello et al., 2020). in general, consumers tend to dislike the smell of soy beans, according to bello et al., (2020). therefore, it is possible that the inclusion of ofsp and date contributes to the higher scent scores of the food formulation types. because ofsp and dates have stronger and more appetizing flavors, they might have made the food formulation types more palatable by masking the smell of iron-rich soy beans. this confirms the results of an ethiopian study on composite porridge (adoko et al., 2021) that included sweet potato, soybean, and moringa. taste scores of complementary food formulations the taste scores of the complementary food formulations ranged between 6.80 in sample cfe to 8.23 in sample cfb. there was no significant (p<0.05) difference between sample con and sample cfb but these samples were significant (p<0.05) different from the other samples. the samples with date palm pulp flour also had an insignificant enhanced taste score from the samples that had only soy bean flour and orange-fleshed sweet potato flour. thus the higher scores for the taste of the complementary food formulations compared to the control could be attributed to the relatively high sugar content due to inclusion of ofsp, date (adoko et al., 2021) and the associated chemical processes following their production. the result which shows a significantly higher score in terms of overall acceptability for the complementary food formulations is in agreement with the outcome of investigations conducted by (adoko et al., 2021) which showed high overall acceptability of complementary processed food formulated using ofsp and common beans. this indeed provides additional evidence illustrating the contribution of ofsp to the positive sensory attributes of nutritionally enhanced products observed in the current study. mouth feels scores of complementary food formulations when it comes to determining whether or not designed meals are acceptable, tongue feel is a key metric. the supplemental meal formulations had mouth feel values ranging from 6.87 in the cfa/cfe sample to 8.27 in the cfb sample. these samples were significantly different from the others, although there was no significant difference (p<0.05) between sample con and sample cfb. the greater levels of fiber in ofsp and date flour may explain why sample cfb had a better mouth feel than nestle cerelac (sample con) (kotue et al., 2021). a study found that dietary fiber made food items feel softer in the mouth, which led researchers to draw this conclusion. overall acceptability scores of complementary food formulations in the cfa sample, the average score for overall acceptability was 6.80, whereas in the con group, it was 8.33. the panelists’ overall assessment of the complementing meals was conveyed in this way. it was shown that the supplementary meals’ overall acceptance was most affected by their appearance, aroma, taste, and mouth feel. with an average score of 8.33, the panelists found the control sample to be the most palatable, followed closely by the cfb sample, which consisted of date paste, boiling sweet potato, and oven-dried soy flour. although sample con and sample cfb were not significantly different from one other (p<0.05), there was a significant difference between the two samples. in comparison to the samples that included just soy bean flour and orange-fleshed sweet potato flour, the ones that contained date palm pulp flour showed a significant (p<0.05) difference. it may be inferred that the addition of date palm pulp flour to the supplementary food recipes enhanced their sweetness and flavor. because it is said to make babies more receptive, the sweetness boost is quite important. the sensory aspects of supplementary food formulations, which are strongly tied to newborn and early child food preferences, are more important than their energy density, according to a paper by bello et al. (2020). this proved that while developing and assessing the quality features of homemade supplemental food formulations, sensory assessment deserves sufficient consideration. sensory attributes depend largely on the nature of various ingredients used in the formulation, the blending ratios and the processing methods applied (okoye et al., 2021) conclusion acceptable complimentary food can be produced from sweet potatoes, soybean flour and date fruit using an optimum level of 48% ofsp, 42 % boiled and ovendried soy flour and 10% date flour (sample cfb). the formulated samples improved the proximate properties of complementary foods and thus improved the overall nutritional profile of food. there was no significant difference between most of the formulation samples at (p<0.05) except for the control sample. this was because all the experimental food samples were formulated to 16g protein per 100g of complementary food samples. the flow behavior index (n) of the gruels exhibits n<1 indicating pseudoplastic behavior, a characteristic of non newtonian fluids. this information is important to consider in the food industry when transferring fluid foods through pipes or the choice of the size of pipe to use in the process. the gruel samples were generally accepted by the panelists with sample containing 48% ofsp, 42 % boiled and ovendried soy flour and 10% date flour (cfb) being the most pa ge 43 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 36-43, 2024 preferred.the processing techniques, blending ratios, and constituent types utilized in the formulation significantly impact the sensory difference. references abdul, z., wen, k., atan, h., mat, k., khalid, h. m., dini, n., anis, s., sukri, m., che, h., seong, l., hakim, m., mohd, b., hanafiah, a., mijanur, m., khairul, m., abdul, a., wee, w., shahman, n., ahmad, n., & dawood, m. a. o. (2022). palm date meal as a nontraditional ingredient for feeding aquatic animals : a review. aquaculture reports, 25(june), 101233. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.aqrep.2022.101233 abuengmoh, p., ahure, d., & igoli, n. n. (2022). proximate, vitamin, and mineral composition of bread produced from wheat, banana, and mango flour blends. journal name, 7(3), 92–99. adoko, m. c., olum, s., elolu, s., ongeng, d., cayrol, m., olum, s., elolu, s., & ongeng, d. (2021). addition of orange-fleshed sweet potato and iron-rich beans improves sensory , nutritional and physical properties but reduces microbial shelf life of cassava-based pancake ( kabalagala ) designed for children 2-5 years old addition of orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. journal of culinary science & technology, 00(20), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/15428052.2021.1911899 ahaotu, i., eze, o., & maduka, n. (2021). quality assessment of corn-breadfruit-date flour and sensory evaluation of chin-chin prepared using the composite flours. advances in biotechnology & microbiology, 16(3). https://doi.org/10.19080/aibm.2021.16.555940 alemayehu eleni, k. a. & t. a. (2014). complementary food product development from sorghum enriched with chickpea and orange-fleshed sweet potato : the case of dawuro zone , south western ethiopia complementary food product development from sorghum enriched with chickpea and orangefleshed sweet potatoes. jimma university college of agriculture and veterinary medicine journal, 7(2), 1–119. amagloh, francis kweku, j. c. (2012). sweet potato-based complementary food for infants in ghana. international journal of food sciences and nutrition, 33(1), 3–10. ashum esther kumea, s. d. & c. n.-a. (2018). orange fleshed sweet potato; its use in complementary foods. university of cape coast journal, 1(434), 1–179. bello, a. a., gernah, d. i., ariahu, c. c., & ikya, j. k. (2020). physico-chemical and sensory properties of complementary foods from blends of malted and non-malted sorghum , soybean and moringa oleifera seed flours. american journal of food science and technology, 8(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.12691/ ajfst-8-1-1 eucharia chisom nnoli, ugochukwu jones ibeneme, godspower oke omokaro, itohanosa omolara osarhiemen, paul obokparo ewubare, sarah onosteike aliyu, ndubuisi louis james. (2024). food waste and loss management causes, effects and possible solutions from a nigeria context. american journal of food science and technology (ajfst), 3(1), ssn: 2834-0086. kotue, t. c., jayamurthy, p., nisha, p., pieme, a. c., kansci, g., & fokou, e. (2021). proximate analysis and minerals of black bean seeds (phaseolus vulgaris l.) used to manage sickle cell disease in west region of cameroon. asian food journal, july 2018, 1–8. https:// doi.org/10.9734/afsj/2018/40521 marcel r. mary, j. s. c. & c. e. o. (2021). nutritional evaluation of complementary porridge formulated from orange fleshed sweet potato , amaranth grain , pumpkin seed , and soybean flours. food science & nutrition, researchgate., 00(january 2022), 1–18. https:// doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.2675 mmari mercy wilfred, john. n. kinyuru, j. o. and h. l. (2017). nutrient composition and consumer acceptability of soybeansweet potato based complementary food fortified with longhorn grasshopper (ruspolia differens). jomo kenyatta university of agriculture and technology journal, 2(3), 322–3902. ndombow, k., chukuma, c., ariahu, e. c., & obaji, j. (2024). sensory and rheological properties of fortified coconut milk based chocolate drink as influenced by cocoa powder and sugar levels. asian journal of food research and nutrition, 3(1), 164–176. okoronkwo, n. c., okoyeuzu, c. f., eze, c. r., mbaeyinwaoha, i. e., & agbata, c. p. (2023). quality evaluation of complementary food produced by solid-state fermentation of fonio, soybean and orange-fleshed sweet potato blends. fermentation mdpi journal, 9(10.3390), 250–270. okoye, j. i., egbujie, a. e., & ene, g. i. (2021). evaluation of complementary foods produced from sorghum, soybean and irish potato composite flours. science world journal, 16(3), 206–211. olatunde r. o., oyewole s. j., abioye o. d., b. v. . and a. g. . (2020). quality evaluation of sweet potato-based complementary food. agrosearch international journal, 20(1), 94–105. perrechil, f. de a., santana, r. de c., fasolin, l. h., da silva, c. a. s., & da cunha, r. l. (2010). avaliação reológica e estrutural de molhos de salada comerciais do tipo italiano. ciencia e tecnologia de alimentos, 30(2), 477–482. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0101-20612010000200027 truong, v. d., avula, r. y., pecota, k. v, yencho, g. c., & lam, i. l. (2018). sweetpotato production , processing , and nutritional quality: vol. ii. wfp. (2018). nutritional guidance for complementary food. world food programme cereal, super publication, 68/70(february), 1–4. yakum, k. n., ariahu, c. c., ariahu, e. c., & igoli, j. o. (2024). physicochemical properties of fortified coconut milk based chocolate like drinks as influenced by cocoa powder and sugar levels. american journal of food science and technology, 3(1), 19– 29. https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i1.2573 pa ge 1 pa ge 90 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) integration of data science and block chain to secure food safety in bangladesh prasenjit sarker1*, chironjit sarker2, khadija huq3 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i1.4787 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: march 20, 2025 accepted: april 22, 2025 published: may 15, 2025 accessibility to safe food & nutrition is sin-qua-non for physical & mental health. ironically, securing safe food & nutrition has been going concern around the world. world health organization (who) states that 1.6 million people worldwide become ill every day from contaminated food caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites. in bangladesh, this issue is very severe to light upon instantaneously. most of the food stuffs manufactured and processed in bangladesh are unsafe for consumption or adulterated to varying degrees. excessive use of formalin & ddt in food along with toxic colour in food and unhygienic food handling are the significant reasons of cancer specially breast cancer, liver cancer, & pancreatic cancer along with adverse effects on reproductive issue & child mortality. besides, factories for counterfeit products including chocolates, milk, oils , cosmetics of branded companies have been found in all most every district of country. the purpose of our study is to understand the current scenario of food contamination at every level of supply chain as well as to explore how data science & block chain can be coined together to ensure food safety for consumers. like the densely population, different confrontations for examples sluggish law enforcement, ignorance, social security, lower economic pattern have to be solaced down to develop proper frame work to secure food safety in bangladesh. keywords ignorance, law enforcement, safe food, social security, unhygienic 1 janata bank plc, bangladesh 2 department of accounting, university of dhaka, bangladesh 3 foreign teacher, the camfirst school, cambodia * corresponding author’s e-mail: prasenjitsarker48@gmail.com introduction securing food safety is very hard nut to crack down especially in densely populated country like bangladesh. though good food is prerequisite for good health, stakeholders involved in every level of food supply chain are not concerned enough to secure food safety rather they commit themselves into different dimensions of food contamination as proper law enforcement along with market monitoring, ethics and morality are absent in this regard. the excessive contamination of food jeopardizes health issue at severe stage causing cancer, kidney disease, and skin disease etc. no steps come to fruition unless the state considers this issue as concerned factor. our study endeavors to explore the root causes behind food adulteration, pitfalls of state management, syndicate business etc. moreover, integration of data science & block chain technology may bring this problem to fruition. research objectives this research endeavors to explore a) the current scenario of food contamination as well as counterfeit products of bangladesh b) how data science & block chain can be combined together to secure food safety & ensure authentic consumable goods. scope of the study this study delves into finding out the process & developing data base management that will help to extract current scenario of food contamination at every level of supply chain in the agro-based products largely sold out in an open space called bazaar in bangladesh. it can connect administration, ministry, law enforcement department & other assigned departments under a same umbrella. additionally, this study may also help out to correlate other sub continental markets like india, sri lanka or other countries facing same kinds of challenges & desiring solution to secure food safety. literature review food has been contaminated at every level of supply chain (noman, 2013). our study fills the gap of that study by developing central data base module that the records of every participants of the supply chain will be centrally stored that may lead to strong law enforcement as data is always available. different challenges faced by entrepreneurs specially at supply chain management to initiate a start –up (sarker, 2020). in our study, a central data base will be proposed. this data base will be connected & conducted by government administration and every player of the supply chain will be under surveillance that will definitely reduce the risks of supply chain especially for entrepreneurs. a comprehensive model including real time keeping system, different types of qr models etc can contribute food supply chain management using block chain (asha et al., 2020). our study will propose a model that will very adaptive for bangladeshi market. different challenges including budgetary constrain to develop block chain & data science technology include data mining challenges as growing surge of data around the world (chen et al.,2019).our study proposes how pa ge 91 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 90-98, 2025 budget for centrally developed data base management along with data science & block chain can be coined with national budget. several measures for example radio frequency identification (rfid), tamper proof protected system, shared data etc can play vital role to adopt block chain technology in live stock farming (patel et al., 2023). our study will propose adaptive measures to all levels of supply chain management in agricultural sector. iot (internet of things) refers a network of physical objects that are connected to the internet & can exchange data with other devices & system (ping et al., 2018). in our study, we endeavor to explore how iot will help us to work on developing proper supply chain management with private ledger with controlled network. the convergence of data science & block chain explores several benefits of data science & block chain while coined together like security & privacy, credibility & transparency, data sharing, protection of data sovereignty ( peng & liu, 2020). in our study will extract how convergence of data science & block chain contributes record keeping system of distributed ledger to secure food safety at every level of supply chain management. block chain technology can contribute agro-food supply chain (shahid et al., 2020).our study endeavors to find out how integration of data science & block chain will create private distributed ledger for the commercial private factories to prevent counterfeit products on large scale. several opportunities & challenges of block chain technology should have been explored on large scale (zheng et al., 2018).our study will find out different challenges to implement block chain technology in the context of agricultural based food supply chain of bangladesh. there is insufficiency of tags’ description of safe food in bangladesh (shehen, 2024). our study will explore encryption method in which data base incurs all information about food supply chain participants. materials and methods to examine the research objectives, this study includes both qualitative & quantitative measures. research design qualitative measures in data collection process, qualitative data have been collected & analyzed from different sources for examples various journals, books, business magazines , internet etc. quantitative measures in this study, quantitative measures have been conducted using several statistical tools for examplemean, media, mood, and regression & correlation analysis along with some computational tools including ms office, spss etc. besides, several interviews of assigned persons have been conducted at field levels of the administrations. to explore the current scenario of food contamination of bangladesh, several hypotheses testing have been done to understand what factors actually instigate the all level of suppliers to commit food contamination. to test those hypotheses, 330 respondents have been met to give their insights on the interval scale weighted 1 for very negative response & 5 for very positive scale. moreover, z-test along with 95 percent confidence level have been done. h0: amoral mentality does not instigates food contamination h1: amoral mentality instigates food contamination dependant variable food contamination independent variable amoral mentality h0: weak law enforcement does not encourage level of corruption of food suppliers h1: weak law enforcement encourages corrupted food suppliers dependant variable corruption of food suppliers independent variable law enforcement h0: assigned authorities does not lack proper technological knowledge to secure food safety h1: assigned authorities lack proper technological knowledge to secure food safety dependant variable proper technological knowledge independent variable food security h0: agricultural sector does not fail to attract educated entrepreneurs to secure food safety h1: agricultural sector fails to attract educated entrepreneurs dependant variable food safety independent variable educated entrepreneurs table 1: hypotheses testing framework statement scale/ question distribution table confidence level test type sample size amoral mentality does not instigate food contamination likert scale z-test distribution table 95 percent one -tailed 330 pa ge 92 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 90-98, 2025 sample size determination for large population: n= z2.p.(1-p)/e2 (95% confidence level ,5% margin of error& p is 0.5) n=1.962.0.5.05/0.052 =384.16 people needed. in our survey, 55 persons have not responded. consequently, 330 respondents are considered to be sample size result and discussion the current scenario of food contamination as well as counterfeit products of bangladesh accessibility to good food is becoming very hard nut to crack down in bangladesh. since bangladesh is a very densely populated country, to secure food safety is very challenging as there is no environmental plan, proper law enforcement, poor literacy etc. about more than 3500-4000 tones of solid wastes per day from industrial discharge, fossil fuels , sewage sludge and municipality waste have been generated in dhaka city. consequently, these heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium, chromium, weak law enforcement does not encourages corrupted food suppliers likert scale z-test distribution table 95 percent one -tailed 330 assigned authorities does not lack proper technological knowledge to secure food safety likert scale z-test distribution table 95 percent one -tailed 330 agricultural sector does not fail to attract educated entrepreneurs likert scale z-test distribution table 95 percent one -tailed 330 statement strongly disagree (1) disagree (2) uncertain (3) agree (4) strongly agree (5) sample mean standard deviation amoral mentality does not instigate food contamination 187 98 2 27 16 1.74 1.12 weak law enforcement does not encourages corrupted food suppliers 249 55 1 15 10 1.43 .94 assigned authorities does not lack proper technological knowledge to secure food safety 173 86 16 41 14 1.9 1.35 agricultural sector does not fail to attract educated entrepreneurs 193 79 8 27 23 1.81 1.53 table 2: hypothesis testing formula sample mean (x̄) standard deviation upper limit lower limit ∑xi/n √(xx̄)2/n-1 µ+z(standard deviation/√n) µ-z(standard deviation/√n) table 3: contaminants ill-purpose formalin preservation of fish, meat, milk calcium carbide fruit to ripen brick dust chili powder urea to whiten rice & puff rice saw dust loose tea melamine milk powder soap ghee artificial sweetener, coal tear & textile dyes sweetmeat sulfuric acid milk condensation ddt to dry fish ethylene oxide to ripen bananas, papaya and other fruits pa ge 93 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 90-98, 2025 copper, lead, mercury etc are absorbed by vegetables through soil and cause serious health diseases like cancers, kidney failure etc. according to public health laboratory of dhaka city corporation, proportionate contaminated food items ranges from 70 to 90 percent. more than 76 percent food items in the market have been found adulterated. moreover, according to the international centre for diarrhea disease & research , bangladesh, 50 percent of the food samples ( over 150 items of random – test) were found adulterated. in agricultural sector, textile dyes are spread on fish ( a very vital source of protein), vegetables, fruits etc. approximately, 30 million people experience at least one form of food borne disease each year in bangladesh (al banna et al.,2021) , nevertheless, the food safety system & the regulatory framework in the country are still in their fancy (world university) to explore the current scenario more transparently, we have conducted hypothesis test with the raw data collected from different respondents involved in different levels of food supply chain. h0: amoral mentality does not instigates food contamination h1: amoral mentality instigates food contamination dependant variable: food contamination independent variable: amoral mentality to test this hypothesis, likert scale, very essential for attitude testing, has been used where strongly disagree has been given the weight 1 and strongly agree has been given the weight 5 as well. on the basis of the weight, the hypothesis can be rewritten as below:h0: μ = 4h1: μ< 4to test this hypothesis, agree with the statement given to the 55 respondents has been given the weight 4.subsequently, the calculated sample mean(x̄) is 1.72 with the standard deviation of 1.044 and the test has been conducted with the 5 percent significance level. lower limit μ-z(standard deviation/√n)= 4-1.65(1.12/√55)=4 -0.1017= 3.89 z-test: two sample for means result this test has been conducted as left one tailed z test where as sample mean (x̄) 1.7484 which is lower than lower limit i.e 3.89 & belongs to the area of the rejection. moreover, critical value< z value; -1.2815< 36.288. so, it can be concluded that h0 (null hypothesis) is rejected & consequently, ha (alternative hypothesis) is accepted. so, it can be said that “amoral mentality instigates food contamination”. h0: weak law enforcement does not encourage level of corruption of food suppliers h1: weak law enforcement encourages corrupted food suppliers dependant variable: corruption of food suppliers independent variable: law enforcement table 4: column1 variable 1 variable 2 mean 1.748484848 0 known variance 1.27 0.000001 observations 330 1 hypothesized mean difference 4 z -36.28888017 p(z<=z) one-tail 0 z critical one-tail 1.281551566 p(z<=z) two-tail 0 z critical two-tail 1.644853627 table 5: column1 column2 column3 z-test: two sample for means variable 1 variable 2 mean 1.43030303 0 known variance 0.89 0.000001 observations 330 1 hypothesized mean difference 4 z -49.47244549 p(z<=z) one-tail 0 z critical one-tail 1.281551566 p(z<=z) two-tail 0 z critical two-tail 1.644853627 lower limit μ -z(standard deviation/√n)= 4-1.65(.94/√330)= 4 -0.085= 3.915 result this test has been conducted as left one tailed z test where as sample mean (x̄) 1.43030 which is lower than lower limit i.e 3.91 & belongs to the area of the rejection. moreover, critical value< z value; -1.2815< 49.47. so, it can be concluded that h0 (null hypothesis) is rejected & consequently, ha (alternative hypothesis) is accepted. so, it can be said that “weak law enforcement encourages corrupted food suppliers’’ h0: assigned authorities does not lack proper technological knowledge to secure food safety h1: assigned authorities lack proper technological knowledge to secure food safety dependant variable: proper technological knowledge independent variable: food security pa ge 94 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 90-98, 2025 lower limit μ -z(standard deviation/√n)= 4-1.65(1.35/√330)=4 -0.1226= 3.8774 result this test has been conducted as left one tailed z test where as sample mean (x̄) 1.9 which is lower than lower limit i.e 3.8774 & belongs to the area of the rejection. moreover, critical value< z value; -1.2815< 28.274. so, it can be concluded that h0 (null hypothesis) is rejected & consequently, ha (alternative hypothesis) is accepted. so, it can be said that assigned authorities lack proper technological knowledge to secure food safety h0: agricultural sector does not fail to attract educated entrepreneurs to secure food safety h1: agricultural sector fails to attract educated entrepreneurs dependant variable: food safety independent variable: educated entrepreneurs result this test has been conducted as left one tailed z test where as sample mean (x̄) 1.81 which is lower than lower limit i.e 3.862 & belongs to the area of the rejection. moreover, critical value< z value; -1.2815< 25.980. so, it can be concluded that h0 (null hypothesis) is rejected & consequently, ha (alternative hypothesis) is accepted. so, it can be said that agricultural sector fails to attract educated entrepreneurs. in bangladesh, negative societal attitude, lack of technological innovations, venture capital fund unavailability, political instability are triggered as challenges to attract educated entrepreneurs in agricultural sector(sarker,2020). without proper education & trainings moral values, food safety can’t be ensured as the reasons being that the maximum participants in the supply chain lack of proper education, moral values and directed by extreme materialism. hypocrisy directed by lack of moral values all participants involved in the supply chain give their consent not to support any food contamination at any level of supply chain while selling or manufacturing consumable goods. ironically, they shift liabilities on other head and claim themselves to be honest even after being exposed to be involved in food contamination , which is, to some extent, related to psychological term “ hypocrisy”. occurrence of hypocrisy when the by society most despised types pretend to be the most revered type (hallman & spiro, 2022). in bangladesh, maximum people pretend to be honest by maintaining their religious values & other morals but maximum business are disguised in the name of religion and they commit food contamination, unethical food stock only for seeking more profits jeopardizing the health of consumers to very severe state. state has become completely failure to raise real ethical values since childhood though various educational institutions are working to build morals but people of all levels accepts morals for others not for themselves. lack of resources, poor human resource management, poor technological innovation, over population problems are the facts should be come into fruition. state along with proper law enforcement authorities should move forward to make stance against suppliers in food supply chain involved in food contamination. several psychological studies are recommended to be done about the psychological state of the people of bangladesh in a large frame even if it is a very long term process but it will make sense in future to direct a nation in a unified way. combination of data science & block chain to secure food safety as well as to ensure authentic consumable goods technological surge:data science & block chain the escalating of data generation in contemporary society has fueled innovation while raising concerns table 6: column1 column2 column3 z-test: two sample for means variable 1 variable 2 mean 1.9 0 known variance 1.82 0.000001 observations 330 1 hypothesized mean difference 4 z -28.27490806 p(z<=z) one-tail 0 z critical one-tail 1.281551566 p(z<=z) two-tail 0 z critical two-tail 1.644853627 table 7: column1 column2 column3 z-test: two sample for means variable 1 variable 2 mean 1.812121212 0 known variance 2.34 0.000001 observations 330 1 hypothesized mean difference 4 z -25.98015141 p(z<=z) one-tail 0 z critical one-tail 1.281551566 p(z<=z) two-tail 0 z critical two-tail 1.644853627 lower limit μ -z(standard deviation/√n)= 4-1.65(1.53/√330)=4 -0.138= 3.862 pa ge 95 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 90-98, 2025 about the security and transparency of data transaction (tatineni &boppana, 2021). this research delves into synergy between data science & block chain to safeguard food safety at every level of supply chain along with data integrity and unprecedented data transparency as well. the ceaseless surge of data generation in the contemporary world necessitates the data insightfulness from big data to be mined out. data mining significantly plays pivotal rule to extract the effective data to understand the real problem as well as to design effective module as comprehensive solution. ciphering involves both data encryption and data decryption using the mathematical algorithm to secure data integrity and data transparency. this process transforms readable data into unrecognizable form called cipher text. subsequently, the conversion of cipher text into plain text is called decryption. moreover, private key is widely used for encrypting data and private key is used for decrypting data remaining very secret & non recoverable if forgotten. figure 1: process of block chain technology types of encryption symmetric encryption symmetric encryption, less secured than asymmetric encryption, uses a single key for both encryption and decryption. it is often used for encrypting data stored locally. asymmetric encryption asymmetric encryption uses two keys called public key and private key. moreover, public key is used for encrypting data and private key is used for decrypting data. it is more resistant to cyber attack and more flexible as it involves only two parties. although, it is more complex than symmetric encryption, it allows to create digital signature used to verify the authenticity and integrity of a message file. block chain a block chain is a distributed database or ledger that maintains ceaseless progressing lists of ordered records called bocks. cryptography links each block using cryptography and every block contains the cryptographic hash of previous block, a timestamp, and data transaction. figure 2: block chain technology along with distributed ledgers pa ge 96 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 90-98, 2025 in 2008, satoshi nakamoto invented block chain to serve as the ledger of public transaction related to crypto currency bitcoinfirst digital currency to solve the double –spending problem without need of central server or trusted authority. blockchain originated as a result of bitcoin , a technological innovation that is a sent out data source along with the constantly improving files viewed as block. furthermore, it is always expanding as brand new blocks are put by miners to it (every ten minutes) to capture the newest transaction .block chain is the process of decentralization which gives each party the right to access the entire database and can verify the record throughout the entire database without involving of middleman or single party control. block chain technology is the unprecedented solution for data security .fabrication or temperament of data seems to be near to impossible in system as every node records all data. if any sort of data twisting happens, it must be verified by the all participants of the ledgers using hashing which interlinks previous link to next block. data science & block chain integration the surge of data science technology is fueling the risks of data management at similar pace. data leakage, data temperament, low quality of data needs to be addressed in data risk management. data science relates to block chain with high data quality, traceability, built in anonymity & large data volume(hussain & kishoth,2022).block chain technology is the comprehensive solution for aggravating risk of data management. in case of data sharing, block chain technology brings point to point transmission, consensus mechanism, and encryption algorithm as well as the solution for the data risk management. block chain technology ensures data security, data privacy, data credibility, data transparency, and protection of data sovereignty (peng & liu,2021). although the integration of data science and block chain technology is growing faster, it still involves some challenges for example data scalability, data accuracy, data insightfulness etc. data scalability in data science technology, a lot of data needs to be sorted out , processed and analyzed called data mining. a large scale of data needs large storage capacity. sometime it seems to be very difficult to manage a large number of data from big data which incurs costs for research & development and incapacitates the company to thrive out competitive advantage. although block chain brings many advantages that other technology doesn’t have, it is still exposed to scalability issue that prevents real time trading (caret et al., 2017). data accuracy for research & development the immense protection of data some time obstructs researchers to get the real & accurate data which is very important to predict future market and make decision over current market as well. the integration of data science & block chain constructs very sophisticated network in which mining data for predictive analysis is very challenging. it is still very hard nut to crackle to extract real data insights from big data for accurate market analysis. a large number of data sets require more secured storage. the verification process in the distributed ledger & auditing of big data are still challenging (aujla et al., 2022). figure 3: proposed model integrating data science & block chain pa ge 97 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 90-98, 2025 according to shehen (2024), tags’ descriptions of safe food are insufficient in bangladesh.a model integrating data science & block chain has been proposed where a centralized data base monitored and handled by government stores all sets of data incurred from the stakeholders involved in the whole supply chain. here, in a proposed model, concerned ministry of government is linked with all components of chain of command maintaining proper protocol including district level to upazila level. moreover, all buyers & sellers should be enlisted in to their concerned authority of their business area & should provide all necessary information about product for example where he collects his / her products from? a data collection center should be existed in the bazaar which collects data from sellers & buyers end (in wholesale market). the whole data base should be linked with centralized data base (private distributed ledger) solely controlled by ministry of agriculture. besides, ministery should provide qr-code marked eco friendly shopping bags for end level consumers by which consumer can access to all data regarding the products including manufacturer, whole seller, retailer, product specification etc. this shopping bags should be provided by enlisted data collection center & bazaar monitoring cell who will collect information about businessmen involved in that bazaar & distribute that qr-code marked shopping bags which will provide the information about businessmen at bazzar level collecting from the mother database controlled by ministry level. step by step progression ➢ setting up data collection center at every bazzar (whole sale & retail perishable goods market) ➢ enlisting categorically all whole sale sellers & wholesale buyers and giving them registration number specified for specific place i.e. no one can use registration number for more than one bazzar/ markets ➢ in whole sale market, buyers & sellers both provide information about products for examplewho does he / she purchase product from ? or who does he/she sell the products to? ➢ in wholesale market buyers gets qr marked bags provided by ministry containing all information about seller ➢ in retail market, consumer (end customer) gets the qr marked bags containing all information about manufacturer, whole seller & retailer as well. by doing all that, consumers at end level can get to all information about products & easily claim about involved party if any sort of food contamination occurs. this process can be revolutionary step to stance against food contamination. in addition, law enforcement authority can easily trace out which party is directly engaged with the food contamination and ensure punishment in a perfect way. due to this process, there will be no room for passing one’s sinful responsibility on other’s neck. conclusion in this study, we endeavor to explore the current scenario about food safety in bangladesh. besides, by ensuring the proper process of the proposed model will certainly ameliorate the current situation of food safety of bangladesh and definitely will contribute to ensure transparency, integrity, proper law enforcement and commitment towards consumers. a proper stance against food contamination will lead to ensure sound health & mind as well & obviously reduce medical expenses & health hazards as well. acknowledgement the authors of this research are very grateful to the respondents who have spontaneously participated in survey. references aujla, g. s., prodan, r., & rawat, d. b. (2022). big data analytics in industry 4.0 ecosystem. software: practice and experience, 52(3), 639–641. https://doi. org/10.1002/spe.3008 hasan, a. b., rahman, t., & khan, s. i. (2021). factors associated with food safety knowledge and practices among meat handlers in bangladesh: a crosssectional study. environmental health and preventive medicine, 26(84). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12199021-01004-5 hallman, a., & spiro, d. (2022). a theory of hypocrisy. cesifo working papers. https://www.ssrn.com hussain, j., & kishoth, g. (2022). blockchain in data science. international journal of research publication, 3(5), 2830–2833. https://www.ijrpr.com labu, z. k., mohiuddin, a. k., & bake, m. a. (2012, december 23). food contaminants: bangladesh perspective. pharmatutor. https://www.pharmatutor. org/articles/food-contaminants-bagladesh-perspective mengelkamp, e., notheisen, b., beert, c., dauer, d., & weinhardt, c. (2018). computer science research development (the swiss –german-austrian research summit on energy informatics), 33, 207—214. noman mohammad atahar, a. (2013).food safety and public health issues in bangladesh: a regulatory concern. european food & feed law review, 8(1), 3140. peng, s., & liu, o. (2020). block chain for data science.conference paper. www.researchgate.net/ publication/341758115 sarker, p. (2021). challenges faced by entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector of bangladesh. iosr journal of business and management, 22(8), 13–26. https://www. iosrjournals.org shahed, i. (2014, august 22). food adulteration, food safety and health concern. the daily star. https:// www.thedailystar.net/food-adulteration-food-safetyhealth-concern-38455 shehen, m. a. (2024). the street food microenterprise in pa ge 98 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 90-98, 2025 bangladesh: situational analysis based on the trends & needs. american journal of food science & technology, 3(2), 88-98. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/ index.php/ajfst tatineni, s., & boppana, v. r. (2021). ai-powered devops and mlops frameworks: enhancing collaboration, automation, and scalability in machine learning pipelines. journal of artificial intelligence research and applications, 1(2), 58–88. pa ge 1 pa ge 9 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) quality and safety of soybean oils in makurdi: physicochemical properties, contaminants, and residues abah joseph onoja1, muyong gordon muyong2, ndi betrand bongjo3* volume 4 issue 2, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i2.4592 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: february 20, 2025 accepted: march 26, 2025 published: august 08, 2025 the study aimed to investigate the physiochemical properties, heavy metals, total aflatoxins, and solvent residues in soybean oils produced in some parts of the makurdi metropolis. the oil samples were collected from “seraph” and “hule and sons” vegetable oil factories in makurdi. samples include: seraph crude soybean oil (a1), seraph refined soybean oil (a2), hule and sons crude soybean oil (b1), and hule and sons refined soybean oil (b2). analysis showed that the physicochemical properties varied between the refined and unrefined samples. specific gravity increased from 0.807 to 0.923, 0.822 to 0.931 for a1 and a2 and b1 and b2 respectively. the peroxide value reduced from 9.71 to 9.6 (meq.o2kg-1) after refining. iodine value and moisture content also reduced with refining. cadmium, arsenic, and lead were detected only in the crude soybean oil (a1 and b1) copper content reduced from 5.3 to 2.6 mg/kg, and nickel decreased from 0.55 to 0.01 mg/kg upon refining. crude soybean oil content (a1 and b1) total aflatoxins of 6.05 ppm and 7.10 ppm respectively. no aflatoxin was detected in the refined oil samples. major chemical compounds and solvent residues in refined soybean oil (a2) composed of 21.10% 2,4–decadienal, 18.16% n-hexadecanoic acid, 4.66% bicyclo [3.1.1] heptane, 4.45% 1,6,10,14–hexadecatetraen-3ol, 4.17% p-xylene, 4.22% cyclohexane, 5.05% cyclopentane, 1.69% 9-eicosyne and 3.88% toluene. while b2 composed mainly of 2,4-decadienal (27.92%), 2-pentene (17.42%), bicyclo [3.1.1] heptane (2.10%), 9-octadecyne (1.45%), 2-methyl-e-7-octadecane (1.31%), 2-heptenal (2.17%), cyclohexane (2.33%) and hexanal (2.90%). refining has a significant role in the physicochemical properties of soybean oil. refining greatly reduces heavy metal content and aflatoxin in crude vegetable oils. keywords aflatoxins, heavy metal, physicochemical properties, refining, soybean oil 1 department of climate change, ministry of water resources, environment and climate change, makurdi, benue state, nigeria 2 center for food technology and research, benue state university makurdi benue state, nigeria 3 fobang institutes for innovations in science and technology (finistech), yaounde, cameroon * corresponding author’s e-mail: betrandbongjo@gmail.com introduction soybean oil belongs to the popular vegetable oils used in food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industries (mohdaly et al., 2017). it is considered a good source of the essential fatty acids and lipid-soluble vitamins. predominantly, soybean oil is made up of unsaturated fatty acids like oleic, linoleic and linolenic acids (makni et al., 2015). soybean seeds are one of the dominant oilseeds in the world. its high-quality protein yield and edible oil give soybeans peculiar characteristics. this vegetable oil is rich in nicotinic acid, riboflavin, thiamine and minerals. oleo-chemical application includes; cosmetic, soap manufacture, biodiesel production and methyl esters. refining vegetable oils is essential to ensure the removal of gums, phosphatides, pigments and getting rid of odorants (mohdaly et al., 2017). crude soybean oil contains a large amount of non-glyceride materials consisting chiefly of phosphatide and other impurities. crude oil has a lighter amber colour which upon refining is reduced to the light yellow colour of most vegetable oils. refined oil is usually clear, odourless, and resistant to rancidity. reports state that refining crude vegetable oil affects the physicochemical properties of the oils. changes have been observed in oxidation indices, phenolic compounds and fatty acid composition during refining of vegetable oils. nevertheless, refining increases the value of soybean oils, but refining could modify the chemical constituents of these oils to the point which could be injurious to health (mohdaly et al., 2017). heavy metal contamination of vegetable oils has been a great concern related to human health problems (gu et al., 2019). studies have shown that these metals contaminate soils and trace levels above required limits have been estimated in oil-extracting seeds (asemave et al., 2012; onakpa et al., 2018). trace elements found in edible oils can be a result of environmental contamination, extraction and refining process of the oil (kalappurayil & joseph, 2017). aflatoxin contamination in foods is a global food safety issue (aghemwenhio et al., 2017; karunarathna et al., 2019). environmental conditions, conventional agricultural practices, and illiteracy are the main factors which favour the production of afs in food (waqas et al., 2019). there are a number of related fungal metabolites found mostly in cereals, maize grains, peanuts and animal fodders mainly by the fungi aspergillus flavus and aspergillus parasitica (idris et al., 2010). aflatoxin b1 is a lethal naturally occurring, it is a potent liver carcinogen (negash, 2018). food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao) states that about 25% of the world’s crops are contaminated with mycotoxins (aflatoxin) during the growth or storage period (pankaj et al., 2017). the extraction of vegetable oils usually employs the use of n-hexane. reports state that solvent residues in consumable food are undesirable. generally in edible pa ge 10 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 9-14, 2025 oils, hexane residues could be considered as undesirable substances when the maximum residual limits are exceeded (yousef & hosseini, 2017). even though the recovery process of these compounds is ensured, a good percentage of solvent is lost in the process which may either be retained in the oil or undergo other reactions to produce other compounds. these derivatives are known to be toxic at certain dosages (cerutti et al., 2017). there is a paucity of information on the heavy metal content and the level of aflatoxins in crude and refined soybean oil produced and sold in makurdi. therefore, there is a great necessity to investigate the physicochemical properties, some heavy metals, aflatoxins contents and solvent residues in soybean oil from “seraph” and “hule and sons” oil factories in makurdi. materials and methods reagents and chemicals include; hydrochloric acid (hcl), sodium hydroxide (naoh), potassium hydroxide (koh), idobromine (ibr), sodium thiosulphate (na2s2o3), potassium iodide (ki), acetic acid (ch3cooh) nitric acid (hno3) and, hydrogen peroxide (h2o2). all reagents were of analytical grade. instruments used includes1; watman no 1 filter paper, elisa reader, atomic absorption spectrophotometer (aas), gc-ms (agilent usa5975c), refractometer, electric oven, water bath. seraph and hule and sons vegetable oils (soybean oils) were purchased at their factories in makurdi and wannune respectively. the oil samples were stored at room temperature away from direct lights. samples were coded a1, a2, b1 and b2: seraph crude vegetable oil, seraph refined vegetable oil, hule and sons crude vegetable oil and hule and sons refined vegetable oil. determination of physicochemical properties the specific gravity, refractive index, the peroxide value, saponification values, the moisture content, of the samples was determined using the method of (aoac, 2015). the acid value was measured by titration (bello, 2015). the smoke point of the oils was determined as described in literature. the temperature at which 10 ml of the sample gave off a thin bluish smoke continuously was recorded as the smoke point (kenechi et al., 2017). determination of heavy metals contents heavy metals assay of the samples was done using atomic absorption spectrophotometer (aas) following the methods described by (aoac, 2015). the lamps were allowed to warm up for 15 minutes and the monochromator was positioned to a wave length corresponding to the metals needed (217.0 nm for lead, 232.0 nm for nickel, 324.7 nm for copper, 213.9 nm for iron, 228.8 nm for arsenic and 328.4 nm for iron determination of total aflatoxins determination of total aflatoxins was done by elisa method (murshed et al., 2019). extraction of aflatoxins was done using 10 ml of oil sample in 200 ml of 70% ethanol in an orbital shaker for 3 hours. gc-ms analysis of solvent residues in refined soybean oil a gas chromatographymass spectrophotometer (agilent usa 5975c) with triple axis detector equipped with an auto injector (10 µl syringe) was used to analysed the solvent residues. helium was the carrier gas. capillary column specifications includes: length; 30m, internal diameter 0.2 µm, thickness; 250 µm, treated with phenyl methyl silox. other gc-ms conditions are ion source temperature (ei), 250 oc, interface temperature; 300 oc, pressure; 16.2 psia, out time, 1.8 mm, 1 µl injector in split mode with split ratio 1:50 with injection temperature of 300 oc the column temperature started at 35 oc for 5 min and changed to 150 oc at the rate of 4 oc/min. the temperature was raised to 250 oc at the rate of 20 oc/min and held for 5mins. the total elution was 47.5minutes. mass spectrophotometer solution software provided by supplier was used to control the system and to acquire the data. identification of the compounds was carried out by comparing the mass spectra obtained with those of the standard mass spectra from nist library (nistii). statistical analysis values were reported in mean ± standard deviation of triplicate determinations. mean values were compared using one way analysis of variance (anova) at p<0.05 using statistical package for social sciences (spss) software version 22. duncan multiple range test (dmrt) was used for mean separation results and discussion table 1: physicochemical properties of crude and refined soybean oil physicochemical properties samples a1 a2 b1 b2 specific gravity 0.807b±0.02 0.923a±0.01 0.822b±0.01 0.931a±0.01 refractive index at 40oc (obx) 1.482a±0.01 1.468b±0.03 1.489a±0.01 1.470b±0.02 acid value (mgkohg-1) 2.04a±0.01 0.58b±0.01 2.11a±0.01 0.60b±0.01 saponification value (mgkohg-1) 191.00b±0.02 193.06a±0.03 192.50b±0.04 194.64a±0.02 peroxide value (meq.o2kg-1) 9.71a±0.01 9.67b±0.02 9.70a±0.02 9.61b±0.01 iodine value (wijj’s) 146.07a±0.01 136.94b±0.01 145.87a±0.02 137.54b±0.01 pa ge 11 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 9-14, 2025 moisture (%) 1.02a±0.01 0.18b±0.02 1.26a±0.01 0.20b±0.03 smoke point (oc) 216.0b±0.01 234.0a±0.01 215.0a±0.02a 234.0a±0.01 ester value(mgkoh/g) 188.96a±0.01 192.48b±0.01 190.39a±0.01 194.04b±0.01 key: a1 = seraph crude vegetable oil, a2 = seraph refined vegetable oil, b1 = hule and sons crude vegetable oil. b2 = hule and sons refined vegetable oils. means with different superscript on same column are significantly different at p < 0.05. table 2: heavy metals content of crude and refined soybean oil metals samples (mg/kg) a1 a2 b1 b2 cadmium 0.82±0.01 nd 0.86±0.01 nd arsenic 0.46±0.01 nd 0.50±0.01 nd copper 5.36a±0.01 2.64b±0.01 5.35a±0.01 2.65b±0.01 nickel 0.55a±0.01 0.01b±0.01 0.57a±0.01 0.01b±0.01 lead 0.08±0.01 nd 0.09±0.01 nd iron 6.23a±0.01 4.95b±0.05 6.31a±0.01 4.97b±0.01 a1 = seraph crude vegetable oil, a2 = seraph refined vegetable oil, b1 = hule and sons crude vegetable oil`, b2 = hule and sons refined vegetable oil, mpl = maximum permissible limits, nd=not detected. means with different superscript in the same column are significantly different at p < 0.05. table 3: aflatoxin content of soybean oils oils sample total aflatoxin concentration soybean oil a1 6.05±0.01 a2 nd b1 7.10±0.01 b2 nd a1 = seraph crude vegetable oil, a2 = seraph refined vegetable oil, b1 = hule and sons crude vegetable oil`, b2 = hule and sons refined vegetable oil, nd=not detected. table 4: major chemical constituents of refined soybean oil (gc-ms) (gcms) compound retention time % composition sample a2 (e-e) 2,4-decadienal 10.341 21.10 n-hexadecanoic acid 14.426 18.16 1,6,10,14-hexadecatetraen-3-ol 14.173 4.45 bicyclo [3.1.1] heptane 13.722 4.66 p-xylene 4.651 4.17 cyclohexane 13.947 4.22 cyclopentane 2.285 5.05 9-eicosyne 11.581 1.69 toluene 3.496 3.88 sample b2 (e-e) 2,4-decadienal 10.342 27.92 2-pentene 2.285 17.42 bicyclo [3.1.1] heptane 13.722 2.10 9-octadecyne 11.581 1.45 2-methyl-e-7-octadecane 13.102 1.31 2-heptenal 5.750 2.17 cyclohexane 2.510 2.33 hexanal 3.834 2.90 a2 = seraph refined vegetable oil, b2 = hule and sons refined vegetable oil pa ge 12 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 9-14, 2025 physico-chemical properties of crude and refined soybean oil in benue state result of the physicochemical properties of crude and refined soybean oil is presented in table 1. the specific gravity of the oil increased with refining from 0.807 for a1 to 0.923 a2. it also increased from 0.822 in crude hule and sons vegetable oil (b1) to 0.931 in refined hule and sons vegetable oil. this trend was also reported in refined oils by gando et al. (2014). rather, others reports that specific gravity decreased after refining (mohdaly et al., 2017). refractive index, acid value, and peroxide decreased progressively with refining. the refractive index decreased from 1.482 obx to 1.468 obx and from 1.489 obx to 1.470 obx for seraph and hule and sons vegetable oils respectively. it is often stated generally that the refractive indices of oils increase with increase in the number of double bonds (mohdaly et al., 2017). the acid value of seraph oils decreased from 2.04 mgkoh-1 to 0.58 mgkoh-1 and 2.11 mgkoh-1 (sample b1) to 0.60 mgkoh-1 (sample b2) in hule and sons vegetable oils. peroxide values ranges from from 19.71 meq.o2kg-1 to 9.67 meq.o2kg-1 and 21.01 meq.o2kg-1 to 12.21 meq.o2kg-1 from crude to refined oils. refining increases the oxidative stability of the oil (mohdaly et al., 2017). the moisture content reduced by 17% when the oil was refined. most of the physicochemical properties of soybean oil reduce upon refining. heavy metals content of crude and refined soybean oil in benue state heavy metals content of crude and refined soybean oil is presented in table 4. crude soybeans oil from seraph and hule and sons oil contained 0.82 mg/kg and 0.86 mg/kg of cadmium, respectively, which were all higher than the maximum permissible limit (0.1 mg/kg) of the metal as stipulated by codex (codex alimentarius commission, 2009). the high cadmium content may be attributed to soil contamination on which the soybean was cultivated. reports highlight that the frequent use of phosphorous fertilizers (lagerwerff & aspecht, 2017), and the leaching of paints into the farm could be the main coursed of cadmium contamination to the environment. however, cadmium was not detected in the refined soybean oil samples. it has earlier been reported that the refining process removes heavy metals in vegetable oil (lagerwerff & aspecht, 2017; ikebueze et al., 2009). cadmium is a toxic element. its presence in consumable food products is highly undesirable as it creates serious health concerns on the consumer’s health. measures of 0.46 mg/kg and 0.50 mg/kg of arsenic were recorded in seraph and hule and sons crude soybean oils respectively. these values were higher than the 0.1 mg/ kg maximum permissible limits stipulated by nafdac (ohimain et al., 2013). arsenic occurs naturally in the soil but the major source of arsenic in farm fields is through the use of herbicides (gando et al., 2014). it was observed that the refining process reduced the arsenic content to a point of not detected. this result highlights the importance of refining vegetable oils for consumption and expressed the effectiveness of the refining process in removing heavy metals like arsenic in oils refined for human consumption. copper content in the crude oils was 5.36 mg/kg and 5.35 mg/kg for seraph and hule and sons respectively. refining these crude oils significantly (p<0.05) reduced the copper content to 2.64 mg/kg in seraph refined oil and 2.65 mg/kg in hule and sons refined oil. values of copper in refined oil recorded in this study also agreed with some earlier reports (andersson & lingnert, 2008). lead measures from 0.08 mg/g and 0.09 mg/g in crude seraph and hule and sons oils respectively but the metal was not detected in any of the refined oil samples. iron content reduced from 6.23 mg/g in the crude seraph oil to 4.95 mg/g in the refined oil. crude hule and sons oil had an iron content of 6.31 mg/g which reduced to 4.97 mg/g after refining of the oil. the 0.55 mg/kg and 0.57 mg/kg of nickel recorded in crude soybean oil from seraph and hule and sons oils were slightly higher than the stipulated limit. refining the crude vegetable oils reduced the nickel content to 0.01 mg/kg in both seraph and hule and sons oils which were all lower the fao/who maximum permissible limit of 0.5 mg/kg. the nickel content of the refined oils reported in this study was safe and competes favourably with other oils like power oil and kings oil which were all reported to contain 0.02 mg/kg nickel (mehmood et al., 2012). total aflatoxin content of the oils crude soybean oil from seraph and hule and sons recorded total aflatoxin contents of 0.05 and 0.10 respectively which implies the oils were not safe from consumption. no aflatoxin was recorded in the refined oils which implied that the oxidizing agent (sodium bisulfite) added to the oils during the refining process could significantly reduce the aflatoxin. low level of aflatoxins recorded in the extracted soybean oil is an indication that the soybean was properly handled at the harvesting and post-harvest stages of the production line as soybeans are hardly contaminated by aflatoxins during cultivation in the fields. aflatoxins, toxic metabolites of aspergillus flavus and aspergillus parasiticus fungi, are naturally occurring contaminants of food (paca, 2015). consumption of oils contaminated with aflatoxins is highly dangerous as it causes aflatoxicosis. severe conditions can lead to death (sowley, 2016). major chemical constituents and solvent residues of refined soybean oil major chemical components of refined vegetable oil from seraph and hule and sons are presented in table7. (e-e) 2,4-decadienal was the major chemical component of both oils having constituted 21.10% in seraph oil and 27.92% in hule and sons oil. this compound is the major component of refined vegetable oils. it occurs naturally in oil seeds and is a natural flavouring component contained pa ge 13 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 9-14, 2025 in soybeans (zhang et al., 2020; who, 2019). other compound detected includes bicyclo [3.1.1] heptane and cyclohexane. bicyclo [3.1.1] heptane has been reported to be a product of the isomerization of n-hexane that causes eye damage at doses above 10%. the result showed seraph oil and hule and sons oil contained 4.66% and 2.10% bicyclo [3.1.1] heptane respectively which were all lower than the 10% reported (okechalu et al., 2011). cyclohexane was common to both oils seraph oil contained 4.22% cyclohexane whereas hule and sons oil contained 2.33%. cyclohexane is known to be toxic at concentrations above 10 ppm. even though most of the n-hexane used as a solvent in oil extraction is recovered, a reasonable amount of the solvent undergoes aromatization to produce undesirable products like cyclohexane, bicycle [3.1.1] heptane and many others as oil constituents (who, 2019). bicycle [3.1.1] heptane, cyclohexane, p-xylene and toluene have been reported in refined vegetable oils (who, 2019). n-hexane lost during processing of the oil has also been reported srbinovska et al.,2020). 2-pentene (17.42%) was recorded in hule and sons refined oil. this compound does not occur naturally in soybean and its presence in the refined soybean oil may also be traced to the reactions of lost n-hexane that occur in the refining line. the presence of 2-pentene however could not be of much concern as no health risks have been linked to the compound (who, 2019). other studies reported 21% of 2-pentene in cottonseed oil extracted using n-hexane as solvent (attah & ibemesi, 1990). conclusion the physicochemical properties of crude and refined soybean oils from seraph and hule and sons oil factories varied significantly at p>0.05. findings revealed that refining had a significant role in enhancing the physicochemical properties of the oils. the heavy metals and aflatoxins content were greatly reduced upon refining. the refined oil contained some residual chemicals like (e-e) 2,4-decadienal, bicyclo [3.1.1] heptane and cyclohexane, 2-pentene, p-xylene and toluene. however, these residues were found at levels that could not pose an immediate harm to health. references aghemwenhio, i. s., timilehin, a. a., & a, g. 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(2020). aroma modulation of vegetable oils—a review. critical reviews in food science and nutrition, 60(9), 1538–1551. pa ge 1 pa ge 60 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) optimization the nutrient composition and anti-nutrient of cereal-legume mixtures for infant complementary feeding: a review ziad ahmed1* volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i1.4210 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: january 24, 2025 accepted: february 20, 2025 published: april 14, 2025 complementary feeding optimization is the process of improving and adjusting the introduction of solid meals and drinks other than breast milk or formula for infants to infants in addition to nursing. the meal must be nutrient-dense, safe, and suitable for the infant’s age and developmental stage as part of this optimization. recent research on reducing anti-nutritional ingredients and increasing nutrient content in cereal-legume blends for infant feeding. reviewed. supplemental diets high in nutrients are essential during this time to support the infant’s growth, cognitive development, and immune system. longterm health effects may result from malnutrition, which is especially prevalent in children between the ages of 6 and 24 months as a result of poor feeding practices. cereal-legume blends are known to have a well-balanced nutritional profile that is appropriate for feeding to infants. protein quality and nutrient bioavailability can be enhanced by combining legumes like beans, chickpeas, or lentils with cereals like rice, wheat, or maize to form complimentary amino acid profiles. in environments with limited resources, these blends offer a sustainable and affordable way to treat infant malnutrition. optimizing the nutritional composition and reducing anti-nutrients in cereal-legume blends is a key strategy. while cereals provide carbohydrates but lack vital vitamins and minerals, legumes offer fiber, high-quality protein, and essential nutrients. however, they also contain anti-nutritional substances that can hinder nutrient absorption. to maximize their combined benefits, it’s essential to comprehend the nutritional makeup of cereal and legumes separately. infants can get a lot of energy, protein, and minerals by combining cereals and legumes in complementary foods. in conclusion, optimizing complementary feeding with cereal-legume blends has enormous potential to combat infant malnutrition, especially in environments with limited resources. researchers want to provide the best possible health and development outcomes for infants during the crucial stage of complementary feeding by improving the nutrient composition, lowering anti-nutrients, and guaranteeing the supply of vital minerals. keywords anti-nutritional, cereal-legume complementary feding, nutrient, optimization 1 department of food science and nutrition, jigjija university, p. o. box. 1020, jigjiga, ethiopia * corresponding author’s e-mail: samawade196@gmail.com introduction complementary feeding is when solid meals and drinks are introduced to infants in addition to their breast milk or infant food (gsoellpointner et al., 2024). complementary foods that are nutritionally adequate have great significance in developing nations (ikujenlola et al., 2020). infants no longer receive adequate nutrition from breast milk after six months of age (tiwari et al., 2021). during the complementary feeding period, infants require a diverse array of nutrients to support their rapid growth, cognitive development, and immune function. infants, and it is necessary to give nutrient-dense complementary foods, which can affect their nutritional condition both now and in future (oladiran & emmambux, 2022). the most common cause of malnutrition in children between the ages of 6 and 24 months is insufficient complementary feeding practices. as a result, they suffer from chronic protein energy malnutrition (pem), which is often accompanied by micronutrient deficiencies, longterm energy and nutritional deprivation, and failure to reach their full potential for growth and development (birie et al., 2021). cereal-legume mixtures have gained recognition for their ability to offer a well-rounded nutrient profile ideal for infant nutrition (walle & moges, 2017). combining legumes such chickpeas, beans, or lentils with grains like rice, wheat, or maize produces complementary amino acid profiles, higher-quality protein, and better absorption of vital elements (temba et al., 2016). with their costeffectiveness and sustainable nature, these mixtures present a promising strategy for combating malnutrition among infants, particularly in areas with limited resources. optimizing nutritional composition and lowering antinutrients in cereal-legume blends is one possible strategy (walle & moges, 2017). the most widely consumed staple food worldwide is cereal. they are a good source of carbohydrates, but their nutrient profiles are typically lacking in important vitamins and minerals, even though they do include some micronutrients (nayik et al., 2023). conversely, legumes are a great source of fiber, highquality protein, and several important vitamins and minerals. though they have many nutritional advantages, legumes also include anti-nutritional substances such tannins, oligosaccharides, and phytates that can reduce the absorption of important nutrients and perhaps cause gastrointestinal distress (banti & bajo, 2020). cereal and legumes should be combined with complementary foods, especially those made for pa ge 61 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 60-66, 2025 infants, to provide them with high calories, protein, and micronutrients (walle & moges, 2017). combining cereals, such as rice, wheat, or maize, with legumes like lentils, chickpeas, or beans can create complementary amino acid profiles, improve protein quality, and enhance the bioavailability of essential nutrients. understanding the nutrient composition of cereals and legumes individually is essential to grasp the potential synergies when combined in a mixture (makori et al., 2017). although legumes are notable for their high protein content and cereals are high in carbohydrates and energy, they work well together to address the varied nutritional demands of infants (makori et al., 2017). this review’s goal is to assess the current state of research on maximizing the nutritional composition and anti-nutrient content of cereal-legume blends for newborn feeding. i hope to clarify the potential benefits and challenges of including these blends into infant food by analyzing recent studies and advancements in the field. additionally, i will discuss how to maximize the nutritional value of cereal-legume blends while minimizing the negative impacts of anti-nutritional components, promoting the best possible development and health for infants. literature review nutrient composition of cereal-legume mixtures moisture content for this study, which was carried out in osun state, nigeria, commercial supplemental food (control), yellow maize, soybeans, and the yellow species of tiger nut were purchased in a local market in ile-ife. the four prepared samples exhibited higher moisture contents (7.2, 7.4, 7.6, and 7.3%) than the control (4.5%) (ikujenlola et al., 2020). this may be due to the combination of different raw materials and complementary food. this research was done in benue state, nigeria and the study was the underlisted grain samples were procured from local markets across. moisture in the formulated food (10.55%) is higher than the mean moisture in both proprietary formulae (4.35%) but comparable with pag benchmark for moisture in infant food (10%). this implies that the formulated food will be more susceptible to microbial degradation and will likely have a shorter shelf life than the proprietary food (oche et al., 2017). fiber a study released on april 19, 2020, from gonder, ethiopia, found that the crude fiber content of supplemental foods ranged from 4.69% to 8.36%. these values were higher than those in control diets, with a significant difference (p<0.05) among the blended mixtures. the highest crude fiber was found in the diet including soaked, germinated, and roasted chickpeas and sesame, along with spinach (8.36%), while the lowest was in the diet containing soaked, germinated teff and barley, as well as roasted chickpeas and sesame (4.69%) (geremew yohannes et al., 2020). the study focused on north western nigeria, examining ready-to-eat complementary food samples commonly used in various agro-ecological zones. researchers collected these samples from mothers or caretakers and stored them in containers at a temperature of 4°c to preserve their quality. the analysis of the samples and the preparation of standard solutions followed the procedures outlined by the aoac (association of official analytical chemists) in 1990. the findings revealed that the crude fiber content in these food samples varied, with guinea corn pap and kbdm having a fiber content of 1.38±0.30%, while the highest recorded fiber content was 2.19±0.60%. this indicates a range of fiber levels in the complementary foods studied (anigo et al., 2009). protein inadequate protein intake over an extended period can result in protein deficiency, which can significantly disrupt the growth process (khan, 2018). many body processes, including tissue healing, immunological response, and hormone synthesis, depend on protein. the average protein intake among infants was found to be 8.43 ± 0.31 grams per day. this value represents the mean protein consumption, with the standard deviation indicating some variability in intake among different infants (makori et al., 2017). the study used yellow sorghum (sorghum bicolor, cultivar: safrari) and soybeans (glycine max, cultivar: m5) from the institute of agricultural research for development (irad) in garoua, cameroon. the protein composition of the developed diets ranged from 10.73% (f1) to 20.02% (f8). f1, which was prepared from soaking soybeans and sorghum, had a protein concentration of 10.73%, while f8, which comprised fermented soybeans and germinated sorghum, had a protein content of 20.02% (tanyitiku & petcheu, 2022). the study conducted in nigeria included buying food goods from jos local markets, including nestle cerelac, a comparative product, from jos central market. the two diets with the highest protein concentrations, ranging from 19.8 to 23.1 grams per 65 grams of food, were those that included acha grain, benniseed, crayfish, and garden egg (abc) in a 60:25:10:5% ratio and yellow maize, soy beans, and groundnut (msg) in a 60:30:10% ratio. this quantity exceeded the recommended dietary allowance (rda) of 13 to 14 grams of protein for infants younger than one year (mariam, 2005). this study was conducted in sinaloa, mexico, using the culiaca experimental laboratory, qpm (zea mays l) v-537, and chickpea (c. arietinum l.). the national research institute for forestry, agriculture, and livestock (inifap) grew 92 types of blanco sinaloa on irrigated soil. superior quality nixtamalized protein maize flour. mila´n-carrillo et al. (2004) developed nmf, which was released in june 2005. these were the aoac’s official protocols (1995). the optimal mixture used to produce the baby food had 4.41 g of protein (alarcón-valdez et al., 2005). pa ge 62 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 60-66, 2025 fat dietary fat is essential for several body processes. it offers energy for different activities, helps absorb fatsoluble vitamins (a, d, e, and k), and provides vital fatty acids required for healthy brain development (aranceta & pérez-rodrigo, 2012). in order to conduct the study in nigeria, food items from local jos markets were purchased, along with a nestle cerelac product for comparison. all three of the local diets had crude fat contents of 65 grams that ranged from 10.1 to 24.8 grams, which is within the 10 to 25 gram recommended dietary allowance (rda) (mariam, 2005). the study was done in alexandria, egypt. we purchased the seeds of chickpeas, peanuts, soybeans, and egyptian rice at the neighborhood store. the range of fat levels in blends was between 0.88% and 11.82%, which was adjusted with the infant’s weaning needs. all of the blends’ fat contents were lower than those of control rice, with the exception of the rice/peanuts mix, which had higher fat than control rice because of the peanuts’ high fat content (tesby mohamed et al., 2019). the raw materials for this study were red teff (eragrostis tef (zucc.), maize (zea maize), barley (hordeum vulgare), wheat (triticum aestivum), oats (avena sativa), chickpeas, and gondar city, ethiopia. sufficient amounts of spinach (spinacia oleracea), sesame (sesamum indicum), beans (vicia faba), soy beans (glycine max), peas (pisum sativum), and carrots (cicer arietinum) were collected at the gondar city local market. we purchased cerifam, a commercial weaning food, from the bahir dar grocery store. diets 3 and 4 were the only composite diets that met the who’s minimal requirement of 10–25% fat for newborn meals (geremew yohannes et al., 2020). ash this research was carried out in the 2018–19 academic year at the college of food technology, vnmkv, parbhani, india, in the department of food chemistry and nutrition. the publication date was february 19, 2019. the ash levels in the samples ranged from 1.5 to 1.7, with 30% sorghum, 30% maize, 10% mothbean, and 10% greenpeas having an ash level of 1.65%, 50% sorghum, 10% maize, 5% mothbean, and 15% greenpeas having an ash content of 1.6%, and 30% sorghum, 30% maize, 15% mothbean, and 5% greenpeas having an ash content of 1.65% (sontakke et al., 2019). the study was done at the bahir dar institute of technology’s food research laboratory in ethiopia. it had two replications and was completely randomized. for every mix, the ash concentration was within the acceptable range; nevertheless, it was considerably higher in the cereal:legumes ratio 65:3 (2.27±0.04) than in the ratios 75:25 (2.18±0.02) and 85:15 (2.27±0.04). the reason for this high ash level in b3 could be the incorporation of legumes during manufacture (walle & moges, 2017). table 1. proximate amount and references amount and references amount and references moisture 7.2-7.6 (ikujenlola et al., 2020) 4.35% -10.55%) (oche et al., 2017) fiber 4.69% to 8.36% (geremew yohannes et al., 2020) 1.38±0.30%-2.19±0.60% (anigo et al., 2009) protein 20.02% (tanyitiku & petcheu, 2022) 19.8 to 23.1 (mariam, 2005) 4.41 g (alarcón-valdez et al., 2005) fat 10.1 to 24.8 grams (mariam, 2005) 0.88% to 11.82% (tesby mohamed et al., 2019) 10–25% (geremew yohannes et al., 2020) ash 1.6% -1.65% (sontakke et al., 2019) 2.27±0.04, 2.18±0.02 and 2.27±0.04 (walle & moges, 2017) carbohydrate 56.06 %(makori et al., 2017) 55.51-64.42%(oche et al., 2017) carbohydrate the mixtures’ carbohydrate contents ranged from 56.06 % in the 58.6: 11.4: 30.0 (sorghum, pigeonpea, and soybean) flour blend to 57.44 % in the 74.9: 20.1: 5.0 mixture. the minimum and maximum carbohydrate contents were able to provide 2.3 kcal/g and 3.19 kcal/g, respectively, over the who norm, suggesting the preliminary optimal energy to meet newborns’ energy needs between the ages of 6 and 23 months (makori et al., 2017). grain samples purchased from local markets and underlisted were used in this experiment, which was conducted in benue state, nigeria. an energy inadequacy is unlikely because the formulated food’s caloric value (380 kcal/100g) is comparable to both proprietary formulae’s (410 kcal/100g), even though the food’s total carbohydrate content (55.51%) is only roughly 9% lower than the mean total carbohydrate in both formulae (64.42%) and lower than the pag benchmark for infant food’s carbohydrate content (65%) (oche et al., 2017). mineral complementary foods provide between 30 and 97% of the daily sum of micronutrients required. for example, supplemental foods should include 97% iron, 86% zinc, 81% phosphorus, 76% magnesium, 73% salt, and 72% calcium between 9 and 11 months. added to the fact that infants bear only limited gastric capacity to consume adequate quantity of food, the diets need to have very pa ge 63 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 60-66, 2025 high nutri ent density (abeshu et al., 2016). most formulas had a calcium level between 196 and 353 mg per day, and children aged 6 to 23 months were given supplemental foods (tesha et al., 2022). anti-nutrient tannins’ anti-nutritional effects include slowed growth, lower mineral element bioavailability, and decreased feed efficiency in human diet (feyera, 2021). poor bioavailability contributes to the low mineral content of plant-based supplemental diets, particularly when the complementary foods are made from unrefined cereals and legumes that contain high levels of phytate, a strong inhibitor of mineral absorption (okafor et al., 2018). because they create insoluble compounds with proteins, antinutrients can reduce their digestibility and palatability. iron, zinc, calcium, and magnesium are known to form complexes with phytates, which reduces their availability and, consequently, their sufficiency in food samples, particularly for children (walle & moges, 2017). plant polyphenols that occur naturally are called tannins. their primary function is to bind and precipitate proteins, preventing them from being absorbed and digested. phytate content this study was carried out in bariga, lagos state, nigeria, and the pigeon pea (cajanus cajan) and dried maize grains (zea mays) used in the formulation samples were purchased from the bariga market. the 100:0 maizepigeon pea ogi had the lowest phytate concentration (90.23 mg/100 g) at the beginning of fermentation (0 hours steeping), whereas the 60:40 ogi had the greatest concentration (446.84 mg/100 g). as the fermentation process came to an end at the 48-hour souring stage, the phytate concentration decreased further, reaching 13.36 mg/100 g in 60:40 maize-pigeon pea ogi and 2.54 mg/100 g in 100:0 maize-pigeon pea ogi (okafor et al., 2018). the study was conducted in ogun state, nigeria, and the product was made using soybean (glycine max), pigeonpea (cajanus cajan), and sorghum (sorghum bicolor (l) moench, red variety) seeds that were purchased from abeokuta local markets. the phytate and oxalate contents ranged from 1.435% in 84.1: 10.9: 5.0 (sorghum: pigeonpea: soybean) flour blend to 1.635% in 49.5: 21.4: 29.1 (sorghum: pigeonpea: soybean) flour blend; 1,155 percent in 58.6: 11.4: 30.0 (sorghum: pigeonpea: soybean) flour blend to 1.330 percent in 62.1: 20.9: 17.1 (sorghum: pigeonpea: soybean) flour blend (tant et al., 2017). table 2. anti-nutrients amount and references amount and references phytate content 1.435 %-1.635 % (tant et al., 2017) 2.54 mg/100 g -13.36 mg/100 (okafor et al., 2018) tannin 18.9-22.9% (olaniyan sa & ademola aa, 2015) (gernar di, 2014) 23.8-26.7% (olaniyan sa & ademola aa, 2015) trypsin 12.50 (okafor et al., 2018) tannin tannins decrease the effectiveness of mineral absorption and digestibility in cereals and legumes (samtiya et al., 2020). tannins are phenolic chemicals that dissolve in water and can precipitate or bind to proteins in aqueous solutions. they decrease the digestibility of grains and legumes by binding to storage proteins. the tannins decreased the availability of minerals, protein, and carbohydrates in the sorghum (barros et al., 2012). elgohery (2021) discovered that biscuits produced with a combination of wheat and lima beans had higher tannin content than biscuits made with sprouted lima beans. according to olaniyan and ademola (2015), the malted sorghum-soy composite biscuits had a lower tannin content (18.9-22.9%) than the sorghum cultivars described by igbua et al. (2020), which had a tannin level of 23.8-26.7 %. the malted sorghum-soy composite flour developed in this investigation (olaniyan & ademola, 2015) and the sorghum-soy-plantain flour (23.8-27.4%) reported by gernar (2014) had tannin contents of 18.922.9%. according to (ogbonna et al., 2012), found that the tannin content of malted sorghum flour was higher at 35.8%. the product from the prepared samples, dried maize grains (zea mays) and pigeon peas (cajanus cajan), used in this investigation were bought from the bariga market in lagos state, nigeria. the amount of tannin was discovered to have reduced. the tannin concentration of 60:40 maize-pigeon pea ogi was the greatest at the start of fermentation (0 hours steeping) (18.39 mg/100 g), followed by 70:30 maize-pigeon pea ogi (13.78 mg/100 g) and 100:0 maize-pigeon pea ogi (13.15 mg/100 g). the tannin level continued to drop as fermentation went on, reaching 2.96 mg/100 g in 60:40 maize-pigeon pea ogi, 1.73 mg/100 g in 70:30 maize-pigeon pea ogi, and 0.50 mg/100 g in 100:0 maize-pigeon pea ogi at the 48-hour souring period where the fermentation process came to a conclusion (okafor et al., 2018). this study was conducted in ogun state, nigeria, and the product was made using soybean (glycine max), pigeonpea (cajanus cajan), and sorghum (sorghum bicolor (l) moench, red variety) seeds that were purchased from abeokuta local markets.the tannin concentration ranged from 0.066 percent in the blend of 51.4: 30.0: 18.6 (sorghum, pigeonpea, and soybean flour) to 0.0805 percent in the blend of 74.9: 20.1: 17.1 (sorghum, pigeonpea, and soybean flour) (tant et al., 2017). pa ge 64 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 60-66, 2025 trypsin for this research, dried maize grains (zea mays) and pigeon peas (cajanus cajan) were purchased from the bariga market. in bariga, lagos state, nigeria, the study was carried out. the trypsin inhibitor activity (tia) of different fermenting maize-pigeon pea ogi mixes was analyzed. at the start of fermentation (0 hours steeping), the 60:40 maize-pigeon pea ogi had the highest tia, followed by the 70:30 (44.30%) and 100:0 (3.19%) types. as fermentation progressed, trypsin inhibitor activity decreased, ending fermentation (48-hour souring) at 12.50% in 60:40 maize-pigeon pea ogi, 10.77% in 70:30 maize-pigeon pea ogi, and 0.10% in 100:0 maize-pigeon pea ogi. (48 hr souring) (okafor et al., 2018). this study was conducted in ogun state, nigeria, and the product was made using soybean (glycine max), pigeonpea (cajanus cajan), and sorghum (sorghum bicolor (l) moench, red variety) seeds that were purchased from abeokuta local markets.in a combination of sorghum, pigeonpea, and soybean flour, the trypsin inhibitor concentration ranged from 31.755 tiu/mg in 65.0: 30.0: 5.0 to 32.140 tiu/mg in 77.3: 5.0: 17.7. pigeonpea, soybean, and sorghum flour combination trypsin inhibitor (tant et al., 2017). optimization nutritional requirements for infants the experimental results showed a high degree of accuracy as they nearly matched the expected values. in accordance with the anticipated values, proximate compositional analysis showed that the protein, carbohydrate (cho), and fat contents were 15.12g, 63.67g, and 10.32g, respectively. calcium (ca), iron (fe), zinc (zn), and magnesium (mg) all had mineral composition analyses that produced values that were in line with expectations: 169.29 mg, 11.12 mg, 3.84 mg, and 32.48 mg, respectively. these findings indicated that the sample’s nutritional quality complied with established standards because they were within the who/fao standard ranges (aynalem & duraisamy, 2022). the moisture content of the formulated flours fell within the range of 6.45 to 11.68 g/100 g dry weight (muala et al., 2024). with the exception of the sample containing p. biglobosa fermented for 3 days, there were no significant variations in moisture content among the other processing methods. most formulated samples approached 5 g/100 g dw, aligning with the recommended value for supplementary foods by the world food program (ludi et al., 2017). through an optimization process focusing on nutritional and sensory qualities, a blend ratio of 55.0 g/100 g oats, 21.0 g/100 g soybean, and 9.0 g/100 g linseed was identified as optimal, yielding compositions of 20.3 g/100 g protein, 9.8 g/100 g fat, 3.2 g/100 g ash, 59.4 g/100 g carbohydrates, 123.2 mg/100 g calcium, and 7.52 mg/100 g iron content (forsido et al., 2019). all of the infant flour formulations had protein contents higher than the 15 g/100 g dw suggested for infant complementary diets. the lipid content of all the formulas was within the recommended range of 10–25 g/100 g dw muffins produced from germinated maize (80%) and bambara nut (20%) flour were compared favorably with a 100% wheat-based muffin in acceptability. the study revealed the protein, carbohydrate, iron and the energy content of the complementary food blend from 35% cereal and 65 % legume is in the range of fao/ who recommended daily intake for 6-23 months. the infant flours formulated in the study exhibited protein contents exceeding the recommended value of 15 g/100 g dry weight for infant complementary foods. the lipid content in all formulas fell within the recommended range of 10-25 g/100 g dry weight as per stan (stan, 1991). muffins made from a blend of germinated maize (80%) and bambara nut (20%) flour were found to be comparable in acceptability to 100% wheat-based muffins. additionally, the study highlighted that a complementary food blend comprising 35% cereal and 65% legume met the fao/who recommended daily intake ranges for protein, carbohydrates, iron, and energy for children aged 6-23 months (walle & moges, 2017). the maize-bambara nut muffin offers a significant portion of the recommended daily allowances for protein (4.20%) and energy (196.55 kcal), along with zinc (0.72 mg) and iron (50.18 mg). (tura et al., 2023). raising the proportion of legumes led to an increase in calcium levels, while the zinc content remained within the recommended range (walle & moges, 2017). the concentration of sodium, magnesium, potassium, calcium, iron and phosphorus ranged from 32.02 -52.11; 500.09 – 707.78; 397.01 – 657.80; 250.04 – 506.04, 6.80 – 16.12 and 230.45 – 515.00 respectively (aderonke similoluwa folorunso, 2019). to validate the optimal condition, the components in the optimized formula were blended, and a laboratory analysis of the micronutrient compositions was carried out. the validation results showed the following values per 100 g of the blend: 31.76 mg of iron, 76.88 mg of calcium, 2.53 mg of zinc, 119.61 mg of magnesium, 440.66 mg of potassium, 291.48 mg of phosphorus, 4.48 mg of sodium, 90.93 mg of phytate, with ratios of 0.236 for phytate:iron, 3.52 for phytate:zinc, 0.074 for phytate:calcium, and 7.22 for phytate*calcium:zinc (tura et al., 2023). conclusion the research on optimizing the nutrient composition of cereal-legume mixtures for infant feeding reveals promising strategies for enhancing the nutritional quality of complementary foods. by blending cereals like rice, wheat, or maize with legumes such as lentils, chickpeas, or beans, complementary amino acid profiles can be improved, enhancing protein quality and nutrient bioavailability. through investigations into the proximate composition of these blends, including moisture content, fiber, protein, fat, ash, and carbohydrates, researchers have identified the potential to create nutrient-dense complementary foods suitable for infants. while cereals provide carbohydrates and energy, legumes offer fiber, high-quality protein, and essential vitamins and minerals, pa ge 65 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 60-66, 2025 making them complementary partners in meeting the diverse nutrient needs of infants. efforts to optimize the nutritional content of these blends while reducing anti-nutrients such as tannins, oligosaccharides, and phytates have been highlighted. anti-nutrients can hinder the absorption of vital nutrients and lead to gastrointestinal issues, emphasizing the importance of addressing these factors in formulating complementary foods. studies on mineral composition and anti-nutritional effects underscore the need for careful consideration of micronutrient content and potential inhibitors of nutrient absorption in infant foods. by assessing the presence of substances like phytates and tannins, researchers can mitigate adverse effects on nutrient bioavailability and ensure the formulation of nutritionally adequate complementary foods. the validation of optimal nutrient compositions in formulated blends has shown promising results, with significant levels of essential micronutrients like iron, calcium, zinc, magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus. these findings align with established guidelines and recommendations, indicating the potential for these blends to meet the nutritional needs of infants aged 6-23 months. references abeshu, m. a., lelisa, a., & geleta, b. 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(2022). nutrient content of complementary foods for children in kilimanjaro, tanzania. african journal of food science, 16(11), 279–288. https://doi. org/10.5897/ajfs2022.2170 tiwari, s., sangle, a., gaikwad, p. b., & aneja, s. (2021). complementary feeding : feeding of an infant beyond 6 months age. indian academics of pediatrics. tura, d. c., belachew, t., tamiru, d., & abate, k. h. (2023). optimization of a formula to develop irondense novel composite complementary flour with a reduced phytate/minerals molar ratio from dabi tefffield pea-based blends using a d-optimal mixture design. frontiers in nutrition, 10(october), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2023.1244571 walle, h., & moges, d. (2017). optimization of cereallegume blend ratio to enhance the nutritional quality and functional property of complementary food. ethiopian journal of science and technology, 10(2), 109. https://doi.org/10.4314/ejst.v10i2.3 pa ge 1 pa ge 10 7 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) detection of adulteration in besan (cicer arietinum) using microscopic technique padmapriya rajan1, kyatanahalli s. nagabhushana1* volume 3 issue 2, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i2.3786 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: september 11, 2024 accepted: october 14, 2024 published: november 30, 2024 detection of food adulteration in an unambiguous way requires a methodology that provides distinct differentiators between the authentic and adulterated samples. we present a simple method to detect the adulteration of besan (chickpea flour), an extensively used food ingredient for different food products in the indian culinary industry. as many as 10 different samples, both branded and non-branded samples, were procured from the market and were evaluated for their purity. polarized light microscope was used as a simple evaluation tool to assess the purity of the sample. the quality of the image in light, polarized light, polarized light with analyzer, and dark mode bring about a clear distinction between pure besan and adulterated sample. sample analyses were done in 50 x to 1000 x magnification. this nondestructive analysis of the sample brings about even a very small degree of adulteration in the sample. from the analysis, it was clear that out of 10 samples tested, 5 samples were seen as adulterated. the chief adulterants were yellow pea flour and corn flour. this simple method provides easy detection of adulterants and adulteration in food samples. keywords birefringence, besan, cicer arietinum, food adulteration, polarized light microscope 1 prayoga institute of education research, sy no. 133, ravugodlu, bolare post, off kanakapura road, bangalore, india * corresponding author’s e-mail: ksn@prayoga.org.in introduction food adulteration is one of the major pervasive businesses which stimulate a lot of health issues among consumers and is a very crucial thing to be considered from an economic point as well. this intentional addition of foreign substances to food products tends to benefit the business but affects the product’s nutritional value. though it has been a historical problem for centuries finding the simplest and authentic technique that could reveal the mixing of foreign substances in food samples is still a challenging problem. because the common adulterants are harmless cheap food products (or) dangerous chemicals which has the same physical nature as the original food sample. it also affects the quality of food products, and the awareness about food safety procedures is yet to be explored by vendors (oseyemi, 2023). on the other hand, ensuring the quality of food products also involves extensive experimental procedures (júnior et al., 2023). so, finding the simplest nontargeted method to identify adulterants would also act as a preliminary test to ensure the quality of the food products. many analytical techniques like hplc, tlc, gc-ms, lc-ms, uv-vis, nmr, and ftir are available to detect adulteration but sample preparation and statistical procedures to analyze the spectral data are yet timeconsuming. microscopy techniques are one of the easiest ways to find adulterated substances but they are still to be explored as authenticated techniques for adulteration in the food industry. chickpea (cicer arietinum) flour or besan is a rich source of proteins and an indispensable flour used in most indian traditional sweets and snacks. because of its high demand in india, it is rather being adulterated with low-cost foreign substances like corn flour and other legume flours. besan is the safe choice for people suffering from diabetes as it contains high fiber and protein and less starch content. rice and corn flour are not a good choice because of its high starch content. the exact difference in the nutrients of besan and corn flour has been well discussed in the literature (vinod et al., 2023). the protein content of besan is 22% and for corn flour, it is around 6.9%, mixing of these two flours causes severe protein deficiency. the total carbohydrate content of besan is 58% and for corn flour, it is 76%, and another important factor is the nature of the starch. besan has resistant starch (rs) which gets digested slowly, so it causes a lower spike in blood glucose levels. corn flour has native starch which increases the spike in blood glucose levels. mixing these two flours creates a severe nutritional imbalance in diabetic patients as well as others. yellow peas (pisum sativum) are another common foreign material that could be easily mixed with besan since it has the same physical nature as the besan. pisum sativum has 70% carbohydrates, particularly starch content varies from 39% to 46% and it is also rich in proteins which is about 25% (wu et al., 2023). from an economic point of view, consumers are supposed to pay more money than the actual money for the besan when they mix these adulterants with the besan. finding these substances in besan is yet a difficult task because of its similar physical nature as other flours chemometric methods have become prominent in the food industry in analyzing data through spectroscopic methods. on the other hand, non-targeted method is a recent trend in identifying unknown components in the actual food sample (gao et al., 2019). in the case of besan, adulteration of grass pea flour and pea flour in chickpea flour has been found by using near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy along with chemometrics (bala et al., 2022). similarly, the addition pa ge 10 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 of maize flour to chickpea flour has also been predicted through near-infrared spectroscopy followed by a partial least square regression method (bala et al., 2022a). it was also mentioned that there are no chemical methods to identify the adulteration of corn flour in besan, so the urgency to find the technique to differentiate besan from corn flour is increasing among researchers. microscopy technique has been used to find the adulteration of pea flour in chickpea flour based on seed testa macrosclereids (dattatreya et al., 2010). polarized light microscopy is one of the newly emerging authentic techniques to identify the foreign substances in food samples. recently, it has been used to identify the percentage of “wheat flour in galician bread” (fernández-canto et al., 2022). in this work, we propose the microscopic technique to find the adulteration of maize flour and yellow pea flour in chickpea flour based on the physical difference between the particles through stereo microscopy and the physical difference between the ‘maltese cross’ pattern of both the particles under polarized light microscopy. materials and methods preparation of samples to prepare the pure besan bengal gram dal was grained and sieved with the appropriate consistency of besan which is available in the market and corn flour has been purchased from the local market in bangalore, karnataka. a small amount of besan which ranges from 0.005g to 0.009g was placed on the microscopic slide and mixed with two to three drops of water then the slide was allowed to dry at room temperature. once dried, a small drop of glycerin is added and it is spread over the surface of the slide for better visualization. the same procedure has been followed for the corn flour, yellow pea flour, and all branded samples as well as with the mixture of besan with adulterants. methods polarizing microscope “leica dm750m” has been used to take the images of the sample. all the images have been taken under four modes. this microscope is equipped with one polarizer, and one analyzer with the non-rotating mechanical stage to place the sample. first mode once the polarizer and analyzer are removed it acts as a normal stereo microscope. so, the first image has been taken under normal conditions. second mode in this mode, the polarizer has been inserted before the sample stage and the images have been taken under polarized light. third mode the analyzer has been inserted above the sample stage and the image has been taken with both polarizer and analyzer. fourth mode in this mode, the polarizer has been rotated to get the dark field mode where the direction of the polarizer is exactly perpendicular to the direction of the analyzer. this has been verified by using cotton. since cotton has the birefringence property by nature it reveals the colors when it is placed under exactly crossed polars. by doing this experiment the dark mode of the microscope has been confirmed. birefringence property of starch starch has a semi-crystalline nature which owns the property called birefringence by nature and can produce ‘maltese cross’ patterns under crossed polars. many microscopy techniques have been utilized in the food industry so far, among them polarizing light microscopy has been specifically used to characterize the food products that have optical anisotropy (or) birefringence and the ‘maltese cross’ pattern of starch granules before and after heat treatment had been recorded earlier (corradini & mcclements, 2017). the clear-cut image of this pattern under 700x has also been reported in the literature (sivak & preiss, 1998). along with that, it is also evident that the morphology, crystallinity, and thermal properties of different types of starch granules from wheat have been well discussed through light microscopy (kumar et al., 2016). this property had been used to identify the presence of starch in food components figure 1: besan under dark mode (500x) pa ge 10 9 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 and particularly it was observed that corn starch had a polygon shape (mcmahon, 2004). in this study, all three flours have starch but the nature of the starch differs. while besan and yellow pea flour have resistant starch, corn flour possesses native starch. accordingly, all three flours produce different interference patterns under crossed polars and this pattern also varies between the size, shape and nature of the particles. figure 1, figure 2, and figure 3 have been taken under the dark mode of the polarization microscope which provides clear-cut difference between the interference pattern of all three samples. for besan, it is oval and corn flour has an exact ‘maltese cross’ pattern. yellow pea flour has a slightly differentiated pattern with a dark patch in the center along with cracked lines in its sides. results and discussion the microscopic images of besan, corn flour, and yellow pea flour under all four modes provide unique features of each particle along with its size and shape. we intentionally mixed besan with corn flour and yellow pea flour in equal ratio and observation was made under all the modes, which helps us to differentiate all three samples through the naked eye easily. these images provide the clear-cut difference between the particle shape and size. besan besan particles are represented in figure 4 and they are elliptical in shape, figures 4a, 4b, 4c, and 4d represent besan particles in all four modes, figure 4a is brighter as we pass light in all directions whereas figure 4b and figure 4c are slightly dark as we pass polarized light. particularly, figure 4c provides a slight structural difference because of the difference in the direction of the polarizer and analyzer. finally, dark mode provides the interference pattern of besan particles which is an oval shape. it could be noted that a few besan particles have a thin line at their center but the size and shape of the particles are different from yellow pea flour and corn flour. figure 2: corn flour under dark mode (500x) figure 3: yellow pea flour under dark mode (500x) pa ge 11 0 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 4a: first mode figure 4b: second mode figure 4c: third mode figure 4d: fourth mode figure 4: besan (500x) pa ge 11 1 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 corn flour corn flour particles are represented by figure 5 and they have irregular polygon shapes with a central black dot in it. as we mentioned, the second mode and third mode don’t provide much structural difference except for the variation in brightness. the fourth mode figure 5d provides the exact ‘maltese cross pattern’ under crossed polars because of the nature of the particles. figure 5a: first mode figure 5b: second mode figure 5c: third mode pa ge 11 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 yellow pea flour yellow pea flour particles are bigger in size and the internal structure of the particles varies based on their size. also, some particles have a light crack inside them. these particles are represented by figure 6, particularly, figure 6c reveals the internal structure of the particle which is different from besan. figure 5d: fourth mode figure 5: corn flour (500x) figure 6a: first mode figure 6b: second mode pa ge 11 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 besan with adulterants to see the possibilities of identification of adulterants in besan we mixed besan with corn flour and yellow pea flour with equal ratio and the samples were examined through the microscope under all four modes. figure 7 and figure 8 represent the mixture of besan with corn flour and the mixture of besan with yellow pea flour respectively. adulterant particles could be easily identified by seeing the images through the naked eye figures 7a and 7d provide the unambiguous difference between besan and corn flour, similarly, figures 8a,8c, and 8d provide the unambiguous difference between the besan and yellow pea flour. figure 6c: third mode figure 6d: fourth mode figure 6: yellow pea flour(500x) figure 7a: first mode pa ge 11 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 7b: second mode figure 7c: third mode figure 7d: fourth mode figure 7: besan and corn flour (500x) figure 8a: first mode pa ge 11 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 8b: second mode figure 8c: third mode figure 8d: fourth mode figure 8: besan and yellow pea flour(500x) market samples to see the practical applicability of this technique ten market samples have been purchased from the supermarkets in bangalore and they were examined under a microscope under all four modes. among them, five samples were adulterated with corn flour, yellow pea flour, and unknown adulterants. around 0.005g of the samples were used from each pack and to prepare slides we followed the same procedure which we used for pure besan and adulterants. pa ge 11 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 brand 1 this brand got adulterated with corn flour, figure 9 represents this brand and it could be easily noted in 9a that two to three particles have irregular polygon shapes with a central dot and those particles reveal a ‘maltese cross pattern’ in a dark mode which could be seen in 9d. this confirms the adulteration of corn flour in the sample. figure 9a: first mode figure 9b: second mode figure 9c: third mode pa ge 11 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 9d: fourth mode figure 9: brand 1 (500x) brand 2 this brand is represented by figure 10, it can be noted that a few particles are bigger, and from figures 10c and 10d it is clear that the internal structure and interference pattern of these particles matches with yellow pea flour. so, it is confirmed that it is being adulterated with yellow pea flour. figure 10a: first mode figure 10b: second mode pa ge 11 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 10c: third mode figure 10d: fourth mode figure 10: brand 2 (500x) brand 3 this brand is being adulterated with both corn flour and yellow pea flour, figure 11 represents these particles and it could be noted in figure 11a that a patch of particles and a few lone particles are in irregular polygon shape, and around two particles are bigger in size and shape which is similar to yellow peas. in dark mode those irregular polygon-shaped particles reveal a ‘maltese cross pattern’ and the interference pattern of those bigger particles exactly matches with yellow pea particles. hence, it could be confirmed that these particles are adulterated with both corn flour and yellow pea particles. figure 11a: first mode pa ge 11 9 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 11b: second mode figure 11c: third mode figure 11d: fourth mode figure 11: brand 3 (500x) brand 4 this brand is represented by figure 12 around six particles having irregular polygon shape with a central black dot at the center and it also reveals the ‘maltese cross pattern’ in dark mode. so, it could be confirmed that it is being adulterated with corn flour. pa ge 12 0 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 12a: first mode figure 12b: second mode figure 12c: third mode pa ge 12 1 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 12d: fourth mode figure 12: brand 4 (500x) brand 5 this brand is represented by figure 13, almost half of the particles have some weird black patches inside them which cannot be seen in the pure besan particles. in figure 13d also it could be noted that those particles reveal different interference patterns because of those dark patches which are not matching with the pure besan. another important factor is these particles are not matching with corn flour particles and yellow pea flour particles also but it could be confirmed that it is being adulterated with some unknown foreign substances. so here this technique by using a polarization microscope acts as a non-targeted method to identify the adulteration hence it provides a clear-cut image of pure besan particles. figure 13a: first mode figure 13b: second mode pa ge 12 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 13c: third mode figure 13d: fourth mode figure 13: brand 5 (500x) brand 6 this brand has been represented by figure 14 and it is pure besan, there is no shade of corn flour particles and yellow pea flour in the image. also, the particle shapes exactly match the pure besan. figure 14a: first mode pa ge 12 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 14b: second mode figure 14c: third mode figure 14d: fourth mode figure 14: brand 6 (500x) brand 7 this brand is also pure besan which doesn’t have the shade of corn flour and yellow pea flour but it could be noted in figure 15d that a few particles have light cracks in the sides as yellow peas. but it is visible from 15a and 15c that those particles match with pure besan particles. pa ge 12 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 15a: first mode figure 15b: second mode figure 15c: third mode pa ge 12 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 15d: fourth mode figure 15: brand 7 (500x) brands 8, 9 and 10 figure 16, figure 17, and figure 18 represent brands 8, 9 and 10 respectively. it could be seen there is no shade of corn flour and yellow pea flour. these particles match exactly with besan particles. so, it can be confirmed that it is being non-adulterated. figure 16a: first mode figure 16b: second mode pa ge 12 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 16c: third mode figure 16d: fourth mode figure 16: brand 8 (500x) figure 17a: first mode pa ge 12 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 17b: second mode figure 17c: third mode figure 17d: fourth mode figure 17: brand 9 (500x) pa ge 12 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 18a: first mode figure 18b: second mode figure 18c: third mode pa ge 12 9 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 107-130, 2024 figure 18d: fourth mode figure 18: brand 10 (500x) conclusion food adulteration affects most of the human beings without our knowledge and it is the main cause for most of the health issues. so still the world needs to find authenticated and easy techniques from both targeted and non-targeted aspects. we provided the first clearcut image of besan, corn flour, and yellow peas particles under a microscope as well as under crossed polars using a polarization microscope. these images help us to differentiate adulterant particles without any chemical methods. one more advantage is a pinch of sample is enough for this technique. ten samples have been purchased from the market around bangalore and tested for adulteration through this technique. it has been very successful in finding foreign substances in the sample. abbreviations used hplc high-performing liquid chromatography tlc thin film liquid chromatography gc-ms gas chromatography-mass spectrometry lc-ms liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry uv-vis ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy nmr – nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy ftir fourier infrared transform spectroscopy plm polarized light microscope rs resistant starch. acknowledgments we thank dr. hs nagaraja, chief mentor of prayoga for the useful discussions during the project period. supporting information description this supporting information contains all the images taken during the experiment. references bala, m., sethi, s., sharma, s., mridula, d., & kaur, g. (2022). non‐destructive determination of grass pea and pea flour adulteration in chickpea flour using near‐ infrared reflectance spectroscopy and chemometrics. journal of the science of food and agriculture, 103(3), 1294–1302. https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.12223 bala, m., sethi, s., sharma, s., mridula, d., & kaur, g. (2022a). prediction of maize flour adulteration in chickpea flour (besan) using near infrared spectroscopy. journal of food science and technology, 59(8), 3130–3138. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197022-05456-7 corradini, m. g., & mcclements, d. j. (2017). food ☆. in elsevier ebooks. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-012-409547-2.14314-8 dattatreya, a. m., nanjegowda, d. k., & viswanath, p. 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(2023). a comprehensive review of pea (pisum sativum l.): chemical composition, processing, health benefits, and food applications. foods, 12(13), 2527. https:// doi.org/10.3390/foods12132527 pa ge 1 pa ge 1 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) malnutritional status of 6-59 months childs of rural families in dinajpur districts bangladesh monika khatun sharna1, masuma tunazzin rim2, anusree ghosh3*, anwara akter khatun4, uttam kumar majumder5 volume 3 issue 2, year 2024 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v3i2.3023 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: may 21, 2024 accepted: june 25, 2024 published: june 27, 2024 the present status of malnutrition among the children of 6-59 months old was assessed from the rural families in selected areas of dinajpur district. anthropometric methods and the data were collected through a face-to-face interview using a semi-structured questionnaire. the prevalence of malnutrition was assessed using three indicators: stunting, under-weight, and wasting following the who guidelines and cut-off points. 165 children (6-59 months) and their household of three upazila (kaharole, dinajpur sadar and birganj) in dinajpur district were considered for study subjects. the prevalence of stunting, underweight, and wasting of 6-59 months old children in dinajpur was 38.8%, 41.3%, and 12.1%, respectively. the mean height of male and female children were 82.99 cm and 84.15 cm. the mean weight of male and female children was 10.97 kg and 10.78 kg. female children are more susceptible to malnutrition than male children. the main contributing factors for stunting and wasting children were religion, monthly income of the family, parent education, criteria of child’s daily activity, and consumption of egg, cow milk, citrus fruits, leafy vegetables, other vegetables, rice, and pulses. keywords bangladesh, children, malnutrition, public health, stunting 1 brac health programme, manikganj, bangladesh 2 department of food science and engineering, faculty of engineering sciences, german university bangladesh, dhaka, bangladesh 3 school of education, bangladesh open university, gazipur, bangladesh 4 hajee mohammad danesh science and technology university, dinajpur, bangladesh 5 statistics discipline, khulna university, khulna 9208, bangladesh * corresponding author’s e-mail: anusreeghosh62@gmail.com introduction in the asian region, bangladesh had one of the highest prevalence of malnutrition over the last two decades. although neonatal mortality, infant mortality, and under-5 mortalities have decreased, stunting, wasting, and underweight percentages of children are still very high compared globally. children under the age of 5 years are at risk of malnutrition, especially those under 2 years of age more susceptible to undernutrition. malnutrition is a condition that occurs when certain vital nutrients are deficient in a person’s diet. the deficiency fails to meet the demands of the body, leading to effects on the growth, physical health, mood, behavior, and other functions of the body. malnutrition has both short term and longterm consequences. the term malnutrition covers two broad groups of conditions. one is ‘undernutrition’— which includes stunting (low height for age), wasting (low weight for height), underweight (low weight for age) and micronutrient deficiencies or insufficiencies (a lack of important vitamins and minerals) such as vitamin a deficiency, anemia and iron deficiency, iodine deficiency disorder (idd), etc. the other is overweight, obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer). children under 5 are also affected by macro and micronutrient deficiencies. various factors influence malnutrition among children such as socio-demographic, environmental, reproductive, institutional, cultural, political, and regional factors (unicef-who-the world bank, 2012). malnutrition among children also depend on poor nutrition, inadequate food intake, inadequate breastfeeding of child, safe water. the growth of children greatly depend on food. lack of food results in undernutrition, which can slow the growth of a child. poor nutrition can also lead to reduced immunity, increased susceptibility to disease, impaired physical and mental development, and reduced productivity which is irreversible. good nutrition – an adequate, well-balanced diet combined with regular physical activity – is a cornerstone of good health. healthy children are better in education, stronger, more productive, and more able to create opportunities to break the cycle of both poverty and hunger in a sustainable way (who, 2008). malnutrition is alarming for developing countries including bangladesh. it is due to improper knowledge about nutrition of food, ignorance, improper diet, illiteracy, lower family income, poverty, mother occupation, father occupation, densely populated area, sanitation, unhygienic environment, mother education about nutrition, family size, practice of breastfeeding, complete immunization is significant with nutritional status of children. an unhygienic environment and lack of sanitation lead to illness fever, diarrhea which can result in malnutrition. low birth weight, low height, and weight of mothers who do not breastfeed also manipulate malnutrition. food insecurity, particularly due to insufficient food access caused by high levels of poverty, as well as food price volatility, natural disasters, and limited land for cultivation. (bosak et al, 2018). it is necessary to increase the sincerity to find out the determinants of undernutrition and take efficient action to eliminate it in lowand middle-income countries (lmics) like bangladesh. although various pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 ngo and government are working for malnutrition, lack of coordination to act on nutrition between and among government ministries, donors, different levels of government, and implementing bodies, such as nongovernmental organizations, at the local level (chaparro et al., 2014) make it difficult to eradicate malnutrition. this study aimed to explore the stunted, wasted, and underweight status of children (6-59 months old) in the study area in dinajpur district, bangladesh. the study’s objective was to know the prevalence of nutrition and health status of children of the rural populations. materials and method the community-based cross-sectional study was conducted at different locations in the dinajpur district of bangladesh. the study area mainly covered dinajpur sadar, kaharole, and birganj upazila of dinajpur district. dinajpur is one of the extreme northern districts of bangladesh. in dinajpur, the poverty level is comparatively high compared with the national average. the study period was january 2017 to january 2018. sampling design and sample size the sample size was determined using the formula: n = z2pq / d2 where, n = required sample size z = 90% of confident limits (1.645) p= 0.36(the prevalence rate of stunting status of under five children in bangladesh (bdhs, 2014). d = precision or error allowed in the study = 6.5% = 0.065 n= z2 × p(1-p)/m2 = (1.645)2 × 0.36 × 0.64/ (0.065)2 =147 to find the adjusted sample size, allowing nonresponse rate of 20%, the adjusted sample size will be 147+20%=176. but in this study the children of under five families were found for data collection as sample 165. data collection instruments a pre-coded and pre-tested questionnaire was administered to the respondents by asking questions. both qualitative and quantitative data were collected by interviewing. the questionnaire was designed to collect a bulk of socio-economic, demographic characteristics, health, intake of food related questions. variables used for this study dependent and independent variables were selected first, before performing any statistical analysis. independent variables 1. age of children 2. gender of children 3. child breast feeding status 4. educational level of mother 5. educational level of father 6. religion of family 7. father occupation 8. mother occupation 9. monthly income of family 10. total number of children of the family 11. number of children under 5 years of age dependent variables 1. height-for-age z-scores 2. weight-for-age z-scores 3. weight-for-height z-scores assessment of nutritional status there are several ways to assess the nutritional status of children. stunting stunting referred to low height-for-age. a child who is stunted or chronically malnourished often appears to be normally proportioned but is actually shorter than normal for his/her age. due to poor diets or recurrent infections children who suffer from growth retardation tend to be at greater risk for illness and death. the effects of stunting are largely irreversible and generally occurs before age two. wasting wasting, or low weight for height, is a sturdy predictor of mortality among children under five. wasting indicates current or acute malnutrition resulting from failure to gain weight or actual weight loss (cogill,2003). it is the result of insufficient food intake or a high incidence of infectious diseases, especially diarrhea. it impairs the execution of the immune system and can lead to enlarged harshness and duration of and vulnerability to infectious diseases and an increased risk for death. underweight underweight means below a weight considered normal or desirable. a person may become underweight due to metabolism, drug use, lack of food (frequently due to poverty), eating disorder, or illness (both physical and mental), genetics, etc. anthropometric indices anthropometric indices are an essential part of the interpretation of anthropometric measurements (who,1986). indices are formed from two or more raw anthropometric measurements. various types of anthropometric indices are: weight for age z scores (waz) according to unicef, moderate and severe below minus two standard deviations from median weight for age of reference population; severe below minus three standard deviations from median weight for age of reference population. w/a is commonly used for monitoring growth and to assess changes in the magnitude of malnutrition over time. weight for age composite measure of height-for-age and weight-for-height, making interpretation difficult. weight for age reflects body mass relative to age. pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 the reference standards (nchs cut-off point) of height and weight data are given below: severe (waz =< -3.00 sd) moderate (-2.99 =<waz =< -2.00) not underweighted (waz > -2.00 sd) weight-for-height z – scores (whz) according to who, is defined as a weight-for-age between -3 and -2 z-scores below the median of the who child growth standards. it can be due to a low weight-for-height (wasting) or a low height-for-age (stunting) or to a combination of both. weight for height is a sensitive index of current nutritional status. the reference standards (nchs cut-off point) of height and weight data are given below: severe (whz =< -3.00 sd) moderate (-2.99 =<whz =< -2.00) not wasted (whz > -2.00 sd) height-for-age z –scores (haz) children are defined as stunted if their height-for-age is more than two standard deviations below the who child growth standards median (who, 2018). low h/a relative to a child of the same sex and age in the reference population are referred to as “shortness”. it cannot measure short term changes in malnutrition. stunting is a slowing of skeletal growth and of stature, defined by waterlow, et. al. (1977) as “the end result of a reduced rate of linear growth”. it results from long time inadequate food intake and increased morbidity and is generally found in developing countries where economic conditions are poor. the reference standards (nchs cut-off point) of height and weight data are given below: severe (haz =< -3.00 sd) moderate (-2.99 =<haz =< -2.00 sd) not stunted (haz> -2.00 sd) formula for calculating z-scores weight for age z= observed weight at age x – standard weight at age x/standard deviation of weight at age x height for age= observed height at height x – standard height at age x/standard deviation of height at age x weight for height =observed weight at height x standard height at height x/standard deviation of weight at height x software used and statistical analysis for the study for socio-economic, demographic, health and food preferences data analysis, general statistical software spss22.0 was used. for identifying risk factors associated with child health and nutrition anthro software was used to calculate z-scores. for the chi-square test we used a custom table. the overall software used for data entry, data analysis, graphical representation and writing reports were spss 22.0, anthro, ms word, ms-excel etc. descriptive measures, like, means, variances, proportions, standard error of mean were calculated. to test the significance of the association between two categorical variables chi-square (x2)-test was used. logistic (binary) regression binary logistic regression estimates the probability that a characteristic is present (e.g., estimate probability of ‘success”) given the values of explanatory variables, in this case a single categorical variable; π =pr (y=1/x=x). single level binary logistic regression let y be a dichotomous dependent variable, say nutritional status taking values 0 and 1 and suppose that y=i if a child is malnourished and y=0 otherwise. also let x be an independent variable. then the form of the logistic regression model is then a transformation of p known as the logic transformation and is defined as the importance of this transformation is that g(x) has many of the desirable properties of a linear regression model. the logic, g(x) is linear in its parameters, may be continuous, and may range from -∞ to + ∞ depending on the range of x. for more than one independent variable the model can be generalized as model fit to determine the factors associated with the response variables (e.g., stunning, wasting, and underweight) the cox’s logistic regression model (single level) was fitted and the odds ratio of occurring an event was calculated for different independent variables using spss 22.0. all the independent variables found significant at the bivariate analysis were considered but only the significant variables in regression analysis were retained in the final regression model. the possibility of multicollinearity and confounding was also explored. interaction effects were tested and reported in the result section where found. results and discussion findings the findings from the study are described below. the status of malnutrition noted in the table and graph are of the time period 2017 to 2018: food intake table 1 determined the distribution of food intake frequencies of children (6-59 months) in a week of selected households on a categorical scale. this table indicated that 57.6% of children were breastfeeding and pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 42.4% children were not breastfed. 61.8% of children consumed meat sometimes or never, 33.9% consumed meat 2-4 days, 4.2% consumed 5-7 times per week. regarding fish, 29.7% consumed sometimes or never, 47.3% consumed 2-4 times per week, 23% consumed 5-7 times per week. 35.8% of children sometimes or never, 32.7% children 2-4 times per week, 31.5% children 5-7 times per week consumed egg. cow milk was consumed 2-4 times per week by 6.7 % children, 5-7 times per week by 23% children and 70.3% children consumed sometimes or never. in the case of citrus fruits, 47.9% children sometimes or never, 40% children 2-4 times per week, 12.1% children 5-7 times per week were consumed. 49.7% children sometimes or never, 33.9% children 2-4 times per week, 16.4% children 5-7 times per week consumed color fruits. results implied that 56.4% children 2-4 times per week, 21.2% children 5-7 times per week and 22.4% children sometimes or never consumed leafy vegetables. besides, color vegetables were consumed by 35.2% children sometimes or never, 2-4 times per week by 42.4% children, 5-7 times per week by 22.4% children.14.5% children sometimes or never, 67.9% children 2-4 times per week, 17.6% children 5-7 times per week consumed other vegetables. most of the children, 94.5% were consumed rice bread and 5.5% children were not consumed. in case of pulses, 47.3% children sometimes or never, 33.9% children 2-4 times per week, 18.8% children 5-7 times per week consumed pulses. 23.1% children sometimes or never 47.3% children 2-4 times per week, 29.1% children 5-7 times per week consumed cake, biscuits etc. table 1: percentage distribution of food intake frequencies of children per week of selected rural families having children (aged 6-59 months old) in dinajpur district variables categories no % current breastfeeding of child yes 95 57.6 no 70 42.4 subtotal 165 100.0 meat consumption sometimes/never 102 61.8 2-4 times/week 56 33.9 5-7 times/week 7 4.2 subtotal 165 100.0 fish consumption sometimes/never 49 29.7 2-4 times/week 78 47.3 5-7 times/week 38 23.0 subtotal 165 100.0 egg consumption sometimes/never 59 35.8 2-4 times/week 54 32.7 5-7 times/week 52 31.5 subtotal 165 100.0 cowmilk consumption sometimes/never 116 70.3 2-4 times/week 11 6.7 5-7 times/week 38 23.0 subtotal 165 100.0 citrus fruit consumption sometimes/never 79 47.9 2-4 times/week 66 40.0 5-7 times/week 20 12.1 subtotal 165 100.0 color fruit consumption sometimes/never 82 49.7 2-4 times/week 56 33.9 5-7 times/week 27 16.4 subtotal 165 100.0 leafy vegetables consumption sometimes/never 37 22.4 2-4 times/week 93 56.4 5-7 times/week 35 21.2 subtotal 165 100.0 pa ge 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 color vegetables consumption sometimes/never 58 35.2 2-4 times/week 70 42.4 5-7 times/week 37 22.4 subtotal 165 100.0 other vegetables consumption sometimes/never 24 14.5 2-4 times/week 112 67.9 5-7 times/week 29 17.6 subtotal 165 100.0 rice, bread consumption yes 156 94.5 no 9 5.5 subtotal 165 100 pulse consumption sometimes/never 78 47.3 2-4 times/week 56 33.9 5-7 times/week 31 18.8 subtotal 165 100.0 cake, biscuits consumption sometimes/never 39 23.6 2-4 times/week 78 47.3 5-7 times/week 48 29.1 subtotal 165 100 nutritional status of children under –five of selected rural families and identification of causal factors table 2 showed that the average height of boys and girls were 82.99 cm and 84.16 cm. the average weight of boys and girls were 10.97 kg and 10.78 kg weight were significant. it indicated the average height of female children were higher than male children. but the average weight of male and female children was almost the same. the average weight for age for boy and girl were -1.53 sd and -1.66 sd. it showed that the value was greater than -2 sd which indicated normal underweight. the average height for age for boy and girl was -1.64 sd and -1.71 sd which were greater than -2 sd and also showed normal stunting status. the average weight for height of boy and girl was height -.67 sd and -.75 sd that were also greater than – 2 sd which showed normal wasting. results of average z-scores also indicated that the prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight children for female was higher than male children. table 2: mean, standard deviation and standard error of mean of anthropometric indicators of 6-59 months old children of selected rural families by gender, 2017-18. gender n mean std. deviation std. error mean height(cm) boy 82 82.9906 13.25411 1.46367 girl 83 84.1566 11.74473 1.28915 p value (t-test) .114 weight(kg) boy 82 10.9721 3.10307 .34268 girl 83 10.7867 2.40962 .26449 p value (t-test) .006 weight for age boy 82 -1.5356 1.10017 .12149 girl 83 -1.6698 1.12128 .12308 p value (t-test) .646 height for age boy 82 -1.6483 1.29220 .14270 girl 83 -1.7187 1.44628 .15875 p value (t-test) .470 weight for height boy 82 -.6723 1.20067 .13259 girl 83 -.7504 1.19436 .13110 p value (t-test) .921 pa ge 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 table 3 demonstrated the mean and standard error of mean of the anthropometric indices according to age category of selected surveyed children of 6-59 months old. for children aged 6-12 months old, the mean of height of boy and girl were 67.25 cm and 63.71 cm. for children aged 13-24 months old, the mean of height of boy and girl were 76.87 cm and 74.19 cm. for children aged 25 and above months old, the mean of height of boy and girl were 92.17 cm and 90.56 cm. it clearly indicated that for each group of age the average height of male is higher than female. the average weight of male and female children were 7.47 kg and 7.81 kg for aged 6-12 months old, 9.52 kg and 8.78 for aged 13-24 months old, 13.04 kg and 11.93 kg for aged 25 and above months old children. results indicated that weight of boy and girl was almost same at the age of 6-12 months old, but weight of male was higher than female for remaining two group. the mean z-scores value of weight for age for boy (-1.25 sd) and girl (-.39 sd) for aged 6-12 months old, boy (-1.89 sd) and girl ( -1.71 sd) for 13-24 months old, boy (-1.55 sd) and girl (-1.82 sd) which were greater than -2sd that indicates normal underweight of children for each group. the mean z-scores value of height for age for boy (-1.35 sd) and girl (-2.04 sd) for aged 6-12 months old, boy (-1.93 sd) and girl ( -1.98 sd) for 1324 months old, boy (-1.69 sd) and girl (-1.58 sd) which were greater than -2sd that indicates normal underweight of children for each group. at age 6-12 months female were moderately stunted where male was normal. the remaining two group of age were normal. the mean z-scores value of weight for height for boy (-.51 sd) and girl (1.68 sd) for aged 6-12 months old, boy (-.83 sd) and girl (-.68 sd) for 13-24 months old, boy (-.69 sd) and girl (-1.09 sd) which were greater than -2sd that indicates normal wasting status of children for each group. among the 6-59 months old children of selected rural families. among the children, 61.2% were not stunted, 22.4% were moderately stunted and 16.4% were severely stunted. whereas 58.8% were not underweight, 35.2% were moderately uunderweight and 6.1% were severely underweight. findings also shows that among them 87.9% of children were not wasted. 9.1% were moderately wasted, and 3% were severely wasted. table 3: mean, standard deviation and standard error of mean of anthropometric indicators according to age category of 6-59 months old children of selected rural families by gender, 2017-18. age in months 6-12 13-24 25 and above gender boy girl boy girl boy girl mean se mean se mean se mean se mean se mean se height(cm) 67.25 1.13 63.71 1.02 76.87 1.55 74.19 1.12 92.17 1.31 90.56 1.08 weight(kg) 7.47 0.30 7.81 0.42 9.52 0.51 8.78 0.26 13.04 0.31 11.93 0.27 weight for age -1.25 0.29 -0.39 0.52 -1.89 0.36 -1.71 0.23 -1.55 0.12 -1.82 0.14 height for age -1.35 0.29 -2.04 0.63 -1.93 0.35 -1.98 0.37 -1.69 0.19 -1.58 0.18 weight for height -0.51 0.37 1.68 0.39 -.83 0.41 -0.68 0.18 -0.69 0.11 -1.09 0.13 table 4: stunting status of children according to socio-demographic, economic and household charateristics of selected rural families having children (aged 6-59 months old) in dinajpur district, 2017-2018. variables categories stunting status not stunting stunting no % no % age of children in months 6-12 17 16.8 11 17.2 13-24 18 17.8 18 28.1 25 and above 66 65.3 35 54.7 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 2.636ns gender male 51 50.5 31 48.4 female 50 49.5 33 51.6 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square .066 ns pa ge 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 religion muslim 79 78.2 58 90.6 hindu and others 22 21.8 6 9.4 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 4.280* type of family nuclear 79 78.2 43 67.2 joint 22 21.8 21 32.8 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 2.474 ns father occupation farmer 35 34.7 22 34.4 day labour 38 37.6 26 40.6 service holder and other 28 27.7 16 25.0 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square .201 ns mother occupation housewife 81 80.2 53 82.8 day labour 11 10.9 6 9.4 service holder and other 9 8.9 5 7.8 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square .176 ns monthly income of family (tk) =<10000 58 57.4 27 42.2 >10000 43 42.6 37 57.8 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 3.642*** mother education no formal education 29 28.7 9 14.1 primary 48 47.5 44 68.8 secondary and above 24 23.8 11 17.2 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 7.615* father education no formal education 32 31.7 20 31.2 primary 39 38.6 35 54.7 secondary and above 30 29.7 9 14.1 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 6.314* total number of children of family 1 41 40.6 27 42.2 2-3 and above 60 59.4 37 57.8 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square .041 ns number of children under 5 year 1 81 80.2 49 76.6 2 20 19.8 15 23.4 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square .310 ns criteria of child's daily activity very active 92 91.1 61 95.3 active several hours 9 8.9 3 4.7 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 1.036 ns note: level of significance*p<0.05, **p<0.01, **p<0.10, ns = not significant table 4 clearly shows the association with stunting status of children according to socio-demographic, economic and household characteristics of selected families. results revealed that religion, monthly income of family mother education, father education had significant association with stunting status of children. pa ge 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 table 5: underweighting status of children according to socio-demographic, economic and household charateristics of selected rural families having children (aged 6-59 months old) in dinajpur district, 2017-2018 variables categories underweighting status not underweighted underweighted no % no % age of children in months 6-12 20 20.6 8 11.8 13-24 18 18.6 18 26.5 25 and above 59 60.8 42 61.8 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square 3.000 ns gender male 53 54.6 29 42.6 female 44 45.4 39 57.4 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square 2.300 ns religion muslim 76 78.4 61 89.7 hindu and others 21 21.6 7 10.3 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square 3.658*** type of family nuclear 71 73.2 51 75.0 joint 26 26.8 17 25.0 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .068 ns father occupation farmer 34 35.1 23 33.8 day labour 34 35.1 30 44.1 service holder and other 29 29.9 15 22.1 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square 1.786 ns mother occupation housewife 76 78.4 58 85.3 day labour 13 13.4 4 5.9 service holder and other 8 8.2 6 8.8 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square 2.447 ns monthly income of family (tk) =<10000 52 53.6 33 48.5 >10000 45 46.4 35 51.5 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .413 ns mother education no formal education 21 21.6 17 25.0 primary 53 54.6 39 57.4 secondary and above 23 23.7 12 17.6 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .941 ns father education no formal education 33 34.0 19 27.9 primary 39 40.2 35 51.5 secondary and above 25 25.8 14 20.6 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square 2.055 ns pa ge 9 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 total number of children of family 1 39 40.2 29 42.6 2-3 and above 58 59.8 39 57.4 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .098 ns number of children under 5 year 1 75 77.3 55 80.9 2 22 22.7 13 19.1 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .304 ns criteria of child's daily activity very active 91 93.8 62 91.2 active several hours 6 6.2 6 8.8 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .413 ns note: level of significance*p<0.05, **p<0.01, **p<0.10, ns = not significant table 6: wasting status of children according to socio-demographic, economic and household charateristics of selected rural families having children (aged 6-59 months old) in dinajpur district, 2017-2018. variables categories wasting status not wasting wasting no % no % age of children in months 6-12 23 15.9 5 25.0 13-24 32 22.1 4 20.0 25 and above 90 62.1 11 55.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square 1.043 ns gender male 73 50.3 9 45.0 female 72 49.7 11 55.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square .201 ns religion muslim 120 82.8 17 85.0 hindu and others 25 17.2 3 15.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square .063 ns type of family nuclear 108 74.5 14 70.0 joint 37 25.5 6 30.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square .183 ns father occupation farmer 50 34.5 7 35.0 day labour 56 38.6 8 40.0 service holder and other 39 26.9 5 25.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square .034 ns mother occupation housewife 119 82.1 15 75.0 day labour 14 9.7 3 15.0 service holder and other 12 8.3 2 10.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square .657 ns pa ge 10 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 monthly income of family (tk) =<10000 74 51.0 11 55.0 >10000 71 49.0 9 45.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square .111 ns mother education no formal education 33 22.8 5 25.0 primary 80 55.2 12 60.0 secondary and above 32 22.1 3 15.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square .526 ns father education no formal education 45 31.0 7 35.0 primary 65 44.8 9 45.0 secondary and above 35 24.1 4 20.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square .215 ns total number of children of family 1 59 40.7 9 45.0 2-3 and above 86 59.3 11 55.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square .135 ns number of children under 5 year 1 115 79.3 15 75.0 2 30 20.7 5 25.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square .195 ns criteria of child's daily activity very active 137 94.5 16 80.0 active several hours 8 5.5 4 20.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square 5.467* note: level of significance*p<0.05**p<0.01, **p<0.10,, ns = not significant table 6 clearly showed the association with stunting status of children according to socio –demographic, economic and household characteristics of selected rural families. results revealed that criteria of child’s daily activity had significant association with stunting status of children. table 7: stunting status of children according to food intake frequencies of children per week of selected rural families having children (aged 6-59 months old) in dinajpur district, 2017-2018. variables categories stunting status not stunting stunting no % no % do you breastfeed your child yes 54 53.5 41 64.1 no 47 46.5 23 35.9 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 1.801 ns meat consumption sometimes/never 61 60.4 41 64.1 2-4 times/week 36 35.6 20 31.2 5-7 times/week 4 4.0 3 4.7 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square .357 ns pa ge 11 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 fish consumption sometimes/never 33 32.7 16 25.0 2-4 times/week 48 47.5 30 46.9 5-7 times/week 20 19.8 18 28.1 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 1.959 ns egg consumption sometimes/never 28 27.7 31 48.4 2-4 times/week 38 37.6 16 25.0 5-7 times/week 35 34.7 17 26.6 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 7.423* cow milk consumption sometimes/never 65 64.4 51 79.7 2-4 times/week 10 9.9 1 1.6 5-7 times/week 26 25.7 12 18.8 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 6.227* citrus fruit consumption sometimes/never 41 40.6 38 59.4 2-4 times/week 44 43.6 22 34.4 5-7 times/week 16 15.8 4 6.2 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 6.687* color fruit consumption sometimes/never 49 48.5 33 51.6 2-4 times/week 33 32.7 23 35.9 5-7 times/week 19 18.8 8 12.5 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 1.150 ns leafy vegetables consumption sometimes/never 22 21.8 15 23.4 2-4 times/week 58 57.4 35 54.7 5-7 times/week 21 20.8 14 21.9 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square .122 ns color vegetables consumption sometimes/never 38 37.6 20 31.2 2-4 times/week 39 38.6 31 48.4 5-7 times/week 24 23.8 13 20.3 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 1.552 ns other vegetables consumption sometimes/never 17 16.8 7 10.9 2-4 times/week 65 64.4 47 73.4 5-7 times/week 19 18.8 10 15.6 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 chi-square 1.638 ns rice, bread consumption yes 97 93.1 62 96.9 no 7 6.9 2 3.1 subtotal 101 100 64 100 chi-square 1.100 ns pulse consumption sometimes/never 49 48.5 29 45.3 2-4 times/week 34 33.7 22 34.4 5-7 times/week 18 17.8 13 20.3 subtotal 101 100.0 64 100.0 pa ge 12 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 chi-square .220 ns cake, biscuits consumption sometimes/never 26 25.7 13 20.3 2-4 times/ week 46 45.5 32 50 5-7 times/week 29 28.7 19 29.7 subtotal 101 100 64 100 chi-square .666 ns note: level of significance*p<0.05, **p<0.01, **p<0.10, ns = not significant table 7 clearly revealed the association with stunting status of children according to food intake frequencies of children per week of selected rural families. results indicated that consumption of egg, cow milk, citrus fruit per week had significant association with stunting status of children. table 8: underweight status of children according to food intake of children per week of selected rural families having children (aged 6-59 months old) in dinajpur district, 2017-2018. variables categories underweighting status not underweighted underweighted no % no % do you breastfeed your child yes 57 58.8 38 55.9 no 40 41.2 30 44.1 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .136 ns meat consumption sometimes/never 64 66.0 38 55.9 2-4 times/week 31 32.0 25 36.8 5-7 times/week 2 2.1 5 7.4 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square 3.569 ns fish consumption sometimes/never 29 29.9 20 29.4 2-4 times/week 45 46.4 33 48.5 5-7 times/week 23 23.7 15 22.1 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .089 ns egg consumption sometimes/never 33 34.0 26 38.2 2-4 times/week 34 35.1 20 29.4 5-7 times/week 30 30.9 22 32.4 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .613 ns cow milk consumption sometimes/never 69 71.1 47 69.1 2-4 times/week 7 7.2 4 5.9 5-7 times/week 21 21.6 17 25.0 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .325 ns citrus fruit consumption sometimes/never 46 47.4 33 48.5 2-4 times/week 39 40.2 27 39.7 5-7 times/week 12 12.4 8 11.8 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .025 ns pa ge 13 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 color fruit consumption sometimes/never 48 49.5 34 50.0 2-4 times/week 33 34.0 23 33.8 5-7 times/week 16 16.5 11 16.2 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .005 ns leafy vegetables consumption sometimes/never 24 24.7 13 19.1 2-4 times/week 52 53.6 41 60.3 5-7 times/week 21 21.6 14 20.6 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .902 ns color vegetables consumption sometimes/never 34 35.1 24 35.3 2-4 times/week 42 43.3 28 41.2 5-7 times/week 21 21.6 16 23.5 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .106 ns other vegetables consumption sometimes/never 14 14.4 10 14.7 2-4 times/week 65 67.0 47 69.1 5-7 times/week 18 18.6 11 16.2 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .157 ns rice, bread consumption yes 90 92.8 66 97.1 no 7 7.2 2 2.9 subtotal 97 100 68 100 chi-square 1.417 ns pulse consumption sometimes/never 46 47.4 32 47.1 2-4 times/week 35 36.1 21 30.9 5-7 times/week 16 16.5 15 22.1 subtotal 97 100.0 68 100.0 chi-square .978 ns cake, biscuits consumption sometimes/never 26 26.8 13 19.1 2-4 times/week 41 42.3 37 54.4 30 30.9 18 26.5 subtotal 97 100 68 100 chi-square 2.519 ns note: level of significance*p<0.05, **p<0.01, **p<0.10, ns = not significant table 9: wasting status of children according to food intake of children per week of selected rural families having children (aged 6-59 months old) in dinajpur district, 2017-2018. variables categories wasting status not wasting wasting no % no % do you breastfeed your child yes 84 57.9 11 55.0 no 61 42.1 9 45.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square .062 ns meat consumption sometimes/never 91 62.8 11 55.0 2-4 times/week 49 33.8 7 35.0 5-7 times/week 5 3.4 2 10.0 pa ge 14 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square 1.957 ns fish consumption sometimes/never 42 29.0 7 35.0 2-4 times/week 69 47.6 9 45.0 5-7 times/week 34 23.4 4 20.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square .331 ns egg consumption sometimes/never 54 37.2 5 25.0 2-4 times/week 45 31.0 9 45.0 5-7 times/week 46 31.7 6 30.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square 1.801 cow milk consumption sometimes/never 103 71.0 13 65.0 2-4 times/week 8 5.5 3 15.0 5-7 times/week 34 23.4 4 20.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square 2.552 ns citrus fruit consumption sometimes/never 69 47.6 10 50.0 2-4 times/week 58 40.0 8 40.0 5-7 times/week 18 12.4 2 10.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square .106 ns color fruit consumption sometimes/never 70 48.3 12 60.0 2-4 times/week 49 33.8 7 35.0 5-7 times/week 26 17.9 1 5.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square 2.290 ns leafy vegetables consumption sometimes/never 32 22.1 5 25.0 2-4 times/week 78 53.8 15 75.0 5-7 times/week 35 24.1 0 .0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square 6.297* color vegetables consumption sometimes/never 48 33.1 10 50.0 2-4 times/week 62 42.8 8 40.0 5-7 times/week 35 24.1 2 10.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square 3.026ns other vegetables consumption sometimes/never 19 13.1 5 25.0 2-4 times/week 97 66.9 15 75.0 5-7 times/week 29 20.0 0 .0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square 5.880*** rice, bread yes 139 95.9 17 85 no 6 4.1 3 15 subtotal 145 100 20 100 chi-square 4.021*** pa ge 15 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 pulse consumption sometimes/never 66 45.5 12 60.0 2-4 times/week 54 37.2 2 10.0 5-7 times/week 25 17.2 6 30.0 subtotal 145 100.0 20 100.0 chi-square 6.146* cake, biscuits consumption sometimes/never 32 22.1 7 35.0 2-4 times/week 69 47.6 9 45.0 5-7 times/week 44 30.3 4 20 subtotal 145 100 20 100 chi-square 1.915 ns note: level of significance*p<0.05, **p<0.01, **p<0.10, ns = not significant table 9 showed the association with children’s wasting status according to children’s food intake frequencies per week of selected families. results revealed that consumption of leafy vegetables, other vegetables, rice, bread, pulses per week had significant association with wasting status of children. binary logistic regression analysis was performed to identify the factors affecting the stunting status of the rural children in the study area in dinajpur. for this analysis, we merged two categories of stunting i.e., severe and moderate as stunted (code1) and other category remained as not stunted (code 0). various socio-demographic and economic variables such as gender, religion, type of family, father occupation, mother occupation, monthly income of family, mother education, father education, age of children was inserted in the binary logistic regression model as independent categories. table 10: results of binary logistic regression analysis of significant studied variables for stunting of children aged 6-59 months old of selected rural families according to socio-demographic, economic and household characteristics in selected areas dinajpur district, 2017-18. variables level b s.e df p value odds ratio (or) 95% c.i. for or lower upper type of family nuclear -.776 .401 1 .053 .460 .210 1.011 joint (rc) 1.00 monthly income of family =<10000 0.224 .180 1 .003 1.251 0.879 1.780 >10000 (rc) 1.00 father education no formal education 1.739 .514 1 .001 5.691 2.080 15.572 primary 1.700 .573 1 .003 5.472 1.782 16.807 secondary and above (rc) 1.00 note: rc-reference category; level of significance*p<0.05, **p<0.01 table 10 showed the significant studied variables for stunting status of selected rural families children aged 6-59 months old at study area in dinajpur district. the variables like type of family, monthly income of family and father education were statistically significant variables with stunting status of children. result shows that children of nuclear families were .460 times lower risk of being stunting then joint families. it means the risk of stunting number decreases among children with the increase the family members. the families having monthly income <= 10,000 (tk) had 1.250 times higher risk of being stunted than monthly income of family more than 10,000 (tk). it implied risk of stunting status reduced among children with the increase of their monthly income. children stunting status increased in 5.69 and 5.47 times for the no formal and primary educated fathers respectively compared to the children of secondary and above level educated fathers. it indicated that risk of stunted children reduced with the increase of their father’s education. table 11: results of binary logistic regression analysis of significant studied variables for stunting of children aged 6-59 months old of selected rural families according to food consumption frequencies of children in selected areas of dinajpur district, 2017-18. variables level b s.e df p value odds ratio (or) 95% c.i. for or lower upper fish consumption sometimes/ never 1.058 .536 1 .020 2.880 1.007 8.236 pa ge 16 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 2-4 times/week .437 .375 1 .358 1.548 .742 2.228 5-7times/week (rc) 1.00 egg consumption sometimes/ never 1.019 .475 1 .032 2.772 1.092 7.036 2-4 times/week .062 .484 1 .497 1.064 .412 2.747 5-7times/week (rc) 1.00 cow milk consumption sometimes/ never .397 1 .247 1.487 .651 3.396 2-4 times/week .818 .615 1 .048 2.265 .678 2.023 5-7times/week (rc) 1.00 note: rc-reference category; level of significance*p<0.05, **p<0.01 in table 11 we used different food consumption habits such as meat, fish, egg, cow milk, citrus fruits, color fruits and other, leafy vegetables, color vegetables, other vegetables, rice, pulses consumption per week to find out the stunting status of children using binary logistic regression model. for this analysis, we merged two categories of stunting i.e., severe and moderate as stunted (code1) and other category remained as not stunted (code 0). table 11 showed the result of binary logistic regression analysis of significant studied variables for stunting of selected rural families children aged 6-59 months old at study area in dinajpur district. the variables like fish consumption, egg consumption and cow milk consumption were found statistically significant with stunting status of children. children who consumed fish sometimes/never were 2.280 times higher risk of being stunted than who consumed 5-7 times/week. it implied the risk of stunting reduced among children with the increase of fish consumption. children who consumed egg sometimes/never per week were 2.722 times higher risk of being stunted than who consumed 5-7 times/week. it implied the risk of stunting reduced among children with the increase of egg consumption also. children who consumed cow milk 2-4 times/week were 2.265 times higher risk of being stunted than who consumed 5-7 times/week. that means the risk of stunting number reduced among children with the increase of cow milk consumption the child age under five. discussion majumdar et. al. (2011) has conducted a similar study socioeconomic and demographic determinants: malnutrition of 6-59 months old rural santal children and food security status of their families in dinajpur during 2011-12. that study found that factor showing significant role of hunger families are age of hh head, occupation of housewife, earning family members, monthly family income and child breastfeeding status. the currents study supports the statements. islam and biswas (2015) stated the same. ng children under the age of five. in rural areas, stunting prevalence rate was found to be more than six times higher than in urban areas. income inequality was also a significant predictor of stunting. similarly, the level of mother’s education is strongly related to stunting: the higher the level of mothers’ education, the lower the prevalence rate of stunting among children under five. since wealth or income is a strong predictor of place of residence (urban/rural) as well as mothers’ level of education. hoque et al. (2016) conducted a survey on nutritional status among under-5 children of a selected slum in dhaka city. regarding anthropometric assessment according to weight for height z-score, 39% were wasted moderately and 13% were severely wasted and height for age z-score, showed 47% of children were stunted moderately and 14% children were severely stunted. according to weight for age zscore, 46% of children were moderately underweight and 16% children were severely underweight. mustafa et al. (2017) surveyed of nutritional status of children of under-5, attending a district hospital – a secondary level care hospital at gazipur district hospital. their findings reflects that the rural children are more unfortunate. a study conducted by roy roy et al. (2015) found that breastfeeding practice and monthly family income were significantly associated with wasting, stunting and underweight. children who were not exclusively breast fed had higher rate of moderate wasting (59.5%), stunting (70.5%) and underweight (74.6%). children with illiterate father were found to have more odd value of having wasting, stunting and underweight compared to literate father. furthermore, early age (6-24 month) of children is more susceptible for malnutrition as compared to the age (2559 months) of children. bosak et al. (2018) reviewed the contribution of the non-government organizations in bangladesh studying the malnutrition status in dinajpur. analyses determined that only 21.2% households were food secured, while 78.8% households were insecure. among the insecure families about 19.4% households were insecure in food without hunger, 20.6% households were food insecure with moderate hunger and 38.8% families were insecure in food with severe hunger. overall, 59.4% farmers’ families were hunger and rest of them was not hunger (40.6%). but food insecurity level as well as hunger families were more prevalent among the families of landless farmers compared to marginal and small groups. only 3.6% families give rich foods to the female child. binary logistic regression analysis found that total land of the family, total family members and monthly family income were the significant contributing factors for determining hunger and not-hunger families. according to rahman et al. (2017) family income, maintain proper diet during pregnancy period, proper pa ge 17 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 3(2) 1-17, 2024 diet maintains for children have negative significant effect on child malnutrition. debnath et al. (2017) accompanied a survey on malnutrition and morbidity profile of under five in a rural area of bangladesh. they found that about one-third (33.5%) of the children were stunted in height for age z score. while 23.3% were moderately wasted and 6.5% were severely wasted in weight for height z score. severely underweight was 8.6%, 20.6% were moderately underweight and 70.8% of the children’s weight was within the normal limit for their age. in muac measurement, about one-fourth (21.8%) were moderate acute malnutrition (mam) and 1.1% were severe acute malnutrition (sam). most prevalent disease (45.0%) was the diarrhoeal disease with respiratory tract infection was 32.0% and pneumonia was 18.0%. conclusion although the stunting, underweight, and wasting status of children have decreased in the past few years, the percentage rate is still high in bangladesh and is a serious problem for our country. in the study area, the prevalence of underweight children (41.3%) was comparatively higher than stunted children (38.8%) and wasted children (12.1%). results showed that the prevalence of stunting and underweight status were higher than the national level of bangladesh, which is very concerning. the female children were more stunted, underweighted and wasted than male children. religion, the family’s monthly income, the mother’s education, and the father’s education were considerably dependent on the stunting status of the children. but wasting status of children was associated with criteria of child daily activity. egg, cow milk, and citrus fruit consumption was also dependent on the stunting status of children. but leafy vegetables, other vegetables, rice bread, and pulse consumption depended on children’s wasting status. the type of family, monthly income of the family, and the father’s education were major determinants of the stunting status of children. consumption of fish, cow milk, and egg were also the most important determinants of the stunting status of children. it is necessary to increase awareness about child nutrition and the quantity of food consumed. educating presents by training about the nutrition of child, nutrition of food and diet chart of children. persuading father and mother to regularly measure the height and weight of children will improve the situation. government and ngos should pay concentration to the nutrition status of rural children in relation to underweight and stunting. acknowledgments the authors are grateful to samia arfin and junaida binta rahman for their kind help in data collection in the rural area. tabassum rahman supports in data accumulation, sincere thanks to her. references bosak, l., majumder, u. k. & sarker, b. c. (2018). food security level and hunger status of a ngo supported farmers’ families in dinajpur, bangladesh. iosr journal of humanities and social science (iosr-jhss) 23(2), 39-47. chaparro, c., oot, l. & sethuraman, k. 2014. bangladesh nutrition profile. washington, dc: fhi 360/fanta. cogill, b. (2003). anthropometric indicators measurement guide. food and nutrition technical assistance project, academy for educational development, washington, d. c. debnath, s. c., b. k., islam, m. z. & samin, s. (2017). malnutrition and morbidity profile of under five children: a cross-sectional scenario in a rural area of bangladesh. moj public health, 5(6), 1-5. hoque, m. a., sayeed, m. a., ahsan, m. r., mamun, m.a.a. & salim, f. (2016). nutritional status among under-5 children of a selected slum in dhaka city. northern international medical college journal, 7(02), 143145. islam, a., & biswas, t. (2015). chronic stunting among under-5 children in bangladesh: a situation analysis. advances in pediatric research, 2(18). https://doi. org/10.12715/apr.2015.2.18 majumder, u. k., roy, l. n., dey, r., rahman, m. m., & hassan, m. z. (2011). socioeconomic and demographic determinants: malnutrition of 6-59 months old rural santal children and food security status of their families in dinajpur. south asian journal of population and health, 4, issn 1560-4373. mustafa, m., mustafa, m., islam, t. & khan, i.s. (2017). nutritional status of children of under-5, attending a district hospital – a secondary level care hospital. dinajpur medical college journal, 10(1). rahman, m. s., ali, m., & ahmed, n. a. m. f. (2017). contributing factors to under-five child malnutrition in rural bangladesh. juniper online journal of case studies, 4(2). roy, r. k., matubbar, m. s., kamruzzaman, m., & ud-daula, a. (2015). determination of nutritional status of under-five year children employing multiple interrelated contributing factors in southern part of bangladesh. international journal of nutrition and food sciences, 4(3), 264-272. unicef, who, & the world bank. (2012). joint child malnutrition estimates: level and trends in child malnutrition. waterlow, j., buzina, r., keller, w., lane, j., nichaman, m., & tanner, j. (1977). the presentation and use of height and weight data for comparing the nutritional status of groups of children under the age of 10 years. bulletin of the world health organization, 55(4), 489. world health organization. (1986). use and interpretation of anthropometric indicators on nutritional status. bulletin of the world health organization, 64(6), 929-941. world health organization. (2018). world health statistics 2018: monitoring health for the sdgs. pa ge 1 pa ge 21 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) comparative study on the functional, pasting and physicochemical properties of native and pregelatinized cocoyam starch (xanthosoma sagittifolium) a. a. amanyunose1*, b. f. olanipekun1, o. e. adelakun1 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i1.3889 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: october 09, 2024 accepted: november 12, 2024 published: february 08, 2025 this study sought to extract and modify cocoyam starch for industrial use, as it is an underutilized tuber in nigeria. pregelatinization was employed to change cocoyam starch, and the functional, physicochemical, and pasting properties and proximate composition were evaluated using standard methods. the results show that pregelatinization improved the starch’s water absorption capacity (164.333-249.333%), oil absorption capacity (97106.333%), bulk density (0732-0769g/ml), and solubility index (8.667-14.667%), but swelling power dropped (9.553-7.147g.g-1). native cocoyam starch had the lowest gelation capacity (8%), while pregelatinized cocoyam starch had a gelation capacity of 6%. native cocoyam starch outperformed pregelatinized cocoyam starch in terms of peak viscosity (3724.5-944.5 rvu), trough viscosity (3041-822 rvu), breakdown viscosity (683.5-162.5 rvu), and final viscosity (5516.5-1923 rvu). after pregelatinization, cocoyam starch had a higher pasting temperature (83.05-84.4oc) and peak time (5.03-7.0 min). the proximate composition indicates a small increase in carbohydrate and protein concentrations while moisture levels fall. keywords cocoyam, modification, pregelatinization, pasting, starch 1 department of food science, ladoke akintola university of technology, ogbomoso, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: ronkeamanyunose@gmail.com introduction cocoyam is an underutilized tropical crop in nigeria that is abundant in carbohydrates and surpasses other root and tuber crops in terms of protein and amino acid content (obiegbuna et al., 2014). despite this, farming has remained at subsistence level, with the tubers used only for boiling or frying and as a thickening agent in some traditional soup recipes. (ejoh et al., 2013). cocoyam consumption can be increased by using its high starch content for both food and non-food industries (arinola, 2019). according to ashogbon and akintayo (2014), starch is a naturally occurring, biodegradable substance that is widely available. in addition to its various industrial uses as a thickener, stabilizer, gelling agent, encapsulating agent, bulking agent, water retention agent, and adhesive, starch also influences the texture of many meals (singh et al., 2003). water insolubility, retrogradation, heat sensitivity, shear stress, and ph limit the use of native starch. by changing the shape of the starch granules, these restrictions of native starch can be lessened or abolished, leading to enhanced physicochemical qualities (oladebeye et al., 2013). in order to improve its suitability for use in food and other applications, modified starch undergoes physical or chemical changes. desired characteristics that are absent from native starch can be obtained through modification; many functional elements, including gelation, water absorption capacity, and thermal stability, can be brought to acceptable levels (yousif et al., 2012; okunade & arinola, 2021). one physical starch modification technique that is easy, affordable, and safe with no adverse health effects is pregelatinization (ashogbon & akintayo, 2014; majzoobi et al., 2011). because physical alteration doesn’t change the structure of starch granules or generate hazardous waste, it is also chosen (zavareze & dias, 2011). according to okunade and arinola (2021), heat moisture treatment improved cocoyam starch’s pasting qualities. by oxidation, acetylation, and pregelatinization, olatidoye et al., (2019) also enhanced the swelling and solubility of cocoyam starch. in order to gather information for upcoming starch applications in the food sector, the goal of this study is to extract cocoyam starch, pregelatinize it, and compare the physicochemical, pasting, and functional properties of unmodified and modified starches. materials and methods materials cocoyam (xanthosoma sp) used for this research work was obtained from the international institute of tropical agriculture, moniya, ibadan cocoyam starch extraction with minor adjustments, the technique outlined by arawande and ashogbon, (2019) was used to extract starch from cocoyam. cocoyam was peeled. sliced and milled using a milling machine. distilled water was added to the finished slurry (1:4). after passing the mixture through a muslin bag, the starch suspension was allowed to settle overnight at 4°c. after the supernatant had cleared, the white starch sediment was allowed to settle and then decanted after being cleaned three or four times with distilled water. a standard blender was used to blend the separated starch after it had been dried in an oven set to 40°c. before being used, the product was sieved, sealed in ziplock bags, and stored at room temperature (26 ± 2 oc). pa ge 22 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 21-29, 2025 cocoyam starch pregelatinization the pregelatinization procedure described by okunade and arinola, (2021) was used. 150 ml of distilled water and a known weight (100g) of starch sample were heated in a water bath at 80°c for 15 minutes while being manually stirred intermittently with a stirring rod. a stainless steel tray was coated with a thin layer of pregelatinized starch, which was then dried for 24 hours at 40 degrees celsius in the oven. after being processed, sieved, and packed in ziplock bags, this was kept at room temperature (26 ± 2°c) until it was needed. determination of functional properties water absorption capacity this was determined using onwuka’s method (2005). one gram of sample was placed in a clean conical graduated centrifuge tube and aggressively agitated with 10 ml of distilled water using a mixer for 30 seconds. after 30 minutes at room temperature (28 ± 2 °c), the sample was centrifuged at 5000 rpm for 30 minutes. after centrifugation, the volume of supernatant water was measured directly from the graduated centrifuge tube. the absorbed water was then weighed (in grams) by multiplying it by the density of water (1 g/ml). water absorption capacity is expressed as grams of water retained per gram of sample used. oil absorption capacity onwuka, (2005) technique was used to determine this. in a sterile conical graded centrifuge tube, one gram of the material was violently stirred for 30 seconds with 10 milliliters of oil. the sample was centrifuged at 5000 rpm for 30 minutes after being allowed to sit at room temperature (28 ± 2 °c) for 30 minutes. following centrifugation, the graduated centrifuge tube was used to measure the amount of supernatant oil. the weight (in grams) of the absorbed oil was calculated by multiplying it by its density (0.894 g/ml). the amount of oil retained per gram of sample used is the measure of the oil absorption capacity. bulk density the method developed by ashogbon and akintayo, (2013) was used to ascertain this. a 10 ml graduated cylinder was filled with the sample until it reached the 10 ml threshold. to remove air from between the flour mixtures, the cylinder was tapped (agitated) for five minutes. mass per volume (ml) is used to calculate bulk density. solubility the total solubility of the starch samples at room temperature was ascertained using the methodology of gbadamosi and oladeji, (2010). ten milliliters of distilled water were added to a centrifuge tube containing one gram of the material. after combining the mixture and letting it stand for an hour, it was centrifuged for 15 minutes at 4,000 rpm. in a moisture container that had been cleaned and weighed beforehand, the supernatant evaporated. the weight increase of the can over the weight of the sample is used to calculate the solubility, which is then represented as a percentage. swelling power a technique for figuring out the swelling power of modified cocoyam starch was presented by arawande and ashogbon, (2019). after weighing 1g of starch, 50ml of distilled water was added and carefully stirred. the slurry was heated in a water bath at temperatures between 55 and 95 degrees celsius for 15 minutes. to prevent the starch from clumping, the slurry was gently churned. the tubes containing the paste were centrifuged for 10 minutes at 300 rpm after 15 minutes, and the supernatant was promptly decanted. the sediment’s weight was calculated and noted. the dry matter composition of the gel was then ascertained by calculating its moisture content. swelling power=weight of wet sediment/weight of dry matter in the gel (i) ph this was computed by adding 20 milliliters of filtered water to a beaker containing 5 grams of starch. after five minutes of agitation, the resultant suspension was allowed to settle for ten minutes. a calibrated ph meter was used to measure the water phase’s ph (aoac, 2010). least gelation concentration the method developed by onwuka, (2005) was applied to find the lowest gelation concentration. ten test tubes were filled with a 5 ml suspension of starch (2-20% w/v), which was then cooked for an hour at 100 °c in a boiling water bath before being cooled in a cold water bath. each test tube was inverted to determine the lowest gelation concentration after the samples had been cooled for two hours at 4°c. when the tube is inverted, the sample does not fall, indicating the lowest gelation concentration. determination of the amylose and amylopectin content the hoover and ratnayake, (2001) method was used to ascertain this. it entailed weighing 0.1 g of starch samples into a 100 ml volumetric flask and then progressively adding 9 ml of a 1m sodium hydroxide solution and l ml of 99% ethanol. before heating the sample solution in boiling water for ten minutes to gelatinize the starch, the ingredients were well combined. following cooling, distilled water was added until the solution reached the desired level and then gently shaken. next, 1 ml of 1m acetic acid and 2 ml of 99% iodine were added to 5 ml of the starch solution in a 100 ml volumetric flask. since the solution was opaque, 10 ml was made by mixing l ml of the sample solution with 9 ml of distilled water. a uv/vis spectrophotometer set to 620 nm was used to measure absorbance. the absorbance of the sample was deducted from the blank value. the following formulas are used to determine the contents of amylose and amylopectin. pa ge 23 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 21-29, 2025 amylose content (%)=3.06 x absorbance x 20 (ii) amylopectin content (%)=100-% amylose content (iii) pasting properties pasting characteristics, such as peak viscosity, trough viscosity, breakthrough viscosity, final viscosity, setback viscosity, pasting temperature, and peak duration, were determined for both native and modified starch samples using the rapid visco analyzer. a 12% (w/w; db) flour suspension was made by mixing a 3 g flour sample with 25 ml of water in the rva canister. to guarantee proper mixing, a paddle was placed inside the canister and its blade was jogged through the suspension up and down roughly six times. the rva machine was then filled with the paddle-containing canister. the sample was heated from 50 degrees celsius to 95 degrees celsius in 3 and a half minutes, held at 95 degrees for two and a half minutes, and then cooled back to 50 degrees celsius for three and a half minutes. this was followed by a twominute phase in which the temperature was maintained at 50 degrees celsius. the 12-minute profile was employed. proximate analysis aoac (2006) procedures were used to determine the samples’ proximate components. results and discussion functional properties of native and pregelatinized starch the solubility index, bulk density, swelling capacity, water and oil absorption capacities, and other functional characteristics of native and pregelatinized starch are contrasted in table 1. water absorption capacity of native and pregelatinized starch compared to native starch (164.33%), pregelatinized starch exhibited a greater capacity to absorb water (249.333%). arawande and ashogbon’s, (2019) 162.51% water absorption capacity for cocoyam starch was comparable to the water absorption capacity observed for native cocoyam starch. however, it falls short of the 180.0% for cocoyam starch that ariwaodo et al. (2017) were able to obtain. arinola, (2019) findings for both pregelatinized and microwave-radiated cocoyam starch are in line with the observed increase in water absorption capacity for pregelatinized cocoyam starch. additionally, cassava starch demonstrated a greater capacity to absorb water (sarifudin et al., 2020). following modification, starch granule disintegration and macromolecular rupture have been connected to the enhanced water absorption capacity of modified cocoyam starches (alcazar-alay & meireles, 2015). the porosity of starch granules has been determined using their water absorption capacity (wang et al., 2016). better starch digestion was suggested by an increased capacity for water absorption (ariwaodo et al., 2017). oil absorption capacity of native and pregelatinized starch compared to native starch, pregelatinized starch was able to absorb more oil (106.333%). okunade and arinola, (2021) found that modified cocoyam starch has a higher potential to absorb oil. following alteration, sanyaolu et al. (2021) observed a comparable rise in cassava and red cocoyam starch. both native and pregelatinized cocoyam starch have lower oil absorption capacities than those reported by yussuf et al. (2022), which are 164.0 and 173%, respectively. table 1: functional properties of native and pregelatinized starch sample water absorption capacity % oil absorption capacity % swelling power g.g-1 solubility index (%) bulk density g/ml ph a 164.333±3.055 97.000±1.732 9.553±0.023 8.667±1.155 0.732±0.015 5.710±0.044 b 249.333±2.082 106.333±2.081 7.147±0.041 14.667±2.309 0.769±0.000 5.960±0.010 the values represent the means ± standard deviation of the triplicate determination. the key b is pregelatinized starch, and a is native starch one crucial functional characteristic that influences the choice of starch in baked and extruded foods is the capacity to absorb oil (arinola, 2019). one important determinant of how well starches retain flavor is their ability to absorb oil (aidoo et al., 2022). in certain dietary compositions that demand optimal oil absorption, starch’s ability to bind to oil is beneficial (ariwaodo et al., 2017). starch’s strong oil absorption capability indicates that it contains hydrophobic proteins, signifying increased lipid binding. this is significant because fat preserves flavor and improves the mouthfeel of foods (yussuf et al., 2018). swelling power and solubility index of native and pregelatinized starch after pregelatinization, native starch’s swelling power reduced by 25%, from 9.553 to 7.14 g.g-1, while its solubility index increased by 41% (8.666 to 14.667 g.g1). this is consistent with arinola’s (2019) findings about pregelatinized cocoyam starch. olatunde et al. (2017) found a comparable decrease in swelling power after pregelatinization of plantain starch. compared to ariwaodo et al. (2017), who discovered 0.105 g/ml for modified cassava starch and 0.505 g/ml for modified sweet potato starch, the swelling power values obtained are higher. inadequate gelatinization of the starch may be the cause of the reduced swelling power seen for pregelatinized cocoyam starch. one method of assessing the quality of food is to look at its swelling power, which gauges a substance’s capacity to become hydrated (adams et al., 2019). the degree of interaction between starch chains in the crystalline and amorphous domains is referred to as solubility (oladebeye, 2013). the granule size and amylose content of cocoyam starch may be responsible for the rise in the solubility index. pa ge 24 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 21-29, 2025 bulk density of native and pregelatinized starch pregelatinized starch had a bulk density of 0.769g/ml, whereas native starch had a bulk density of 0.732g/ml. bulk density values for red and white cocoyam starch were determined by yussuf et al. (2022) to be 0.71 and 0.70 g/ml, respectively. the findings, however, fall short of the 0.88g/ml cocoyam starch content reported by arawande and asogbon, (2019). according to ibikunle et al. (2019), bulk density is a measurement of the weight of solid samples that is used to guide material handling and application in food processing as well as the kind of packing material required. particle size and starch sample density dictate bulk density. the starch sample’s coarseness is also reflected in bulk density. the bulk density of the material determines how much may be packed in a specific area (adewumi et al., 2020). ph of native and pregelatinized starch despite being both acidic, the ph of the pregelatinized cocoyam starch samples is somewhat higher than that of the native starch. the samples’ ph is lower than the 7.84 reported by ashogbon, (2017) but equivalent to the 5.48–5.75 reported by olatidoye et al. (2018) for native and pregelatinized cocoyam. the ph range of native and pregelatinized starches, which are widely utilized in the domestic, culinary, and pharmaceutical sectors, is 3 to 9. because it affects whether the liquid medium is acidic or alkaline, the starch’s ph is significant for applications (awolu et al., 2020; yusuf et al., 2018). ph controls a number of essential functional characteristics of starch, including swelling and solubility, so understanding the ph is critical (gbadamosi & oladeji, 2013). least gelation capacity of native and pregelatinized starch the findings of the native and pregelatinized starch gelation at the lowest concentrations are shown in table 2. by okunade and arinola (2021). the smallest quantity of starch needed to create gel in a weighted volume of water is referred to as least gelation. depending on their structural components—protein, carbs, and lipids— starches have different gelation capacities (ohizua et al., 2016). one crucial measure of starch’s gelling capacity is the lowest gelation concentration (yadav et al., 2018). better starch gelling capabilities are implied by the fact that lower concentrations are needed to form starch gel (shrivastava et al., 2018). amylose and amylopectin content of native and pregelatinized starch the amylose and amylopectin content results are shown in table 3. following pregelatinization, the amylose content of native cocoyam starch decreased to 26.510 percent, while the concentration of amylopectin rose from 58.474% (native cocoyam starch) to 73.490% (pregelatinized starch). amylose and amylopectin are the two main glucose polymers that make up starch. amylose makes about 20–30% of regular starches, whereas amylopectin makes up the remaining portion. ishiwu et al. (2017) state that the percentage of amylose in cocoyam starch varies by species and ranges from 3 to 43%. although it surpasses the values reported by okunade and arinola, (2021) for white (17.47%) and red (15.68%) cocoyam starch, the amylose level found in this study is within this range. additionally, it is lower than the cocoyam starch value of 20.09 percent reported by adewunmi et al. (2020). species variations or the agricultural environment in which the plants were cultivated could be the cause of the observed discrepancy. this study proved that amylopectin, a component of starch, is heavier than amylose. swelling happens when products have starch with a low amylose content. because it affects pasting, gelatinization, retrogradation, swelling power, and enzymatic vulnerability, the amount of amylose and amylopectin in starches is significant (arawande & ashogbon, 2019). pasting properties of native and pregelatinized starch because they impact the functional and sensory aspects of food formulation, affecting texture, digestibility, and starch consumption in food systems, pasting qualities are important when it comes to the usage of starch. the pasting characteristics of native and pregelatinized starches are contrasted in table 4. peak viscosity of native and pregelatinized starch compared to pregelatinized starch (984.5), native starch has a higher viscosity (3724.5 rvu). the maximum viscosity recorded during or right after the fast visco analyzer’s heating phase is known as the peak viscosity. it shows the amount of viscosity that will be present during mixing. because peak viscosity shows resistance to granule breakdown, it is also used to evaluate the stability of starch (adewunmi et al., 2015). table 2: least gelation of native and pregelatinized starch concentration% sample a sample b 2 viscous viscous 4 viscous viscous 6 viscous gel 8 gel gel 10 gel gel 12 gel gel 14 gel gel key: a = native starch, b =pregelatinized starch the concentration at which native cocoyam starch gelled was 8%, while the concentration at which pregelatinized cocoyam starch gelled was 6%. this implies that pregelatinization enhanced the starch’s capacity to gel. the lowest gelation concentration found for native starch is comparable to the native cocoyam starch reported pa ge 25 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 21-29, 2025 pregelatinization decreased the peak viscosity of cocoyam starch, which is in line with the pattern seen by yussuf et al. (2022) and sanyaolu et al. (2021). a similar drop in peak viscosity was found by obioma et al. (2022) after yam and sweet potato starch underwent chemical and physical modifications. this runs counter to the results of arinola, (2019), who found that the peak viscosities of pregelatinized red and white cocoyam starch were higher than those of native starch. the obtained peak viscosity is lower than that reported by lopulalan et al. (2020), who discovered that the native cocoyam starch had a peak viscosity range of 4601-5155rvu. molecular weight, intermolecular conformation, amylose and amylopectin polymerization degree, amylopectin branching quantity, amylose/amylopectin quantities and ratios, and the presence of minor components can all have an impact on viscosity (subroto et al., 2019). since peak viscosity and the degree of starch damage have been related, higher peak viscosity will be the consequence of more starch breakdown (obioma, 2022). poor molecular connections between starch granules are directly linked to high peak viscosity in starch, making them more prone to disintegration (falade & okafor, 2015). trough viscosity of native and pregelatinized starch pregelatinized starch had a trough viscosity of 822 rvu, whereas native cocoyam starch had 3041 rvu. following pregelatinization, the gelatinized cocoyam starch’s trough viscosity, also known as its minimum viscosity, decreased. the duration that samples are exposed to a constant temperature and mechanical shear stress is referred to as the hold time (trough), which is also called shear thinning, holding strength, or hot paste viscosity (kiinkabari, 2015; addy et al., 2014). the results of obioma et al. (2022) for modified sweet potato, trifoliate yam, and white yam starches are in line with the reduction in trough viscosity observed with modified cocoyam starch. the trough viscosity value for native starch is greater than the 2868 rvu found by lopulalan et al. (2020) and the 2213 rvu and 2519 rvu found by arinola, (2019) for native white and red cocoyam starches, respectively. breakdown viscosity of native and pregelatinized starch native and pregelatinized starches have respective breakdown viscosities of 683.5 and 162.5 rvu. the breakdown viscosity, which evaluates the degree of granule disintegration, paste stability, and the starch’s ability to withstand crumbling during cooling, is calculated by deducting the trough (hold) viscosity from the viscosity (ojo et al., 2017; kiin-kabari, 2017). how well cooked starch may withstand shear-induced disintegration depends on its breakdown viscosity. the starch is very stable under heat and shear stress when the breakdown viscosity is low; however, high values suggest that the starch’s resistance to heat and shear stress during cooking is reduced (ezeocha & okafor, 2016). it is well known that breakdown viscosity is significantly impacted by amylose content. the decrease in breakdown viscosity values found in this investigation is in line with the results of aidoo, (2022) for cassava starch and arinola, (2019) for modified red and white cocoyam starch. final viscosity of native and pregelatinized starch pregelatinized starches have a final viscosity of 1923 rvu, whereas native starches have 5516.5 rvu. the final viscosity is decreased by pregelatinization. the observed decrease aligns with the results of obioma et al. (2022) about the starches of cocoyam, white yam, and sweet potatoes. the ability of a starch material to solidify into a thick paste or gel upon heating or chilling is known as its ultimate viscosity. according to awolu et al. (2017), it is a gauge of starch quality. after boiling and cooling, the final viscosity is used to evaluate the starch’s capacity to gel. it explains how stable heated paste or gel is. paste stability decreases as breakdown viscosity rises (ikegwu et al., 2010). one important factor in determining and predicting the textural quality of foods high in starch is final viscosity (arinola et al., 2016). a realignment of the amylose and amylopectin molecules may be the cause of the decrease in final viscosity. this would strengthen the link between the amylose and amylopectin molecules in starch granules and reduce the likelihood of retrogradation (subroto, 2019). table 3: amylose and amylopectin content of native and pregelatinized starch sample amylose (mg/100g) amylopectin (mg/100g) a 41.526±0.520 58.475±0.520 b 26.511±0.633 73.490±0.633 the values represent the means ± standard deviation of the triplicate determination. key: a = native starch, b = pregelatinized starch table 4: pasting properties of native and pregelatinized starch sample peak viscosity (rvu) trough (rvu) break down (rvu) final viscosity (rvu) setback (rvu) peak time (min) pasting temp (℃) a 3724.5±70.00 3041±4.24 683.5±74.25 5516.5±99.70 2475.5±95.46 5.03±0.14 83.05±0.00 b 984.5±36.06 822±21.21 162.5±14.84 1923±41.01 1101±19.79 7±0.00 84.4±0.57 values are means of triplicate determinations ± standard deviation. key: a = native starch, b = pregelatinized starch pa ge 26 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 21-29, 2025 setback viscosity of native and pregelatinized starch pregelatinized starch had a setback viscosity of 1101 rvu, while natural starch had 2475 rvu. in line with the pattern noted by awolu et al. (2020) for pregelatinized and acid-thinned maize starch, pregelatinization decreased setback viscosity. the starch molecules’ structural loosening and disruption may be the cause of the low setback value; hence, the larger the setback value, the greater the retrogradation upon cooling. the likelihood of the starch going stale increases (awolu & olofinlae, 2016). the capacity to re-crystallize gelatinized starch after chilling can be evaluated using setback viscosity (subroto, 2019). the texture of different starch-based products is correlated with the retrogradation tendency of cooked starch after cooling, which is indicated by setback viscosity (ojo et al., 2017; ezeocha & okafor, 2016). lower vulnerability to retrogradation during cooling is indicated by a high setback number (aidoo et al., 2022). this implies that a paste made from native cocoyam starch will be less likely to retrograde, which could be beneficial for nutritional bioavailability and food metabolism as retrograded starch is insensitive to human digestive enzymes. pasting temperature and peak time of native and pregelatinized starch the native starch pasting temperature was 83.05°c with a peak time of 5.03 minutes, whereas the pregelatinized starch pasting temperature was 84.4°c with a peak time of 7.00 minutes. arawande and ashogbon (2019) discovered a similar peak time of 5.03 oc for cocoyam starch. shrivastava et al. (2018) found a slightly longer peak time of 5.23 minutes and a higher pasting temperature of 89.63 oc for cocoyam starch. in line with arinola’s (2019) finding that native red cocoyam starch rose from 80.70 to 83.20 oc following pregelatinization, the pregelatinized starch had a little higher pasting temperature than the original starch. according to rosa et al. (2017) and kiinkabari, (2015), the pasting temperature is the lowest temperature needed to cook a specific food sample or starch. it is the temperature at which viscosity increases noticeably for the first time and serves as a gauge for the first alteration brought on by starch swelling. due to the closer connection between starch granules, a high pasting temperature usually signifies a high capacity for water absorption (julanti et al., 2015; tortoe et al., 2019). the amount of time needed to boil starch is known as the pasting or peak time (obioma, 2019). proximate composition of native and pregelatinized cocoyam starch the approximate proportions of native and pregelatinized cocoyam starches are shown in table 5. while pregelatinized starch had 8.67% moisture level, native starch had a 9.45% moisture content. table 5: proximate composition of native and pregelatinized cocoyam starch sample moisture (%) ash (%) crude fiber (%) fat (%) protein (%) carbohydrate (%) a 9.45±0.17 1.37±0.06 1.06±0.00 1.03±0.000 1.33±0.044 84.96±0.33 b 8.67±0.29 2.07±0.15 1.20±0.048 1.13±0.030 1.97±0.044 85.76±0.15 values are means of triplicate determinations ± standard deviation. key: a = native starch, and b = pregelatinized starch despite the lower moisture content of pregelatinized starch, both were within the commercially acceptable range of less than 14.0% for stable shell life. because it affects the product’s shelf life, moisture content is a crucial food characteristic. the results of olatidoye et al. (2019), who found that the moisture content of pregelatinized cocoyam starch increased from 7.52% to 11.34%, are in conflict with the decrease in moisture content values reported in this study. native and pregelatinized starches had an ash percentage of 1.37% and 2.07%, respectively. this is higher than okunade and arinola’s (2021) white and red cocoyam starch concentrations of 1.28% and 1.56%, respectively. the results also exceed the 0.21% reported by ashogbon and adeleke, (2019) for cocoyam starch. the ash content implies that the product contains inorganic nutrients. the crude fiber content of native starch was 1.06%, whereas pregelatinized starch was 1.20%. olatidoye et al. (2019) and ojo et al. (2023) have found that the crude fiber content of native starch is higher than that of cocoyam starch, at 0.05% and 0.10%, respectively. the figures, however, fall short of the yam and cocoyam starch estimations of 3.22% and 2.01%, respectively, reported by modu et al. (2015). the crude fiber indicates the starch’s cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin content (ojo et al., 2023). dietary fiber helps to prevent constipation, digestive issues, and piles, so it is essential to include it in the diet. native and pregelatinized starch had respective protein and fat content of 1.33%, 1.97%, and 1.03%, 1.13%. the protein and fat content in this study is lower than that found in red and white cocoyam starch by okunola and arinola, (2021) and in white yam, trifoliate yam, and sweet potato starch by obioma et al. (2022). awolu and olofinlae, (2016) stated that the protein content of water yam starch was less than 1%, however nadir et al. (2015) found that the protein content of potato starch ranged from 0.17 to 0.40%. with values ranging from 0.07 to 0.17%, olatidoye et al. (2019) found a similar trend in the fat content of native and modified cocoyam starches. both native and modified starch are beneficial ingredients in the creation of low-fat foods due to their low fat content. since protein levels in starch below 5% have been shown to have no discernible impact on its thermal characteristics, the low protein and fat content suggests that there would be little interaction with the starch’s qualities (okunola & arinola, 2021). the carbohydrate pa ge 27 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 21-29, 2025 content of native starch was 84.96%, while pregelatinized starch was 85.76%. pregelatinization increased the starch’s carbohydrate content. cocoyam starch is a good carbohydrate source that provides dietary energy for many organ functions in the body and can be a substantial energy source when consumed (oko et al., 2015). obioma et al. (2022) discovered a comparable carbohydrate gain after modifying white yam starch (85.36 to 87.17%), trifoliate yam starch (86.49 to 87.73%), and sweet potato starch (85.09 to 85.51%). ojo et al. (2023) discovered that red native, white native, and ghana native cocoyam starch all had the same carbohydrate content. conclusion pregelatinization of cocoyam starch increased its solubility, bulk density, and capacity to absorb water and oil while decreasing its pasting ability. both the food and non-food sectors employ pregelatinized cocoyam starch. references adams, z. s., wireko-manu, f. d., agbenorhevi, j., & oduro, i. (2019). improved yam-baobab-tamarind flour blends: its potential use in extrusion cooking. science africa, 6, 1–15. addy, r. n. a., wireko-manu, f. d., & oduro, i. (2014). physicochemical and pasting properties of starch extracted from four yam varieties. journal of food and nutrition sciences, 2(6), 262-269. adewumi, d. f., lajide, l., afolabi, o. b., & ojo, o. a. 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(2012). physico-chemical and rheological properties of modified corn starches and its effect on noodle quality. annals of agricultural sciences, 57(1), 19–27. yussuf, s. t., ibikunle, a. a., sanyaolu, n. o., & oderinde, a. a. (2018). proximate composition, physicochemical and pasting properties of a novel african star apple (chrysophyllum albidum) seednut starch as supplement to industrial starch. journal of chemical society of nigeria, 43(3), 89–97. yussuf, s. t., ibikunle, a. a., sanyaolu, n. o., ogundare, s. a., adesanya, m. a., atewolara-odule, c. o., ogunmoye, a. o., adeleke, a. a., hashimi, a. m., & olubomehin, o. o. (2022). preparation, functional and pasting behavior of starch phosphates of red cocoyam (colocasia esculenta) and white cocoyam (colocasia antiquorum): a comparative study. scientia africana, 21(3), 133–144. zavareze, e. r., & dias, a. r. g. (2011). impact of heat–moisture treatment and annealing in starches: a review. carbohydrate polymers, 83, 317–328. pa ge 1 pa ge 67 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) a review of food security crisis in uncertain times abdulfatah said mohamed1* volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i1.3622 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: august 10, 2024 accepted: september 09, 2024 published: april 25, 2025 hunger and poverty are not the only issues linked to the food insecurity challenge. increased violence, terrorism, natural catastrophes, climate change, and the most recent worldwide pandemic known as the covid-19 pandemic have all drawn attention to the issue of food poverty. before the world’s economy fully recovered from the covid-19 pandemic, the globe was particularly affected by the russian invasion of ukraine and the grain crisis, which intensified the situation to never-before-seen proportions. this article describes the numerous complex issues underlying the food shortage and how it affects the world’s least developed nations and individuals. this article analyses the challenges of global food scarcity, especially during the covid-19 pandemic. the method of study involved conducting a comprehensive literature search on electronic databases, including pubmed, google scholar, and embase. the relevant results were then recorded in a qualitative descriptive form. it examines the impact of the pandemic on food systems, its implications for the worldwide supply chain, and food and addressing the shortage. the review also explores factors contributing to food scarcity, such as the controversial role of biofuels. the article discusses the extent of hunger and food insecurity, emphasizing the moral implications of unhealthy eating practices and the relationship between food security and other global concerns. the long-term impacts of food shortage on political stability are also discussed, emphasizing the potential for unstable political circumstances to arise from food insufficiency. the assessment also covers the black sea grain initiative and how it has improved food security. the essay provides a greater understanding of the relationship between global issues and food shortages while elucidating ethical dilemmas, financial implications, and environmental elements. keywords covid-19, food crisis, food insecurity, food systems, nutritional inadequacy, sustainable solutions 1 global affairs and islam, college of islamic studies, hamad bin khalifa university, qatar * corresponding author’s e-mail: abdulmohamed@hbku.edu.qa introduction the food security predicament is an intricate challenge aggravated by climate change, conflict, and economic inequality (barnett & adger, 2007). food insecurity can disappear if humanitarian help is given; however, to build a more equitable and sustainable food system that benefits everyone, the core causes of the issue must be addressed. additionally, crop cultivation is made difficult by extreme weather events like droughts and floods, which are brought on by climate change. this affects food production and distribution. furthermore, economic inequality exacerbates the gap between the rich and the poor, making it more difficult for the impoverished to buy food (global poverty and hunger, 2018). poverty refers to the situation due to a lack of resources, which leads to the inability to fulfil basic human needs. people live on less than 1.90 dollars per person per day, which is much less than enough to support a healthy lifestyle; most of these statistics are from india, nigeria, congo, ethiopia, and bangladesh (khan et al., 2020). this menace is embarking upon the world in an unending cyclical manner as its effects cause an increase in its causes and effects (nurrachmi & review, 2018). the covid-19 pandemic has been distressing for the global system, resulting in a complex worldwide food crisis. food systems have seen significant changes since the virus started to spread widely at the beginning of 2020. there are now disturbances and widespread hunger. the world food programme (wfp) estimates that the crisis will cause acute hunger to affect an additional 130 million people. the strategies to deal with this problem include funding sustainable agriculture, cutting down on food waste, offering humanitarian aid, and tackling the underlying causes of the situation. those experiencing food insecurity would receive necessary supplies if humanitarian assistance were given. it is imperative to tackle the underlying causes of the issue to construct a more equitable and sustainable food system for everybody. good and nourishing cuisine. droughts and floods, two extreme weather phenomena brought on by climate change, make it challenging to cultivate crops. food production and distribution are disrupted by conflict, and the wealth and poverty gaps grow due to economic inequality, making it more difficult for people experiencing poverty to afford food. literature review the united nations sustainable development goals (sdgs) and the 2030 agenda for global progress in 2015, global leaders during the united nations general assembly decided to initiate the united nations sustainable development goals (sdgs) agenda for 2030 as the framework to improve humanity, equality, and inclusivity (friedman & gostin, 2016). the sdgs established in 2015 addressed poverty and hunger as the key issues for achieving sustainable development. even pa ge 68 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 67-75, 2025 though the problem of continuous rise in global poverty and difficulties in its eradication has been marginalized in the presence of new issues such as terrorism, climate change, resource depletion, access wars, and gender inequality issues (sustainable development goals, march 2020). only 193 foreign heads of state adopted the 2030 agenda and the 17 sdgs that go along with it in 2015. sdgs have reclaimed worldwide significance and are organized around people, nature, ethics, development, equality, and collaboration (leal filho et al., 2018). with goals of eradicating inequality, promoting sustainable development, preserving sovereignty, and achieving stability, the sustainable development goals (sdgs) have won great praise for their significant political articulation. most individuals think that the sdgs result from an unprecedented collaborative process in the context of global health apart from its precursor, the united nations millennium development goals (mdgs), which have been based primarily on assisting poorer areas through international assistance. the sdgs include a wider set of objectives that apply to wealthy and poor states and are thus “buttressed by data and evidence.” the 2030 agenda has received widespread plaudits from academics, activists, corporations, and policymakers for tying “sustainable” and “development” together through the notions of “universality,” “integration,” and “leaving no one behind.” conversely, the sdgs have been chastised for their lofty goals and lack of focus (svoboda et al., 2015). challenges and hurdles in achieving sdgs; complex socioeconomic realities: global warming, food insecurity, and development initiatives one of the many unresolved issues is how baltic and confrontation fragile states can schedule, organize, and fund development initiatives consistent with the sdgs and their strategic interests (ramcharan & ramcharan, 2020). there are real doubts that several of the poorest countries in the world would be unable to identify initiatives and get the necessary support from the developed world to improve the sdgs implementation – creating a good position for private investments and the hundreds of billions of dollars in economic opportunities that sdgs reopen. the world is moving farther away from attaining sdg 2, according to the special rapporteur on financial distress and individual rights (human rights council 2019). if global warming continues, many thousand individuals will suffer from malnutrition owing to overall agricultural reductions. the impoverished would suffer greatly from an increase in the frequency of flooding and the ensuing migration. one of the most basic manifestations of impoverishment, poor nutrition, and cognitive impairment in children is food. africa, the world’s most impoverished and consequently hungry area, is confronted with serious health problems, especially those that affect developing children (sasson, 2012). the number of people living in poverty worldwide is rising daily, with 8.9% of the world’s population sleeping on bad food. world food programme hunger map of 2018 depicts a population of 821 million people facing food deficiency, mostly from africa and asia to latin america and near east asia. a notable increase in world hunger shows an increase in poverty and lacking on behalf of institutions and governments to end it. providing food supplies and donation strategies are not the ultimate solution; they can only be regarded as temporary relief strategies. however, practical steps are needed at higher levels, including policy-making and action at the prevention stages (wfp, 2018). rewriting strategies and forming interdisciplinary strategic partnerships across various political contexts would be necessary to address food insecurity. additionally, it would be important to ensure that world food programme (wfp) interventions are implemented geographically and ethnically, considering issues such as sexual identity, social inequality, disagreement, and global climate change. materials and methods a comprehensive literature search was conducted on electronic databases, including pubmed, google scholar, and embase. relevant results were recorded in qualitative descriptive form. this study utilized secondary data collected through a systematic literature review. electronic databases, including pubmed, google scholar, and embase, were searched extensively to gather relevant literature. the search focused on identifying peer-reviewed articles, reports, and studies related to food security, global hunger, and the impacts of global crises such as the covid-19 pandemic and the russian invasion of ukraine. the filtering process involved a multi-step approach. first, the collected data was screened for relevance based on title and abstract, followed by a full-text review of selected articles to ensure that they met the inclusion criteria. these criteria included a focus on food security issues, the socioeconomic impacts of crises, and the global supply chain’s response to food shortages. in total, approximately 75 relevant articles and reports were considered for this study. the analysis of data involved categorizing the literature into thematic areas such as the impact of global crises on food systems, the role of international policy in addressing hunger, and the socioeconomic implications of food shortages. qualitative descriptive analysis was employed to identify key trends, challenges, and solutions discussed in the literature. additionally, cross-referencing between sources was done to ensure accuracy and consistency in findings. results and discussion hunger and poverty worldwide and its impact on muslim nations poverty and hunger are multi-factorial problems encompassing the issues of health, economics, education, environment, and quality of life. malnourishment, developmental delays, and nutritional deficiencies are pa ge 69 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 67-75, 2025 additionally deteriorating the situation thus negatively influencing the quality of living. food and agriculture organization (fao) estimated that 1.02 billion people are undernourished, mostly children, who had a povertystricken life (“poverty and hunger around the world,” 2017). the issue of hunger interlinked with poverty and health sector crises casts damaging outrages on the economy of a country. in an unending cycle, instability between sources and consumption increases; therefore, its results, which are economic failure, lead to poverty, hunger, and lack of basic needs and well-being. the health of a huge community becomes at risk due to resulting malnourishment and nutritional deficiencies, causing further damage to the capacities of people, be it physical, emotional, or mental. due to the prevalence of hunger and deficient nutrition, hunger maps of 2019 and 2020 show prevailing undernourishment in african, asia, and latin american countries since 2017, the rate of which has remained constant (wfp, 2019, 2020). there have been surveys showing deaths of around 9 million people due to hunger and related diseases. 3.1 million children die each year due to the same cause. the number of people affected by hunger has declined since 1999, but no further progress has been observed recently. since 2015, the numbers have escalated, posing a challenge to the sdgs on ending hunger by 2030, as 1 in 9 people go to bed hungry. 20% of the african population suffers from the problem of hunger, especially in eastern and southern regions where the percentage is 30%, and a huge number of children population suffer from malnourishment, stunted growth, nutrient deficiencies, and cognitive disabilities (“people who died from hunger,” 2021). among muslim countries, african countries are the most affected by poverty, hunger, and undernutrition, as somalia ranks as one of the top muslim countries with a death rate of 42% due to malnourishment. other countries as sudan and indonesia, also have high rates, and countries like kuwait and singapore with the lowest rates of deaths due to malnutrition (world health rankings, 2021). global impact of the covid-19 pandemic on amplifying poverty, hunger, uncertainty and food insecurity the covid-19 pandemic has greatly influenced the world and multiplied the effects of present frailties and vulnerabilities. this unusual and quickly changing scenario will likely precipitate a worldwide recession. according to an oecd study published on march 2, 2020, the global gdp growth rate would fall to 2.4 per cent (from the previously predicted 2.9 per cent) because of the worldwide well-being crisis. in the worst-case scenario, gdp development may drop to less than 2 per cent. the predictions were produced before the latest events of new waves of the pandemic within the european union and the usa and the recent severe falls in stock and oil markets. parallels may be made between the effect of previous medical epidemics (such as the ebola outbreaks) and the 2008 food price crisis, particularly regarding policy suggestions. previous crises seriously affecting agriculture output, trade, and price volatility(svoboda et al., 2015) have also caused global distress. an exacerbating aspect, however, is that the present covid-19 problem is unprecedented worldwide, and the situation is quickly evolving, with many unknowns. in terms of risk management, every reaction must be indicative of the changing circumstances. in addition to the immediate health effects, there should be short-, medium-, and long-term effects on food production, sustainable development, and sustenance. covid-19 also has benefits and drawbacks on food security and nutrition (fsn), with the eventual outcomes being influenced by the control period of organizations, countries, and territories, and their tolerance to shocks. in consequence, a deteriorating food scarcity situation may have a detrimental effect on pandemic development by compromising immune systems. in any case, the weakest and most marginalized sectors of the population will be the most impacted (including the refugees and displaced). the poorest and most vulnerable people have fewer resources to deal with day-by-day job segments of people and loss of income, rising food costs, and unstable food supply, and therefore have less capacity to adjust to the crisis. countries and areas already coping with other crises, such as the desert locust epidemic, which has already exacerbated food insecurity among impacted people, may find dealing with the covid-19 pandemic more difficult. (banik, 2019) food shortage involves short and long-term terrible outcomes such as hunger, malnutrition, higher death rates, and political instability; therefore, it must be addressed jointly via both emergency and long-term solutions. this is a major global issue, particularly in sub-saharan africa. economic, environmental, and societal factors contribute to food shortage (dugger, 2011). contributing factors to food shortage and global nutritional challenges numerous socioeconomic reasons contribute to food shortages. the rate of population growth is greater than the rate of supply growth. the world consumes more food than it produces, causing food stores and storage to shrink and food prices to rise due to growing demand against a finite supply. overcrowding, loss of forests for human habitation, and increasing air and water pollution impact the ecosystem and food production (hallegatte et al., 2021). one of our age’s main challenges is ensuring and providing sufficient, good, and processed foods to everybody while being environmentally friendly and clean, all while addressing the multiple difficulties of undernourishment, excess weight, and overnutrition. as opposed to an objective that includes nutrition for well-being and growth, the food hygiene guideline emphasizes assuring that the world generates and eats sufficient calories to eradicate starvation and guarantee existence. to take the discussion pa ge 70 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 67-75, 2025 further, addressing the ethical problems that emerge when integrating food into the food hygiene framework is important. if we do not change our strategy to feed people, the medical, environmental, socioeconomic, and political consequences will be severe. however, addressing this problem has legal and cultural implications(locke & henley, 2014). key ethical issues to tackle would be making social decisions, creating standards about food production that affect produce content and the ethics and compliance between environmental sustainability and fulfilling human nutritional and health needs. such intricate problems highlight the need to articulate the wider ethical context of the nutrition discussion within the context of global food security. nutrition in the global food system for sustainable well-being surprisingly, little has been published publicly on the values of what we consume and the standards we wish to maintain to create a better, more sustainable global food system. nutrition is often overlooked in food security planning. most of the discussion and emphasis have been on elements of the inequitable manner our food is produced. there needs to be more discussion on the disparities in access to high-quality, healthy meals and dietary choices. this leaves the people needing clarification about what ethical personal decisions they should make, who they can trust, and what responsibilities the government should play in resolving the problems. inequities will continue until a more serious discussion and suggested pathways around health ethics and how it integrates into our globalized food system. highlighting some of these problems may stimulate constructive conversations and future solutions. gillespie et al. (2013) observed that nutrition is often seen as apolitical, resulting in self-defeating and inadequate accountability to people. attention and management for nutrition at all levels are required to achieve nutritional gains. overcoming persistent poverty and impoverishment involves the allocation of resources. if the root causes of poor nourishment are to be addressed, more and more effectively targeted resources and improved cooperation within governments and national and international partnerships are required(thaler & africa, 2013). without strong principles and ethical norms prioritizing nutrition for the betterment of people and their nations, progress toward global food security would be halted. the magnitude of hunger and food deprivation food shortage has a variety of short-term repercussions. the impact on children, mothers, and the elderly is apparent, as evidenced by malnutrition and hunger-related deaths. this means that school-age youngsters pay less attention in class and less time for social and recreational activities—vital to their development. mothers have less energy to care for their children and engage in verbal conversation. children cannot endure extended fasts; therefore, they succumb to hunger rapidly and often die before help can reach them. due to rebellions and several years of drought, somali refugees have fled their country to kenya and ethiopia in search of safety and food. since the majority of migrant seniors and children pass away during the journey and within a few days of arriving at the refugee camp, the majority of the children among the somali refugees are severely malnourished. this shortage has long-term consequences. these include a rise in food prices because of demand and supply factors. global food prices have increased due to several factors, including growing food production costs, rising fuel prices, and a protracted drought in regions that produce grains (hasegawa et al., 2019). transportation of food, industrial agriculture, and fertilizers all suffered cost increases due to the oil price increase. food prices have increased globally due to the growing middle-class population in asia, their need for a more varied diet, and declining food supplies. in 2007, rising food prices caused social discontent and political inequality in several nations, including bangladesh, pakistan, egypt, burundi, brazil, congo, and mexico. the need for immediate actions food shortage may have immediate and long-term repercussions; the short-term effects primarily concentrate on women, children, and older people who cannot tolerate prolonged hunger. the above highlights how abundantly obvious it is that food scarcity is a major global problem with catastrophic consequences for the people and the government. it also requires immediate corrective actions by food industry stakeholders. the causes of food scarcity are established and may be settled if suitable steps to solve the issue are adopted and successfully executed. laws may be used to address the environmental causes of food scarcity, including pollution from human actions like deforestation, overgrazing, and climate change. fruits and vegetables, as well as roots and tubers, have the greatest waste rates of any food, at 40-50 per cent —30 per cent for cereals, 35 per cent for fish, and 20 per cent for oil seeds, meat, and dairy (hanjra & qureshi, 2010). impacts of climate change on food (in)security environmental factors have greatly influenced the food security challenges. agricultural output has been decreased because of climate change. human actions, and to a lesser degree, natural activities, are primarily responsible for climate change. drought is the main cause of food shortages worldwide; in central america and africa, prolonged droughts have resulted in significant crop failures and animal deaths. recent floods in india and other third-world countries have destroyed crops and cattle, forcing many people to escape their homes. the world bank program’s design and assessment must consider climate change and disaster risks to maximise the development advantages. heat waves may harm buildings, flooding can affect roads, and pests and drought can impair agricultural operations. while projects may be pa ge 71 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 67-75, 2025 vulnerable to many hazards simultaneously, it is often possible to plan and carry out projects that are resilient to future effects of climate change. to achieve this, though, these risks must be considered at every stage of the project cycle. high seed and fertilizer prices, outmoded farming methods by developing-country farmers, and a lack of agricultural research contribute to decreased food output. food costs have risen due to the 2008 global financial crisis, as have sources of financing for agriculture by people and governments in wealthy countries, resulting in lower food production.(woertz & keulertz, 2015). biofuel as a need or greed and its impact on food security over the last five years, there has been growing concern that crop-based biofuel production will undermine food production and food security, with some arguing that land, labour, water, or other production factors will be switched to biofuel production or that existing amounts of food harvests will be transitioned from food to biofuel markets. others argue that high demand for sustainable biofuels will spur innovation in agricultural production. there may be collaborations between biofuel and food supply by funding relatively underdeveloped areas with limited access to input and output markets. ‘the ‘biofuel initiatives’ category is poor for predicting food security results. due to favourable market circumstances, biofuel initiatives have generated unjustified investment opportunities, considering the high likelihood of project failure. however, research must indicate that biofuel initiatives deserve consideration regarding their effect on local social stability. instead, a greater emphasis on individualized project design and protection is required (lasnik, 1995). projects that take land away from the local population must adhere to best practices in consent-seeking and participation, stressing that safety measures are in place to preserve communities’ access to food and income and that compensation payments do not undervalue important resources. in our grower program, it makes sense to let farmers intercrop cash crops with food crops, use the inputs meant for the cash crops for other crops, or purposefully lend these inputs. it is also important to ensure that women have access to the resources they need for any efforts that include using land that women may have previously utilized for a home garden or food crop (mengoub, 2020) food wastage around the globe germany is one of the world’s most populous nations. as a result, food waste is at an all-time high. according to estimates, the typical german wastes more than 80 kilograms of food each year. household kitchens and commercial restaurants are the largest contributors to waste. food waste is any solid and liquid food prepared for consumption that is wasted for any cause. food waste is considered a pervasive issue in the food business, occurring at every stage of the supply chain(seed, 2015). the entire quantity of food waste generated in the united states is believed to be close around 103 million tons per year. every year, billions of tons of food are wasted globally. while it has long been assumed that wastage is primarily an issue in developed countries, estimates indicate it is also a problem in developing countries. even though china and india generate the greatest household food waste each year, the average amount generated per capita in these nations is less than 70 kilos. in contrast, the typical australian produces 102 kilos of food waste yearly (verma, 2015). food waste (fw) is a significant problem, mostly in gulf countries (gcc). based on thorough research performed on research gate in jan 2020. fw management techniques, such as reduction and distribution, are undervalued. the prospective study highlights the urgent need for additional research on food scraps in the gcc, concentrating on the identified knowledge gap, such as origins and causes, developments, quantity and range, ecological and financial impacts, and the consequences of wasted food in food production processes. since food waste affects all gcc countries, these relevant studies should be addressed in a global research program. in saudi arabia, the biggest member of the gcc, analysts estimate that rice waste alone costs the country sr1.6 billion each year. according to ecomena, a waste awareness organization, almost half of the trash in qatar’s landfills is food. (baig et al., 2019). ethical dilemma of unhealthy eating lifestyle obesity is expected to cause over 30,000 fatalities each year. obesity robs individuals of an extra nine years of life in general, prohibiting many people from reaching pensionable age. obesity may ultimately overtake tobacco consumption as the greatest preventable cause of death. obesity increases the risk of several diseases. obese persons are more inclined to acquire certain malignancies, including colon cancer, which is 3 times more prevalent in overweight people, and they are two and a half times more likely to become obese, which is a risk factor for heart disease and type 2 diabetes which is 5 times as prevalent in males. (fry, 2012)anorexia nervosa has the greatest death rate among the different eating disorders, according to most research. individuals with anorexia nervosa had a standardized death rate of 5.35 in research. persons with bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder had a standardized death rate of 1.5 (tincheva & reviews, 2019). the findings of research at the european congress on obesity (eco) in glasgow in may 2021 revealed that most people with a bmi of 35-40 were almost nine times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, and those with sleep apnea were 12 times more likely. those with extreme obesity (bmi 40-45) were significantly more likely to acquire type 2 diabetes and had a 22-fold increased risk of sleep apnea. people with a bmi of 40-45 had a threefold increased risk of heart failure, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. a bmi of 40-45 was also associated pa ge 72 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 67-75, 2025 with a 50% increase in the chance of dying early from any cause. long-term junk food intake exposes a person to a variety of life-threatening effects as well as other healthrelated problems(lask & bryant-waugh, 2000). oils, refined carbohydrates, and carbs are abundant in junk food. junk eating is associated with several issues: rich saturated fat content fast foods such as pizza, chips, and sandwiches are high in saturated fat. because lipids are difficult to digest, they accumulate, causing individuals to gain weight, resulting in obesity. this may lead to many heart and blood pressure issues, among other things. excessive salt fast food includes more salt than the body needs. increased blood pressure is caused by salt. excessive salt consumption is harmful to the body since it may lead to hypertension. high sugar content sugar is present in sodas, cookies, and other baked goods. everyone enjoys a sweet flavour, but too much sugar rots teeth and may cause various dental issues such as pain, among other things. excess sugar raises blood sugar levels, possibly leading to diabetes (tincheva & reviews, 2019) the dilemma of nutrition amidst covid-19 pandemic the covid-19 pandemic is already impacting food production, both internally and externally, through impacts on food production and consumption and reducing purchasing capacity to manufacture and deliver food, which will have a distinguishable consequence and unfairly target the underprivileged. the duration of the outbreak and the severity of the preventive measures needed will assess the desired threat to world food production and food costs. isolated country-level measures are anticipated to aggravate the crisis’s global effects on food and nutritional security, especially in developing and food-insecure countries. (carter et al., 2020) moreover, the pandemic’s potential impact on food production in major food-producing countries (for example, china, the eu, and the united states) might have substantial consequences for world diet production and food costs. the bigger financial disaster arising from the covid-19 problem poses major challenges for ensuring food security. for instance, labourers, utilities, restaurants, and shops face substantial job losses (partly due to physical distancing regulations and in part to a broader economic crisis), and their salaries will suffer as a consequence. while small farmers may still see the competition in the market, disconnections to agri-food distribution networks and markets may make their living standards less safe; developing countries with strict rules that are directing to a drop in total demand and a significant decrease in farmworkers’ ability to move to their jobs, both regionally and abroad. income cutbacks have a direct effect on people’s food supplies. because of the broader economic slump, which many economists think has already started, the coming global financial crisis is also expected to have long-term implications for food and nutritional security (naylor & falcon, 2010). this next crisis will be quite distinct from the last economic catastrophe in that we could not witness a similar increase in agricultural prices that happened mostly during an economic slump. while there might be price gouging at the consumer stores, as previously mentioned, commodities prices have generally been falling due to a lack of demand. also, due to the extreme oil market battle, which has ended in a substantial drop in the oil price, we are currently seeing different forces leading to increasing food prices. however, food supply and demand shocks seem likely to influence people’s agricultural production. (tsai, 2020). food supply and demand chain imbalance covid-19’s effect on food production and consumption the impacts of covid-19 on food production and consumption will influence all fundamental aspects of food and nutritional security, both intrinsically and extrinsically (fsn). it is also expected that the restriction measures taken in several countries would have severe impacts and longer-term ramifications on the world economy. the impact on food production as the frequency of covid-19 infections rises in countries around the world, agri-food supply systems are anticipated to be affected. although there may be plenty of foodstuff in the distribution systems at the beginning of the crisis, food chain disruptions have followed outbreaks due to increased fear buying by people concerned about agricultural productivity during potential lockdowns. if pandemics across the globe are severe or persist for a substantial amount of time, there will most certainly be many more big interruptions, which will decrease food supply in markets in the long term. these delays might be the consequence of the economic strain brought on by pandemic activity, or they could raise the danger of workers becoming ill. when demand declines due to a decline in purchasing power, farmers and other producers are less able and inclined to invest in and use suitable technologies, which lowers food output and supply. beginning with physical segregation measures, the pandemic raises costs due to customers’ panic buying and stockpiling of commodities, increasing the short-term need for food. regretfully, a consistent decline in pricing may have preceded this spike in sales, both in terms of actual purchasing power and in terms of insufficient funds owing to capital market freezes and layoffs. shifts in narrow tastes due to perceptions of agricultural production or ease may lead to major changes, affecting food production, food manufacturer livelihoods, and dietary diversity(fan et al., 2021) covid-19 impacts on economic decline regarding job and income losses, low-exposure (le) hosts saw a greater decline in economic output than pa ge 73 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 67-75, 2025 their more remote, high-exposure (he) counterparts. according to these financial results, le hosts have greater difficulty fulfilling basic food requirements during lockdowns and need to borrow money to buy food at a greater percentage. since march 1st, one out of every seven host families have reported getting help, with threequarters being new beneficiaries of aid (compared to the beginning of 2020) and the overwhelming majority in the form of regular food. high-exposure families report getting more help from non-governmental organizations (ngos) than low-exposure households. (bodrud-doza et al., 2020) ninety-six per cent of camp families reported getting wfp food aid, although more than half reported getting less food than normal. while the allowance and caloric value of support offered per capita have not altered, the shift in method to fixed food baskets because of new covid-19 regulations has temporarily halted initiatives to improve nutritional intake and diet quality by the humanitarian response, which may be driving these negative perceptions. the local economy of bangladesh began to feel the effects of the covid-19 problem in early to mid-march 2020, with the first case recorded on march 7. from march 26 to may 28, the whole nation was under lockdown. this brief examines reported consumption habits and dietary coping strategies used before covid-19 (march-august 2019) and general results on access to necessities and support during the covid-19 shutdowns (april-may 2020) (tsai, 2020). unstable political scenarios due to food (in)security food riots in several underdeveloped nations and concerns from numerous international groups about a global economic crisis have followed an increase in attention to the role of meal accessibility and usage in recent times. this increase in interest is expected, considering the century’s turbulent humanitarian disaster in sudan, ethiopia, malawi, and niger. the query of how and to what step starvation circumstances arise in these cases has garnered substantial scholarly, mass culture, and film interest. the dispute over interpretation and levels has had “horrific implications for reaction and accountability in a couple of subsequent food insecurity.”critically, since these dimensions of globalization adhere to the ideology of environmental sustainability as consciousness, they, in daily practice, possess the lowest point of biopower on numerous occasions of the country’s uninsured residents, retaining the neoliberal distinction between commercially insured population groups. because of its many features of a “fragile state” and the significant participation of international ngos and international groups in its federal agencies, niger constitutes a region of dependent nationality(mengoub, 2020). indeed, many of these foreign actors have a strong record in niger, such as the acquisition of government duties. ways to help, as a beginner to niger and a non-mainstream international islamic ingo, presents a great opportunity to also assess duffield’s concept of contingent independence in terms of increased productivity and then provide the lacking act of the process by which an international performer supposes a governmental function. the connections of qatar charity donations with niger’s government officials assert the previously stated declaration as qatar charity’s agreements over the provision of clinical care to project respondents reveal the institution’s progression against dependent sovereign powers as a difficult and iterative open dialogue with different practices and aspirations – specifically the regional “corruption complex” – instead of a straightforward, one-time commodification. qatar charity’s ultimate version of situational supremacy does not depend on the autonomous adoption of public services but rather on collaboration with many other ngos and a private industry actor, suggesting the significance of the institution’s fetishization of the justifying characteristics of the organization’s “partnerships” to this process. at least in the context of qatar charity, global development supports life continuity as normal. (dugger, 2011). brazil is now regarded as one of the twentieth century’s major development achievements. the country has significantly reduced its poverty and hunger burdens; it has made the leap from dictatorship to a democratic nation; and it has moved from a marginal role as a “sleeping giant” in global relations to an increasingly one of the “emerging powers” of the twenty-first century. brazil has many persisting societal issues, the most serious of which is steadily rising levels of inequality, but in its current role as a global leader and aspiring to greater power, the nation has started to shift its focus outside and take an active interest in the development of other countries. improvements in agricultural productivity were a major factor in brazil’s development during the 20th century since they supported economic growth and helped reduce hunger in the rapidly expanding urban regions of the nation. brazil has expanded its international participation and is considered one of its unique assets as it seeks to create better foreign ties in the global south, notably in africa. agriculture has become a cornerstone of the country’s development aid program and foreign direct investment. food insecurity in africa is a continuous worry for african governments and the international world. during the green revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, many developing countries in asia and latin america greatly expanded agricultural production. still, the effects of this shift in farming technologies and practices failed to take control in africa, leaving analysts wondering how and when africa might also achieve its green revolution. brazil’s experience in significantly expanding its agricultural output has provided it with knowledge that may help african nations meet their food requirements. brazilian agricultural aid and investment, on the other hand, have not been restricted to food production. brazil has long been a worldwide leader in biofuel production and use(mora et al., 2020). however, the green revolution has been criticized for increasing agricultural output while preserving and worsening social disparities. liquid combustible fuels produced from crops or crop waste and biofuels have gained popularity pa ge 74 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 67-75, 2025 during the last two decades as one possible solution for addressing global energy requirements while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. however, serious questions remain regarding the balance of costs and advantages offered by biofuel production from various feedstocks, particularly the impact of biofuel feedstock production on food security. food security and the black sea grain initiative global food scarcity has been under further threat since the russian federation’s invasion of ukraine and its aftermath effects in february 2022. both russia and ukraine are considered critical grain and fertilizers exporters, they are among the top three exporters of global grain exports (food and agriculture organization executive report june 2022). disturbance of agricultural supplies due to the ongoing conflict has impacted agricultural markets and prices severely. at least developed countries such as somalia have been hit the most and have already been facing a drought and famine for 2 years. the russian invasion of ukraine in february 2022 has significantly impacted global food security, as both nations rely heavily on eastern europe for essential foodstuffs. the conflict disrupted agricultural production and exports, leading to market shocks, price surges, and increased hunger and malnutrition. these delays might be the consequence of the economic strain brought on by pandemic activity, or they could raise the danger of workers becoming ill. when demand declines due to a decline in purchasing power, farmers and other producers are less able and inclined to invest in and use suitable technologies, which lowers food output and supply. beginning with physical segregation measures, the pandemic raises costs due to customers’ panic buying and stockpiling of commodities, increasing the short-term need for food. regretfully, a consistent decline in pricing may have preceded this spike in sales, both in terms of actual purchasing power and in terms of insufficient funds owing to capital market freezes and layoffs. due to the cascading consequences of disruptions in important exporting locations, the black sea region’s disruption has greater implications for global food security. through coordinated actions, humanitarian supplies, and political initiatives, the international community is attempting to resolve the problem. strengthening global solidarity is crucial to address existing hunger crises and prevent future ones. failure to navigate this delicate choreography could have devastating consequences for millions facing hunger and malnutrition. strengths and future implications ➢ the study discusses how the russian invasion has affected food security worldwide. ➢ adding credible references to reputable sources, such as the food and agriculture organization executive report, enhances credibility. ➢ the research delves into the complex effects on prices, agricultural markets, and humanitarian emergencies. ➢ draws attention to the effects on environmentally sensitive areas like somalia and drought. ➢ discusses the mitigation measures and response of the international community, highlighting the importance of international cooperation. future implications analyze how nations adapt their agricultural strategies and trade relationships post-conflict. • develop strategies for vulnerable regions to build adaptive capacities. • explore global governance mechanisms and crisis management strategies. • transition nations towards more sustainable and resilient agricultural systems. •investigate how geopolitical implications influence global cooperation. • explore how precision agriculture and digital solutions can overcome global food supply chain disruptions. conclusion this analysis emphasizes how crucial it is to handle disruptions in the world’s food supply systems and the serious repercussions they can have. the report emphasizes how critical it is for nations to work together to develop agricultural capacities, investigate sustainable techniques, and adjust to changing trade patterns. in the face of complex problems, maintaining a safe and stable global food system requires focusing on resilience and preventative measures. sustained investigation and coordinated efforts are essential for managing the intricate relationship between geopolitical developments and worldwide food security. laws may be used to address the environmental causes of food scarcity, including pollution from human activities like deforestation, overgrazing, and climate change. acknowledgements none references baig, m. b., al-zahrani, k. h., schneider, f., straquadine, g. s., & mourad, m. j. 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(2015). conference summary: tropical agriculture as ‘last frontier’? food import needs of the middle east and north africa, ecological risks, and new dimensions of south-south cooperation with africa, latin america, and southeast asia (barcelona, 29–30 january 2015). in food security (taylor & francis). pa ge 1 pa ge 37 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) understanding farmers’ perceptions and factors determining the adoption of good agricultural practices: evidence from the cashew nut production in côte d’ivoire n. z. silué1*, c. c. adassé1, r. aboudou2, a. assemien1 volume 4 issue 1, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i1.4173 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: december 03, 2024 accepted: january 08, 2025 published: march 19, 2025 côte d’ivoire, the world’s leading cashew nut producer with 1,200,000 tons in 2022, faces low productivity of raw cashew nuts (350-500 kg/ha) due to limited adoption of good agricultural practices (gap). the objectives of this study are to examine the relationship between producers’ perceptions and the decision to adopt good agricultural practices, and to determine the determinants of the intensity of adoption of good agricultural practices. probit and poisson regression models were applied to data collected from 845 cashew producers in cote d’ivoire. the results show that training and access to extension services influences the adoption of good agricultural practices. the average adoption scores showed that the most widely adopted good agricultural practices were plot preparation, direct seeding, formation pruning, firebreak strips, thinning, and pruning. estimates from the probit model show that producer training on cashew technical itineraries, producer supervision by extension services, and producer perceptions are the main factors that determine the adoption of good agricultural practices. the estimates of the negative binomial model show that gender, level of education, social origin, training, and access to extension services favor the adoption of several good agricultural practices. policies should prioritize expanding training programs and strengthening extension services to enhance the adoption of good agricultural practices among cashew-nut producers and improve cashew production yield. keywords adoption, cashew nuts, good agricultural practices, perception 1 institute national polytechnique houphouët boigny, bp 1093 yamoussoukro, côte d’ivoire 2 africa rice center (africarice), 01 bp 2551, bouake 01, côte d’ivoire * corresponding author’s e-mail: nonlourouzie@yahoo.com introduction the global agricultural sector is facing increasing pressure to enhance productivity while ensuring environmental sustainability and resilience to climate change. in this context, the adoption of good agricultural practices (gaps) plays a crucial role in optimizing agricultural output and mitigating adverse environmental impacts. gaps encompass various techniques and strategies aimed at improving soil health, water management, pest control, and farm management. in contemporary agricultural discourse, the adoption of good agricultural practices (gaps) represents a pivotal strategy for enhancing productivity, sustainability, and socio-economic outcomes within the global agricultural sector. gaps encompass a spectrum of techniques, technologies, and management practices designed to optimize crop yields, minimize environmental impacts, and improve farmers’ livelihoods (fao, 2019). the successful uptake of gaps among farmers is not only crucial for achieving food security goals but also for mitigating the challenges posed by climate change and fluctuating market demands (ferraro et al., 2020). among various agricultural commodities, cashew nut (anacardium occidentale l.) production has strategic significance for many developing countries, including côte d’ivoire, where it plays a pivotal role in national economic development and rural livelihoods (wfp, 2018). as one of the world’s largest producers of cashew nuts, côte d’ivoire faces significant challenges such as fluctuating market prices, climate variability, and evolving consumer preferences. in this context, the adoption of gaps in cashew nut production has emerged as a critical factor influencing both the economic viability of farmers and the sustainable management of natural resources (pnud, 2021). in recent years, global cashew nut production has witnessed substantial growth, positioning côte d’ivoire as its leading producer. the first cashew plantations in côte d’ivoire were established in the early 1959-1960s by the société d’assistance technique pour la modernization de l’agriculture en côte d’ivoire (satmaci) and société de développement des forêts (sodefor) as part of a program to protect the environment and combat erosion and deforestation (ducroquet et al., 2017). a decade later, the embellishment of raw cashew nut prices led to a craze among producers for the production of raw cashew nuts to the detriment of forestry (gouma, 2003), with the creation of the first plantations since 1972 (conseil coton anacarde, 2017). the cashew nut production zone will gradually expand from the savannah zone (kone, 2014) southward around the 2000s, in cocoa-growing areas of forest-savannah contact, cocoa loops (m’bahiakro & bouaflé), and around 2010 in some cocoa-growing areas (bayota, gagnoa) (ruf et al., 2019). however, massive adoption of this crop has been carried out by the producers themselves, without any substantial technical or financial support from the state (ruf et al., 2019). understanding farmers’ perceptions of gaps and the determinants influencing their adoption are essential pa ge 38 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 37-49, 2025 for designing effective agricultural policies, extension services, and capacity-building initiatives tailored to local contexts (gómez-limón et al., 2022). despite the recognized benefits of gaps, adoption rates vary widely across regions and farming communities and are influenced by a complex interplay of socioeconomic, institutional, and environmental factors. this study sought to provide empirical insights into the factors shaping farmers’ adoption of gaps in cashew nut production in côte d’ivoire. by exploring farmers’ perceptions, motivations, barriers, and enabling factors related to gap adoption, this study aimed to inform strategies that promote sustainable agricultural practices, enhance farmers’ resilience, and foster inclusive economic growth in the region. the literature on good agricultural practices (gaps) often discusses their benefits for enhancing agricultural productivity and sustainability, yet there remains a notable gap regarding the specific determinants influencing farmers’ adoption of gaps in cashew nut production, particularly in the context of côte d’ivoire. existing studies have predominantly focused on staple crops or broader agricultural contexts, overlooking the unique challenges and opportunities within cashew nut farming, a crucial sector of the ivorian economy. this study aims to fill this gap by empirically examining the factors influencing gap adoption among cashew nut farmers in côte d’ivoire, thereby contributing to a nuanced understanding of how socioeconomic, institutional, and environmental factors interact in shaping adoption decisions. by elucidating farmers’ perceptions, motivations, and barriers related to gap adoption, this study seeks to provide actionable insights for policymakers and development practitioners aiming to promote sustainable agricultural practices and enhance the resilience of cashew nut farmers in the region. using a mixed-methods approach that combines qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys, this study endeavors to provide a nuanced understanding of how gap adoption can be effectively promoted among cashew nut farmers in côte d’ivoire. by identifying the key determinants and stakeholders involved in the adoption process, this study aims to offer actionable recommendations for policymakers, development practitioners, and agricultural stakeholders striving to enhance the sustainability and competitiveness of cashew nut production in the global market. there is abundant literature on the factors that determine producers’ adoption of agricultural innovations. several studies based on economic theories indicate that the determinants of technology and innovation adoption are of various kinds: socio-economic (education, income, age, attitude to risk, experience in agriculture), demographic (number of people in the household, number of assets), institutional (information, training, membership of a producer organization), and technical, economic, and environmental (adégbola & gardebroek, 2007). moreover, among the most widely recognized determinants of the adoption of agricultural innovations, farmers’ perception of the characteristics of innovation proposed by extension services is of prime importance (adesina & baidu-forson, 1995). indeed, several studies have demonstrated the influence of producers’ perceptions of the attributes of proposed technologies (nutritional quality, yield, price, availability of inputs, etc.) on their decision to adopt them (adégbola & gardebroek, 2007). the objectives of this study were to examine the relative effects of producers’ perceptions on the decision to adopt good agricultural practices and to determine the main factors in the adoption and intensity of the adoption of good agricultural practices. literature review concept of good agricultural practices coulibaly et al. (2019) stated that good agricultural practices are an expression used by various organizations linked to agriculture, and that this term refers to a set of rules to be respected (good practices) for establishing and developing crops to optimize agricultural production while reducing as far as possible the risks associated with such practices, both with regard to man and the environment. in its run-up to the world summit on sustainable development, the un (2002) stressed the importance of sustainable agriculture for food security and resource management. fao (2002) defines good agricultural practices as a set of sustainable agricultural production systems that are socially viable, economically profitable, and productive, while protecting human and animal health and welfare and the environment. in this context, good agricultural practices can be seen as those that contribute to sustainable agriculture. according to the fao, good agricultural practices are based on 11 guiding principles. these principles apply to both the entire production and value chain of a plant or animal product on a given farm, and to the various subcomponents of agriculture. in côte d’ivoire, several agricultural innovations, including good farming practices for various crops (e.g., cocoa, cashew nuts), are being disseminated to producers by several extension organizations. as far as cashew nuts are concerned, twelve (12) themes (table 1) that bring together all environmentally-friendly agricultural practices and ethical values in cashew nut production zones have been retained as part of the framework agreement (20142017) between the “conseil du coton et de l’anacarde” and anader. these practices involve both good production and post-harvest practices. the adoption and application of these practices aims to improve cashew nut productivity and quality. these themes were disseminated by anader through an agricultural advisory service dedicated to cashew nut growers, which provided information and training in villages, school fields, demonstration units, and plot visits. the dissemination of these themes involves an “agricultural advisor’s extension agent as a channel of pa ge 39 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 37-49, 2025 table 1: good production practices in cashew nut cultivation n° themes 1 plot preparation 2 plant material acquisition when creating a new orchard 3 staking when creating a new orchard 4 digging and filling in when creating a new orchard 5 direct seeding when creating a new orchard 6 planting when creating a new orchard 7 fertilization during the planting stage 8 creation of firebreaks around your orchard 9 replanting when creating a new orchard 10 shaping pruning 11 thinning 12 pruning source: anader dissemination, and a producer as the “advised agent” advised agent. local radio stations are also used to broadcast information in the local languages. determinants of the adoption of agricultural innovations among the definitions proposed by several authors on innovation adoption, rogers (1983) appears most frequently. he defines innovation as “an idea, practice, or object perceived as new by a person or unit of adoption”. for him, one of the characteristics of technological innovations is that they are not automatically adopted once they appear, even if they have superior qualities compared with older technologies. rogers (2003) considered that the degree of adoption is linked to the level of diffusion, which is the process by which an innovation is communicated to members of a social system through certain channels over time. thus, adopting agricultural innovation means that it offers something more than the current practices. roussy et al. (2015) reveal that many works on innovation adoption behavior are based on the hypothesis that the overall perceived utility of an innovation corresponds to the sum of the utilities of the characteristics making up that innovation, referring in this to the work of lancaster (1966). in addition, several theoretical models have been developed for technology adoption and choice since the work of rogers (1983) to explain the behavior of actors. these include i) the diffusion of innovation model (rogers, 1983), ii) the technology acceptance model (davis, 1989), iii) the theory of interpersonal behavior (triandis, 1980), and iv) the neoclassical theory of rational expectations (muth, 1961). studies based on these theories indicate that the determinants of technology and innovation adoption are of various types: social, technical, economic and environmental. recent empirical studies have examined the adoption of good agricultural practices for cashew cultivation in côte d’ivoire. ouattara (2017) identified the determinants of the adoption of good pre-harvest cultivation practices for cashews. using an unordered multinomial logit model, she shows that social variables, such as location and level of education, favor the adoption of good pre-harvest cashew production practices. conversely, variables such as the age of the farm manager and household size had a negative impact on the adoption of certain good cashewgrowing practices. coulibaly et al. (2019) examine the financial profitability of adopting good production practices. they used the score method and budget. analyses show that 54.7% of growers apply good production practices, which positively impact yield and income. however, their application is financially less profitable because it incurs higher costs. perceptions and adoption of agricultural innovations since the seminal work of kivlin and fliegel (1966a, b, 1967), many studies in agricultural economics have been conducted on the factors that influence producers’ perceptions and adoption of new agricultural technologies. perceptions are psychological factors that can influence an individual’s behavior. sheth and mittal (2004) stated that this is a process by which individuals select, organize, and interpret information. their perceptions were subjective. economists (jones, 1989; lin & milon, 1993) who have worked on consumer demand have corroborated that consumers have subjective preferences for product characteristics and that their demand for products is significantly affected by their perception of product attributes. in the context of agriculture, the key attributes described in the literature include: i) compatibility, ii) complexity, iii) observability, transferability, iv) cost, profitability, v) risk and uncertainty, vi) trialability, and vii) relative advantage (barroga, 2019). empirically, according to rogers’ model (2003), the particular characteristics of the technology and the way potential users perceive its value can explain between 50% and 90% of the variation in adoption rates. similarly, adesina and baidu-forson (1995) show that technology adoption by farmers reflects rational decision making based on farmers’ perception of the relevance of the characteristics of the technologies studied through their work on adoption decisions of improved rice varieties by sierra leonean farmers. indeed, they showed that farmers’ adoption decisions depended mainly on their perceptions of these new varieties. specifically, factors such as cooking, yield, ease of dehulling, and milling play decisive roles in the decision to adopt these rice varieties. materials and methods study area and sampling the present study was conducted from october to november 2017 in the cashew nut production basin in côte d’ivoire, which covers 19 regions in the northern half of the country (figure 1). this methodological approach was based on a survey of raw cashew nut producers in various zones. the sample pa ge 40 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 37-49, 2025 targeted 1020 raw cashew nut producers in the cashew production zone, representing a sampling rate of 15% compared to the parent population of 149,600 producers. the final database covered 845 cashew nut growers throughout the production zone, regardless of whether they were included in the training and monitoring project for good agricultural practices. data were collected using a questionnaire intended for cashew-nut growers. they covered sociodemographic information on growers, plot characteristics, growers’ perceptions of good agricultural practices, and economic data. data analysis data were processed using stata software and focused on the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of producers, technical characteristics of cashew nut plots, producers’ perceptions, and institutional factors. data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, percentile, etc.), correlation coefficients, score method, and two regression models. two regression models were used: probit and poisson. the score method the score method was used to assess attitudes towards adopting good farming practices. this method was implemented as follows: for each good practice, the farmer was asked to choose the level of appreciation or application. four modalities (not at all, little, moderately, and strongly) were submitted according to the manufacturer’s judgment. the ratings were as follows: not at all, 1; somewhat = 2, moderately = 3, and strongly, 4. the average score for each good practice was obtained by averaging the scores assigned to the theme by each producer. the average score was calculated as follows: means score = (∑scorei)/n .....(1) where i is the responding producer and n is the total number of responding producers. the average score for good practice was between 1 and 3. the more a theme was adopted, the higher the adoption score, which tended to be 4. a theme with a score of one implies that it has not been adopted. probit model let uij be the utility that producer i hopes to obtain using technique j, and let i = {1, 2,..., n}. the producer’s decision involves two mutually exclusive alternatives. the ith producer will use technique j if ui1 >ui0 (1 for good farming practices and 0 for peasant practices). anticipated profit (u*i) is an unobserved latent variable that depends on alternative choices and the farmer’s socioeconomic, demographic, and institutional characteristics (xij). according to the probit model, if the producer considers good farming practices to be more profitable, ui*>0; otherwise, he continues with the technique he was using and ui*≤ 0. with ui* the unobservable latent variable associated with the adoption decision; where xij constitute a vector of explanatory variables, 𝛽𝑖 the parameter vector and ɛi the error term. ui=∑n j=1 βi xij+ εi; i=1,…,n; j=1,…,n .....(2) ui=1 adoption of good agricultural practice ui=0 non-adoption of good agricultural practice the probability of adopting a good practice is then equal to: pi = prob (ai=1) = ∑n j=1 βi xij+ εi>0 .....(3) pi= f(∑n j=1 βi xij; i=1,…,n; j=1,…,n .....(4) where f is the normal distribution function. f(x)=∫x -∞ (1/(√2π)) e-t2/2) dt .....(5) the distribution function f follows a normal distribution, and the z statistic is used to estimate various coefficients and parameters of the equation. figure 1: study survey areas source: author based on survey data pa ge 41 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 37-49, 2025 poisson model poisson regression is estimated by considering the total number of good agricultural practices that can be adopted by a producer. poisson regression is usually employed when the dependent variable is a count variable, which in this case is the sum of the good agricultural practices adopted. the poisson probability distribution is more appropriate than the normal distribution used in the probit model, or the logistic distribution used in the logit model. the probability density function is expressed as follows: f(yi/xi) = p(yi/yi) = (e-λλy)/y!, y= 0,1,2,3,4,5,... .....(6) where yi is the total number of good agricultural practices adopted by the farmer and xi is the variables influencing the adoption process. the expected mean parameter (λ) of the probability function is defined as e(yi/xi) = λi = exp(x’iβ) = exp(β0+β1x1i+β2 x2i+.....+βk xk i+εi) .....(7) this equation can be estimated using the maximum likelihood approach. results and discussion socio-demographic characteristics of cashew nut growers and farm techniques the descriptive statistics for the continuous and discrete categorical variables used in this study are presented in table 2. the results showed that cashew-nut growers were mainly men (95%), with a marginal proportion of women (5%). the average age of producers was 47 years, with a standard deviation of 11 years. the predominance of men over women in cashew nut cultivation can be explained by the difficult access of women to land, as noted by koné (2011), who affirmed that traditionally, women rarely receive or inherit valuable land definitively with exclusivity and are excluded from the management rights of lineage land heritage. indeed, given its occupation of space over several years and its economic interest, the cultivation of cashew trees constitutes a cash crop owned mainly by men. the average size of cashew-growing households was 10 members who could participate in the fieldwork. with regard to the education level of cashew nut growers, the results showed that more than a majority of growers (63%) were illiterate. in terms of social status, the results showed that the majority of cashew nut growers were natives (82%), with a small proportion being non-natives (8%) and allochtones (10%). the most likely explanation is that non-native and non-native faces, in the same way as women, have difficult access to land capital. indeed, the majority of non-natives and non-natives had access to land for the establishment of cashew plots through purchase or rental. in terms of marital status, the majority of cashew growers lived as couples (64%), either cohabiting or being married. the results of the study showed that the majority of cashew growers acquired their plots by inheritance (54%), compared with 21% of growers who created their own farms and owned their plots. on average, producers own around 1.5 plots per farming household. the average size of cashew plots was 4.2 ha. these plots were 17 years old on average; therefore, cashew orchards tended to age. these plots were located approximately 4 km from producers’ homes. within the framework of the training program dedicated to producers, the study revealed that 79% of producers have been trained, sensitized, or informed about good cashew-growing practices, compared to 56% who have received advisory support from supervisory services. table 2: producer socio-economic characteristics and cashew nut farm techniques variables obs mean std. dev. socio-demographics sex (female=0; male=1) 845 0.948 0.222 producer age (year) 845 46.807 11.182 household size 845 10.372 5.499 literate 845 0.370 0.483 social status (0=native; 1=native;) 845 0.820 0.384 marital status (1=in couple; 0=not in couple) 845 0.645 0.479 cashew nut plot inheritance mode (1=inheritance; 0=other) 845 0.544 0.498 ownership mode (1=owner; 0=other) 845 0.214 0.411 purchase mode 845 0.044 0.205 rental of plot 845 0.031 0.173 number of plots 845 1.498 0.667 plot age (year) 845 16.843 6.805 production area (ha) 845 4.172 3.205 plot distance (km) 845 3.507 2.597 institutional pa ge 42 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 37-49, 2025 gap training 845 0.796 0.403 contact with extension agent 845 0.563 0.496 source: author based on survey data cashew nut growers’ perception of good agricultural practices the mean rank of growers’ perceptions of each good agricultural practice was calculated and the rank was determined using kendall’s coefficient of agreement (table 3). among the various good agricultural practices, table 3: kendal’s w test on farmers’ perception of good agricultural practices good agricultural practices mean rank rank pruning 5,40 1 thinning 5,57 2 making firebreaks around your orchard 5,89 3 plot preparation 6,15 4 acquiring plant material when creating a new orchard 6,58 5 training pruning 6,59 6 direct seeding when creating a new orchard 6,81 7 staking when creating a new orchard 6,81 8 planting when creating a new orchard 6,93 9 fertilization during the planting stage 6,95 10 digging and filling when creating a new orchard 7,03 11 regarnishing when creating a new orchard 7,29 12 w de kendalla 0,076 *** khi-deux 705,706 ddl 11 source: author based on survey data table 4: level of adoption of good farming practices by producers good agricultural practices not at all little moderately very much mean score plot preparation 411 78 114 242 2,221 acquiring plant material when creating a new orchard 517 102 122 104 1,779 staking when creating a new orchard 559 48 100 138 1,783 digging and filling in when creating a new orchard 578 59 90 118 1,702 direct seeding when creating a new orchard 473 57 127 188 2,036 planting when creating a new orchard 567 62 103 113 1,718 fertilization during the planting stage 621 55 64 105 1,589 laying firebreaks around your orchard 398 42 79 326 2,394 kendall’s test revealed that pruning is the first and most important in terms of growers’ perceptions, which promotes improved yield and nut quality. this was followed by thinning and fire banding around the orchards. practices such as fertilization, digging, and relining are in the last position. frequency of adoption of good agricultural practices by producers the level of adoption of each good agricultural practice, based on the average score, is presented in table 5. this study revealed that growers preferentially adopted tree branch pruning, thinning, and firebreak creation to protect their orchards, soil preparation, semi-direct seeding, and formation pruning, for which the level of adoption is high. however, they had a low level of adoption for the acquisition of planting materials, staking, digging, planting, fertilization, and replanting. although descriptive, these analyses have the advantage of being easy to understand. moreover, they constitute a first step towards a more in-depth study of the implications of agricultural practices and socio-economic characteristics on the perception of the adoption of good cashew production practices. pa ge 43 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 37-49, 2025 replanting when creating a new orchard 532 91 94 128 1,785 shaping pruning 422 104 129 190 2,103 thinning 326 99 135 285 2,449 pruning 325 81 130 309 2,501 note: average weight = 2.005 multi-collinearity test results multicollinearity tests were performed for all econometric models. for each model, the partial correlation test indicated a correlation between explanatory and dependent variables. similarly, a correlation exists between the model’s explanatory variables. this led to multicollinearity. to solve this problem (nana & thiombiano, 2018) cite several authors such as asfaw et al. (2012); cahuzac and bontemps (2008), who recommend calculating the variance inflation factor (vif). according to chatterjee et al. (2000), a multicollinearity problem is identified when the vif has a value greater than or equal to 10 and/or when the mean of the vifs is greater than or equal to 2. conversely, some authors (allison) indicated vif values of 4, 5, and 10 before raising concerns. on the other hand, if none of these two values is reached, the impact of multicollinearity is not, according to these authors, cause for concern, and all the explanatory variables can therefore be retained for the analysis, the latter not being redhibitory “distorted” by the existing level of multicollinearity. the vif calculation in this study shows that multicollinearity for each model is not a problem in the estimation. in fact, all vifs are less than five, the inverse of the vifs of each variable is less than one, and the mean of the vifs is less than two. consequently, we conclude that there is no multicollinearity between explanatory variables. presentation and interpretation of probit estimation results the results of the maximum likelihood and marginal effects probit estimations are presented in tables 6, 7, 8, and 9. the critical probabilities associated with the various likelihood ratio statistics are 0.000 significant at the 1% level. the various models are, therefore, highly significant overall, and the variables considered as a whole are also significant. relationships exist between the explanatory variables and the variables that explain the adoption of each good farming practice. in dichotomous models, coefficients cannot be interpreted directly. we can only suggest that a positive coefficient increases the probability, and vice versa for a negative coefficient. statistical interpretation of estimated parameters tables 5 on the estimated parameters of the probit model for each good agricultural practice show that all (independent) explanatory variables sometimes show statistically significant differences for some good practices and not for others. similarly, the coefficients of the same variable have positive signs for some good farming practices, and negative signs for others. however, certain variables, such as farmers’ training in good agricultural practices, farmers’ access to extension services, and all the variables relating to farmers’ perceptions of good agricultural practices, showed statistically significant and positive differences in the adoption of the 12 good agricultural practices. table 5: estimation of probit model parameters on factors determining adoption of each good production practice variables plot preparation plant material staking digging & filling direct seeding planting sex 0.264 0.268 0.798*** 0.689** 0.251 1.042*** (0.232) (0.254) (0.297) (0.297) (0.240) (0.321) producer age 0.009* 0.005 0.013** 0.011** 0.007 0.015*** (0.005) (0.005) (0.005) (0.005) (0.005) (0.005) household size -0.017* -0.005 0.005 0.006 -0.004 -0.002 (0.010) (0.011) (0.010) (0.010) (0.010) (0.010) literate 0.029 0.181 0.113 0.021 0.151 0.111 (0.107) (0.110) (0.110) (0.110) (0.108) (0.108) social status 0.001 0.013 0.130 0.042 0.153 0.064 (0.146) (0.152) (0.149) (0.152) (0.147) (0.150) marital status -0.004 -0.132 0.119 0.024 -0.039 -0.141 (0.108) (0.115) (0.116) (0.116) (0.113) (0.114) inheritance mode -0.112 -0.178 -0.438*** -0.540*** -0.204 -0.375*** (0.145) (0.146) (0.145) (0.142) (0.145) (0.143) pa ge 44 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 37-49, 2025 ownership mode -0.767*** -0.744*** -0.744*** -0.779*** -0.967*** -0.745*** (0.168) (0.175) (0.173) (0.171) (0.173) (0.171) purchase mode -0.385 -0.097 -0.460 -0.608** -0.514* -0.395 (0.289) (0.302) (0.305) (0.303) (0.289) (0.292) rental of plot -0.305 -0.994** -1.022** -1.015** -0.995** -0.915** (0.364) (0.479) (0.478) (0.465) (0.478) (0.465) number of plots -0.070 -0.028 -0.067 0.011 0.002 -0.099 (0.082) (0.084) (0.085) (0.083) (0.083) (0.083) plot age -0.011 -0.020** -0.039*** -0.028*** -0.018** -0.024*** (0.008) (0.009) (0.009) (0.008) (0.008) (0.008) production area 0.020 0.042** 0.042** 0.022 0.025 0.005 (0.018) (0.019) (0.018) (0.018) (0.018) (0.018) plot distance -0.020 -0.046** -0.016 -0.013 -0.030 -0.039* (0.020) (0.022) (0.021) (0.021) (0.021) (0.021) gap training 0.708*** 0.479** 0.508** 0.445** 0.758*** 0.683*** (0.160) (0.187) (0.199) (0.198) (0.176) (0.198) contact with extension agent 0.679*** 0.890*** 0.892*** 0.840*** 0.582*** 0.686*** (0.116) (0.123) (0.126) (0.129) (0.118) (0.122) perception of plot preparation 1.126*** na na na na na (0.114) perception of plant material na 1.292*** na na na na (0.120) perception of staking na na 1.093*** na na na (0.122) perception of digging na na na 1.042*** na na (0.120) perception of direct sowing na na na na 1.239*** na (0.114) perception of planting na na na na na 0.991*** (0.116) constant -1.642*** -1.883*** -2.747*** -2.475*** -1.936*** -2.743*** (0.402) (0.433) (0.472) (0.467) (0.416) (0.487) na: not applicable source: author, based on survey data. *** significant at 1%; ** significant at 5%; *significant at 10%. regarding the determinants affecting the adoption of all gaps, the results of the probit model showed that the variables training, coaching, and producers’ perceptions had positive and significant relationships with the adoption of all (12) gaps, with marginal effects ranging from 11.3% to 33.6%. with regard to the training and coaching of producers on good agricultural practices, the results show that the majority of producers (80%) were informed, sensitized, or trained on good production practices, and 56% were coached by agricultural advisory services. as part of the implementation of the agricultural advisory program dedicated to cashew nut growers, the many information dissemination channels used (supervisory structures, ngos, cca, radio, etc.) have made it possible to inform many growers on cashew nutrelated topics. similarly, anader’s training courses on good production practices through farmers’ field schools and visits to plots by agricultural advisors have enhanced growers’ knowledge and interest in these practices. these results are similar to those of roussy et al. (2015), who argue in their work that the informational context, both formal (advisor visits) and informal (producer networks), affects the adoption of innovations. these results suggest that information campaigns and producers’ technical and cognitive capacities must be further strengthened to better support them in the process of adopting and appropriating good production practices. regarding producers’ perceptions, the results suggest that the more cashew producers believe that good agricultural practices pa ge 45 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 37-49, 2025 improve tree yield and nut quality, the more willing they are to adopt these practices. indeed, djaha et al. (2012) noted that high plantation densities are among the constraints at the root of low yields observed in cashew production zones. indeed, all good practices have been indicated to sustainably increase yields. this result confirms our basic hypothesis that a producer’s perception of a good production practice improves its probability of adoption. our results concur with those of adesina and zinnah (1993), who showed that sierra leonean farmers’ decisions to adopt improved rice varieties largely depend on their perceptions of new varieties. the assumption that farmers’ perceptions of their own capacity to adapt and change are a determining factor in the choice of agricultural practices (hyland et al. 2016; talanow et al., 2021; topp et al., 2023). consequently, to facilitate the adoption of good production practices, emphasis should be placed on the benefits. to this end, practical demonstration sessions in farmers’ school fields between demonstration plots and farmers’ plots can be organized to assess the yield and quality of raw cashew nuts. this study is also in line with the findings of niambe et al. (2024), who provide insights into the socioeconomic factors affecting the adoption of sustainable practices in nigeria. factors determining the intensity of adoption of good farming practices frequency of intensity of adoption of good agricultural practices among the 12 gap, cashew nut growers can adopt different sums of good agricultural practices, referred to here as adoption intensity, ranging from 0 to 12 (table 10). this study revealed that producers adopt an average of five gap at a time. in terms of proportion, the study shows that 28% of cashew growers have not adopted any of the 12 good agricultural practices, preferring traditional farming practices. on the other hand, approximately 19% of growers have adopted all twelve (12) recommended agricultural practices for the better management of cashew plots. between these extremes, the proportion of growers with adoption intensities ranging from 1 to 11 fluctuated between 3.2% and 6.86%. the results also show that more than half of the growers (53%) did not adopt the entire technological package of good agricultural practices, but rather made partial or sequential choices of the package of good agricultural practices they applied to the plots. similar results were reported by roussy et al. (2015). indeed, several factors can explain producers’ sequential adoption behavior of technological packages, including fixed costs, credit constraints, risk, and uncertainty (aldana et al., 2011). figure 2: intensity of adoption of good farming practices source: author based on survey data test for normality of independent variable the skewness and kurtosis test shows that the “intensity_ adopt” dependent variable does not follow a normal distribution. the skewness p-value was less than 0.05; therefore, we rejected the h0 hypothesis, and the data did not have a normal distribution. multicollinearity test between variables before proceeding with multivariate analysis, it is essential to examine the correlations of the explanatory variables to detect any multicollinearity that may bias the conclusions of the analysis. examination of the correlation matrix shows that there is no strongly elevated level of correlation that requires corrective actions. the correlation coefficients ranged from − -0.571 to a maximum of 0.509. all these correlation coefficients are below the 0.8 threshold and therefore, do not reveal the presence of a serious multicollinearity problem. detecting over-dispersion the fish model is the most widely used probabilistic pa ge 46 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 37-49, 2025 framework for the analysis of count data; however, this model is only appropriate if the mean of the count variable is equal to its variance e(y) = var (y). if this hypothesis is not verified, the parameters estimated using the maximum likelihood method will be biased. in this case, an alternative counting model that considers overdispersion (negative binomial model) is indispensable. the ratio of the variance to the mean of the dependent variable estimated for the 845 producers in the sample, with a value of 4.24, favored an over-dispersion of observations in relation to the poisson distribution hypothesis. model estimation using poisson and negative binomial regression the over-dispersion test performed after estimating the regression of the poisson model (table 6) shows a highly significant over-dispersion (p-value < 0.05), allowing us to reject the null hypothesis of equality of the mean and variance of the “intensity adop” variable. therefore, it is necessary to use a negative binomial model. the estimates of the poisson and negative binomial models (table 6) confirm the superiority of the negative binomial model. the likelihood ratio test (prob ≥ chibar2 = 0.000) led to the choice of a negative binomial model. the poisson model is a nonlinear model, and incidence rate ratios (irr) were used to interpret the coefficients obtained after regression. an incidence rate ratio of less than 1 (irr < 1) means that an adopter is less likely to adopt several good agricultural practices, while an incidence rate ratio of greater than or equal to 1 (irr ≥ 1) means that an adopter is more likely to adopt several good agricultural practices. the results of the poisson regression model show that the gender of the producer, level of education, social status, marital status, and training and supervision of producers in good agricultural practices have positive effects on the intensity of adoption of good agricultural practices within the population studied. on the other hand, the mode of acquisition of cashew plots (inheritance, ownership, rental) and the number of cashew plots owned by the producer had a reducing effect on the intensity of adoption of good agricultural practices. the marital status of couples positively influenced the intensity of the adoption of good farming practices. this result is similar to that of sale et al. (2014), who noted that married farmers have children who serve as their labor force for various agricultural tasks. this marital status determines the farmer’s needs and expenses, and conditions his decisions to improve agricultural productivity. the incidence rate ratio associated with the sex variable was greater than 1 (1.439 > 1) and was statistically significant at the 1% threshold. this means that the intensity of the adoption of good agricultural practices among men was 1.439 times higher than that among women. the incidence rate ratio associated with the literacy variable was greater than 1 (1.206> 1) and was statistically significant at the 1% threshold. this means that the intensity of the adoption of good farming practices among literate farmers is 1.206 times higher than that among non-literate farmers. this result confirms the importance of producers’ level of education in the adoption of good farming practices. male producers, who comprise 95% of cashew nut growers, have a higher adoption intensity than female producers. this result is consistent with several studies that have shown a positive correlation between decisions to adopt innovation and education level in sub-saharan africa (kebede et al., 1990). indeed, a high level of education influences the attitudes and thoughts of producers, making them more open, rational, and able to analyze the benefits of good production practices. education facilitates critical thinking and the effective use of information received by producers (dissanayake et al., 2022). thus, literate producers understand their interest in adopting the entire technological package of good agricultural practices, which impacts the yield and quality of raw cashew nuts. this implies that actions to strengthen the capacities of current cashew producers in functional literacy will have to be carried out to improve their level of education and to make them aware of educating future generations of producers, with the aim of improving their decision to adopt good production practices. the incidence rate ratio associated with the social status variable was greater than 1 (1.233> 1) and statistically significant at the 1% threshold. this means that the intensity of adoption of good farming practices among indigenous producers is 1.233 times higher than that of allogeneic or allochthonous producers. this result shows that origin has a positive influence on producers’ adoption behavior. this result can be explained by the fact that indigenous producers are more likely to take part in training courses (75%) on good farming practices and receive coaching (80%) from extension agents, as well as by their access to land (nkamleu & coulibaly, 2000). the incidence rate ratio associated with the training variable was greater than 1 (3.813> 1) and statistically significant at the 1% threshold. this means that the intensity of the adoption of good farming practices among producers who have been trained in good farming practices is 3.813 times higher than that among producers who have not been trained. the incidence rate ratio associated with access to advisory support from extension services is greater than 1 (3.813> 1) and is statistically significant at the 1% threshold. this means that the intensity of adoption of good farming practices among producers who receive support from extension services on good farming practices is 3.813 times higher than that of producers who receive no support. conversely, the incidence rate ratios associated with the plot acquisition mode variable are less than 1 and statistically significant at the 1% threshold for the owner and lease modes, and 10% for the inheritance mode. these results show that these modes of access to plots by producers have a reducing effect on the intensity of adoption of good farming practices. pa ge 47 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 37-49, 2025 table 6: parameter estimates for poisson and negative binomial models of intensity of adoption of good farming practices variables poisson regression negative binomial regression irr dydx irr dydx sex 1.586*** 2.408*** 1.439** 1.923* (0.150) (0.496) (0.251) (0.924) producer age 1.002 0.010 1.001 0.003 (0.001) (0.008) (0.003) (0.017) household size 1.004 0.023 1.004 0.019 (0.003) (0.016) (0.007) (0.036) literate 1.136*** 0.664*** 1.206** 0.991** (0.036) (0.166) (0.085) (0.378) social status 1.198*** 0.942*** 1.233** 1.108* (0.055) (0.241) (0.118) (0.511) marital status 1.062* 0.316 1.143* 0.707 (0.036) (0.177) (0.085) (0.396) inheritance mode 0.844*** -0.882*** 0.854* -0.833 (0.033) (0.205) (0.079) (0.494) ownership mode 0.647*** -2.269*** 0.697*** -1.904** (0.032) (0.262) (0.078) (0.596) purchase mode 0.935 -0.352 1.029 0.149 (0.082) (0.459) (0.199) (1.019) rental of plot 0.276*** -6.717*** 0.232*** -7.716*** (0.053) (1.006) (0.067) (1.579) number of plots 0.96* -0.210 0.904* -0.531 (0.023) (0.127) (0.049) (0.291) plot age 0.991*** -0.048*** 0.995 -0.026 (0.002) (0.013) (0.005) (0.028) production area 1.001 0.006 0.996 -0.022 (0.005) (0.028) (0.012) (0.061) plot distance 0.992 -0.043 0.998 -0.013 (0.006) (0.033) (0.014) (0.073) gap training 3.416*** 6.412*** 3.813*** 7.069*** (0.281) (0.440) (0.443) (0.695) contact with extension agent 2.073*** 3.805*** 2.107*** 3.935*** (0.083) (0.217) (0.163) (0.462) constant 0.715** 0.69 (0.107) (0.195) observations prob > chi2 = chi-square = pseudo r2 = 845 0.000 1593.600 0.240 845 0.000 355.338 0.077 source: author based on survey data conclusion the objectives of this study were to examine the relationships between producers’ perceptions and the decision to adopt good agricultural practices and to determine the main factors in the intensity of adoption of good agricultural practices in the context of improving cashew nut farm productivity. to this end, a probit model and negative binomial regression model were implemented using data collected from 845 producers. the results showed that in terms of growers’ perceptions, certain good agricultural practices, such as pruning, thinning, and firebreaks, were the most important for pa ge 48 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(1) 37-49, 2025 improving the yield and quality of raw cashew nuts. good agricultural practices are among those with a high level of adoption. this link is confirmed by the results of the probit model, which showed that training, coaching, and producers’ perceptions were the main factors determining the probability of all (12) good farming practices. an important finding of this study is that more than half of cashew growers adopt among some growers do not adopt the entire technological package of good agricultural practices, but rather make partial or sequential choices. on the other hand, the mode of acquisition of cashew nut plots (inheritance, ownership, rental) and the number of cashew nut plots owned by the producer reduced the intensity of the adoption of good agricultural practices. these results suggest that industry management actors should initiate programs to strengthen producers’ technical capacities and provide incentives for the adoption of good agricultural practices to raise cashew nut plot productivity. in practice, this can be achieved through information campaigns and practical demonstration sessions in farmers’ school fields (technical and cognitive capacity-building). in-situ demonstration sessions will help improve cashew-nut growers’ perceptions. policy implication based on the findings that highlight the significant factors influencing the adoption of good agricultural practices (gaps) in cashew nut production in côte d’ivoire, several policy recommendations can be formulated to enhance adoption rates and promote sustainable agricultural practices. first, it is crucial to prioritize and expand training programs tailored to the cashew technical itinerary to ensure that producers have access to comprehensive knowledge and skills necessary for the effective implementation of gaps, such as plot preparation, direct seeding, and pruning techniques. second, strengthening and expanding extension services, focusing on regular supervision and advisory support for farmers, is imperative. this can enhance technical assistance and guidance, which are pivotal in overcoming the barriers to adoption identified in this study, particularly for practices such as formation pruning and firebreak strips. additionally, addressing socioeconomic factors, such as sex disparities, educational levels, and social backgrounds, through targeted interventions and incentives can further incentivize adoption. policy efforts should also aim to improve access to the resources and inputs necessary for gap implementation, thereby fostering a conducive environment for sustainable agricultural development in the cashew sector in côte d’ivoire. references adegbola, p., & gardebroek, c. 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(2018). cashew value chain analysis in côte d’ivoire. retrieved from https:// documents.wfp.org/stel lent/groups/public/ documents/ena/wfp296241.pdf pa ge 1 pa ge 57 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) variation in toll-like receptor 4 (tlr4) gene in chicken genotypes and its association with resistance to attenuated newcastle virus utip benjamin ekaluo1, ekerette emmanuel ekerette1*, benjamin bendiwhobel ushie1, godwin egbe john2, ekei victor ikpeme1 volume 4 issue 2, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i2.6088 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: september 02, 2025 accepted: october 05, 2025 published: november 14, 2025 newcastle disease (nd) remains a major constraint to poultry production, and genetic variation in immune-related genes may influence vaccine responsiveness. this study evaluated variation in the toll-like receptor 4 (tlr4) gene among four chicken genotypes: normal feather (nfc), naked neck (nnc), frizzle feather (ffc), and exotic (exc), and assessed their antibody responses to attenuated nd vaccination. a total of 100 day-old chicks were reared under uniform intensive management. birds were vaccinated at two weeks of age, with a booster administered one week later. blood samples were collected 14 days postvaccination for determination of haemagglutination inhibition (hi) titre. genomic dna was extracted from blood, and the tlr4 gene was pcr-amplified, sequenced, and analyzed for nucleotide and haplotype diversity, mismatch distribution, and phylogenetic relationships. results showed significant differences in antibody titres among genotypes (p < 0.05), with ffc exhibiting the highest response, followed by nnc, nfc, and exc. genetic diversity analysis revealed the highest nucleotide diversity in ffc (π = 0.121) and lowest in exc (π = 0.031), with haplotype diversity ranging from 0.822 (nnc) to 1.00 (nfc). pairwise fst and gst values indicated low to moderate differentiation, and phylogenetic analysis showed admixture among genotypes, with two major clades. mismatch distributions were multimodal and ragged, suggesting complex demographic histories. the findings indicate that indigenous genotypes, particularly ffc and nnc, combine higher genetic diversity with stronger antibody responses to nd vaccination. polymorphisms in the tlr4 gene may contribute to enhanced immune competence, highlighting the potential of these genotypes as genetic resources for breeding programmes aimed at improving disease resistance and sustainable poultry production. keywords antibody response, chicken genotypes, genetic diversity, newcastle disease, toll-like receptor 4 1 department of genetics and biotechnology, faculty of biological sciences, university of calabar, p.m.b. 1115 calabar, cross river state, nigeria 2 department of microbiology, faculty of biological sciences, university of calabar, p.m.b. 1115 calabar, cross river state, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: ekerette.ekerette@unical.edu.ng introduction poultry production plays a vital role in food security and livelihood in many parts of the world, especially in developing countries, where it provides affordable animal protein and a steady source of household income. global consumption of poultry meat has increased significantly in recent decades, driven by its relative affordability and nutritional value (korver, 2023). however, this growth has been accompanied by increasing dependence on a limited number of highly productive commercial breeds, leading to the marginalization of indigenous chickens and a continual erosion of avian genetic resources (korver, 2023; senbeta & keyata, 2024). in nigeria, chickens represent the most widely distributed poultry species, with an estimated population exceeding 166 million birds (fao, 2007; chikezie, 2021). indigenous chickens, in particular, play a vital socioeconomic role in rural communities where they are often reared under traditional scavenging systems. their ability to survive under harsh environmental conditions, resist endemic diseases, and thrive with minimal inputs makes them invaluable genetic resources for sustainable poultry production (soglia et al., 2020; xie et al., 2024; ekerette et al., 2025a; ushie et al., 2025). despite their relatively low productivity compared to exotic breeds, indigenous chickens are recognized as reservoirs of important adaptive genes that can be exploited for genetic improvement (ajayi, 2010; kpomasse et al., 2023; ekerette et al., 2025a, b). advances in molecular genetics now provide powerful tools for assessing genetic diversity, population structure, and candidate genes of economic and adaptive importance (nazari & pourkazemi, 2023; wu et al., 2025; ekerette et al., 2025c). increasing attention has been given to immune-related genes, as variation in these loci can influence resistance to infectious diseases. newcastle disease (nd), caused by newcastle disease virus (ndv), remains one of the most economically devastating poultry diseases worldwide (hu et al., 2022; dharmayanti et al., 2023; efienokwu & ekerette, 2024; zereen et al., 2025). although vaccination is routinely practiced, differences in immune response across chicken genotypes suggest that genetic background significantly influences vaccine efficacy (chuwatthanakhajorn et al., 2023). toll-like receptors (tlrs) form a key part of the innate immune system, recognizing pathogenpa ge 58 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 57-64, 2025 associated molecular patterns and initiating host defense mechanisms (wicherska-pawłowska et al., 2021; chen et al., 2024). among these, toll-like receptor 4 (tlr4) has been reported to play a crucial role in immune signaling against viral and bacterial infections (olejnik et al., 2018; kim et al., 2023). polymorphisms in tlr4 may therefore account for differential resistance or susceptibility to infectious diseases, including nd. to better understand the genetic and immunological basis of nd resistance, this study evaluated variation in the tlr4 gene among different chicken genotypes. it assessed their antibody response to newcastle disease vaccination using the haemagglutination inhibition (hi) titre method. together, these approaches provide insights into the genetic underpinnings of immune competence in indigenous and exotic chicken populations. materials and methods location and management procedures a total of 100 day-old chicks, comprising 25 birds each of the normal feather (nfc), naked neck (nnc), frizzle feather (ffc), and exotic (exc) genotypes, were used for the study. the birds were reared under an intensive management system at the animal house of the department of genetics and biotechnology, university of calabar, nigeria. they were housed in standard cages with natural ventilation. before arrival, the animal house was fumigated with an organophosphate insecticide and disinfected with dettol to minimize the risk of disease outbreaks. the chicks were acclimatized for two weeks and provided with starter feed and water ad libitum during this period. after acclimatization, they were separated into four groups based on genotype and reared in distinct cages under uniform management conditions. the research was approved by the research ethics and linkage committee of the faculty of biological sciences, university of calabar (approval number fbs/ relc/2023/001). vaccination and blood sampling at two weeks of age, all birds were orally administered 1 ml of live attenuated newcastle disease vaccine. fourteen days post-vaccination, blood samples (1 ml per bird) were collected from the wing vein for antibody titre determination. following a one-week interval, a booster vaccination was administered, and blood samples were again collected 14 days later for the second titre measurement. antibody titre measurement phosphate-buffered saline (pbs) was prepared with sodium chloride (8 g/l), potassium chloride (0.2 g/l), disodium hydrogen phosphate (1.15 g/l), and potassium dihydrogen phosphate (0.2 g/l) in 10 l of distilled water (ph 7.3). antibody levels were measured using the haemagglutination inhibition (hi) test with a two-fold serial dilution method, ranging from 10² to 10²⁵⁶. serial dilutions were prepared in test tubes, followed by the addition of 1 ml of antigen and 1 ml of serum. tubes were incubated at room temperature for one hour, and the antibody titre for each sample was recorded as the highest dilution showing visible inhibition of haemagglutination (efienokwu & ekerette, 2024). extraction of dna genomic dna was extracted from blood samples of 10 birds per genotype at the animal science molecular genetics laboratory, department of animal science, university of port harcourt, nigeria, using the quickdna miniprep kit (zymo research, usa) following the protocol of ekerette et al. (2025c). to enhance lysis efficiency, beta-mercaptoethanol was added to the lysis buffer (500 μl per 100 ml). in brief, 200 μl of blood was mixed with 800 μl of lysis buffer in an eppendorf tube, vortexed for 5 seconds, and incubated at room temperature for 10 minutes. the lysate was transferred to a zymo-spin column in a collection tube and centrifuged at 10,000 rpm for 1 min. after discarding the flow-through, the column was washed with 200 μl dna pre-wash buffer and 500 μl g-dna wash buffer, with centrifugation steps at 10,000 rpm for 1 min each. dna was eluted with 50 μl elution buffer after a 5-minute incubation and centrifugation at 15,000 rpm for 30 s. the purified dna was stored at –20 °c until further use. pcr amplification and sequencing of tlr4 gene pcr amplification of the tlr4 gene was performed using primers reported by wu et al. (2014): forward: 5′-agtctgaaattgctgagctcaaat-3′ and reverse: 3′-gcgacgttaagccatggaag-5′. each 25 μl pcr reaction contained: 2 μl genomic dna, 1 μl of 50 mm mgcl2, 1.5 μl of 2 mm dntps, 1.5 μl of 10× pcr buffer, 0.4 μl of each primer, 1 μl of stabvida proprietary taq polymerase, and 17.2 μl double-distilled water. amplification was performed in a geneamp® pcr system 9700 thermal cycler (applied biosystems, usa) under the following cycling conditions: initial denaturation at 95 °c for 5 min; 25 cycles of denaturation at 94 °c for 40 s, annealing at 54 °c for 45 s, and extension at 72 °c for 1 min; with a final extension at 72 °c for 7 min. pcr products were purified using the exofast protocol. sequencing of purified pcr products was conducted on an abi 3730×l sequencer (applied biosystems, usa). each 20 μl sequencing reaction contained ~20 ng of purified pcr product, 8 μl of bigdye terminator reaction mix, 8 μl deionized water, and 2 μl primer. cycling conditions included 25 cycles of 96 °c for 10 s, 60 °c for 5 s, and 60 °c for 4 min. statistical analysis data obtained from antibody titre measurements were subjected to analysis of variance (anova). mean differences were separated using the least significant difference (lsd) test at 5% probability level. bioedit software version 7.2.5 was used to view and edit the pa ge 59 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 57-64, 2025 sequences. multiple sequence alignment of all samples was performed using mega software (tamura et al., 2013). estimation of variations in the aligned regions, including nucleotide diversity (π) and haplotype diversity (hd), was carried out using dnasp version 5.1 (rozas et al., 2017). the mismatch distribution of the tlr4 sequences from the chicken genotypes was also analyzed with dnasp. a phylogenetic tree was reconstructed using mega x, and the visual display of the tree was finetuned using itol software. results and discussion anitbody measurement the antibody titre measurements among the four chicken genotypes following newcastle vaccination revealed significant differences (figure 1). at the initial stage, the highest mean loge hi titre was observed in ffc (0.873 ± 0.001), which was significantly higher (p <0.05) than the other genotypes. nnc (0.846 ± 0.001) and nfc (0.841 ± 0.001) did not differ significantly from each other but were lower than ffc. the lowest titre was recorded in exc (0.816 ± 0.018), which was significantly different from the rest. at the final measurement, a similar pattern was observed. ffc maintained the highest titre (0.853 ± 0.001), followed by nnc (0.848 ± 0.027) and nfc (0.816 ± 0.018). exc recorded the lowest titre (0.782 ± 0.001d), which was significantly different from all other genotypes. figure 1: mean antibody titre of four chicken genotypes following vaccination with attenuated newcastle vaccine genetic diversity of four chicken genotypes the genetic diversity indices of the four chicken genotypes revealed varying levels of nucleotide and haplotype diversity (table 1). the nucleotide diversity (π) ranged from 0.031 in exc to 0.121 in ffc. the average number of nucleotide differences (k) followed a similar trend, with the highest value recorded in ffc (14.978) and the lowest in exc (4.689). haplotype diversity (h) was generally high across the genotypes, with nfc showing the maximum value (1.00), reflecting complete haplotype diversity, while nnc had the lowest (0.822). the number of haplotypes (h) also varied, ranging from 4 in nnc to 10 in nfc, with the overall population exhibiting 21 haplotypes. table 1: genetic diversity indices of four chicken genotypes following vaccination with attenuated newcastle vaccine g en ot yp es n uc le ot id e di ve rs ity (π ) h ap lo ty pe di ve rs ity (h ) h ap lo ty pe nu m be r ( h ) va ria bl e si te s (s ) se qu en ce co ns er va tio n (% ) av er ag e nu m be r of n uc le ot id e di ffe re nc es (k ) n um be r o f re co m bi na tio n ev en ts (r m ) ta jim a' s d nfc 0.058 ± 0.002 1.00± 0.045 10.0 33.00 44.70 7.422 0 -1.933 (p <0.05) nnc 0.055 ± 0.0001 0.822 ± 0.005 4.00 16.00 56.30 7.111 0 1.191 (p > 0.10) ffc 0.121 ± 0.001 0.978 ± 0.003 9.00 58.00 42.00 14.978 3 -1.761 (p > 0.05) pa ge 60 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 57-64, 2025 the number of variable sites (s) varied widely, from 15 in exc to 58 in ffc, with the overall dataset containing 59 variable sites. sequence conservation percentages ranged from 42.0% (ffc) to 56.3% (nnc), with an overall conservation estimate of 37.6%. recombination events (rm) were absent in nfc and nnc but detected in ffc (3) and exc (2), with a total of 3 events recorded. tajima’s d values varied among the genotypes; they were negative in nfc (-1.933, p > 0.05), ffc (-1.761, p > 0.05), exc (-0.791, p > 0.10), and in the overall population (-2.422, p > 0.01), while nnc showed a positive value (1.191, p > 0.10). pairwise genetic differentiation among four chicken genotypes the pairwise differentiation indices among the four chicken genotypes showed variable levels of genetic differentiation (table 2). the fst values ranged from -0.016 (nfc and ffc) to 0.153 (nnc and exc). negative fst values observed in some comparisons (nfc and ffc, nfc and exc, ffc and exc) indicate negligible or no measurable differentiation, whereas the highest value between nnc and exc (0.153) suggests greater differentiation. similarly, the gst values varied between -0.015 (ffc and exc) and 0.091 (nnc and ffc), reflecting differences in genetic diversity partitioning among populations. the average number of nucleotide substitutions per site (dxy) ranged from 0.033 (nfc and exc) to 0.081 (nnc and ffc), while the net nucleotide divergence (da) values were mostly low, ranging between -0.0002 (ffc and exc) and 0.007 (nnc and exc, nfc and nnc). the average number of nucleotide differences between populations (kxy) followed the same trend, ranging from 3.580 (nfc and exc) to 8.580 (nnc and ffc). exc 0.031 ± 0.000 0.933 ± 0.006 8.00 15.00 54.70 4.689 2 -0.791 (p > 0.10) overall 0.056 ± 0.0003 0.935 ± 0.001 21.00 59.00 37.60 6.028 3 -2.422 (p < 0.01) table 2: pairwise differentiation among four chicken genotypes following vaccination with attenuated newcastle vaccine population 1 population 2 fst gst dxy da kxy nfc nnc 0.112 0.047 0.061 0.007 6.490 nfc ffc -0.016 0.010 0.070 -0.002 7.420 nfc exc -0.006 0.009 0.033 -0.0001 3.580 nnc ffc 0.06 0.091 0.081 0.006 8.580 nnc exc 0.153 0.074 0.044 0.007 4.740 ffc exc -0.005 -0.015 0.054 -0.0002 5.790 mismatch distribution the mismatch distributions for each genotype and for the pooled dataset were multimodal and ragged, each showing multiple peaks rather than a single smooth peak (figure 2). specifically, the nfc and nnc exhibited several small peaks across low-to-moderate pairwise differences. the ffc showed pronounced, sharp peaks that extended to larger pairwise differences, while the exc also presented multiple distinct peaks at low-to-moderate differences. the combined distribution was similarly ragged and multimodal. phylogenetic relationship among chicken genotypes figure 3 presents the phylogenetic relationships of each chicken genotype. each genotype exhibited within-group variation, which contributed to the formation of distinct sub-clades among the samples. this observed pattern confirms the presence of genetic heterogeneity within the genotypes, as reflected in the subgrouping of the samples. the phylogenetic analysis of all the chicken genotypes revealed the presence of two major clades (figure 4). the first clade contained a single sample from the ffc genotype, suggesting some degree of genetic divergence within this variety. the second major clade comprised the remaining samples across all genotypes, which were intermixed rather than distinctly separated. within this broader cluster, several sub-clades were observed, each containing a mixture of different chicken genotypes. the clustering pattern indicated a high level of genetic admixture among the genotypes, reflecting a close evolutionary relationship and limited genetic differentiation. notably, the phylogenetic tree did not segregate the samples strictly according to their genotypes, implying possible gene flow or shared ancestry among the studied populations. discussion the present study examined the variation in the toll-like receptor 4 (tlr4) gene among four chicken genotypes and its association with antibody response to newcastle disease (nd) vaccination. the findings provide insights into the interplay between genetic diversity and immune competence in indigenous and exotic chickens. pa ge 61 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 57-64, 2025 figure 2: mismatch distribution of the four chicken genotypes following vaccination with attenuated newcastle vaccine. a. normal feather chicken, b. naked neck chicken, c. frizzle feather chicken, d. commercial chicken, and e. all genotypes figure 3: phylogenetic trees of the four chicken genotypes following vaccination with attenuated newcastle vaccine. a. normal feather chicken, b. naked neck chicken, c. frizzle feather chicken, and d. commercial chicken pa ge 62 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 57-64, 2025 significant differences in haemagglutination inhibition (hi) titres were observed among the genotypes, with ffc consistently showing the highest titres, followed by nnc, nfc, and exc. this pattern suggests that ffc possess enhanced humoral immune responsiveness to nd vaccination. previous studies have demonstrated that genetic background influences vaccine-induced antibody production, likely due to differences in innate immune gene expression and antigen recognition efficiency (linnik et al., 2016; clemente-suárez et al., 2025). the relatively lower titres observed in exc may reflect reduced adaptive immune responsiveness, possibly due to long-term selective breeding for production traits (seo et al., 2017; fu et al., 2023) at the expense of immunocompetence. the higher titres in indigenous genotypes highlight their potential as reservoirs of adaptive genes (soglia et al., 2020; xie et al., 2024) that can enhance disease resistance in breeding programmes. analysis of genetic diversity indices revealed substantial variation among the genotypes. ffc exhibited the highest nucleotide diversity and average number of nucleotide differences, while exc showed the lowest diversity. high haplotype diversity in nfc indicates the presence of multiple unique allelic variants, which may enhance population resilience to infectious agents. these findings align with previous reports that indigenous chickens harbor considerable genetic variation due to their adaptation to variable environments and minimal human-directed selection (soglia et al., 2020; xie et al., 2024; ekerette et al., 2025a). conversely, reduced genetic diversity in exc is consistent with intensive selective breeding practices aimed at improving growth and productivity, which can inadvertently limit genetic variation related to immunity. pairwise fst and gst values indicated low to moderate genetic differentiation among genotypes, with negative fst values in some comparisons suggesting negligible divergence. the highest differentiation was observed between nnc and exc, reflecting the evolutionary and breeding history of these populations. the phylogenetic analysis further supported this observation, revealing two major clades with extensive admixture among most genotypes, except for one divergent ffc sample. this pattern indicates ongoing gene flow or shared ancestry and underscores the lack of strict genetic isolation among the studied populations. such admixture is consistent with traditional poultry management systems, where crossbreeding between indigenous and exotic birds is common (wilkinson et al., 2012; vargas et al., 20219). the multimodal mismatch distributions observed across genotypes suggest complex demographic histories, such as selective pressures (hoelzer et al., 2008). the pronounced peaks in ffc indicate higher genetic variability, consistent with the nucleotide and haplotype diversity data. conversely, the relatively lower peaks in exc suggest a more uniform genetic structure, likely resulting from artificial selection and limited effective population size (fu et al., 2023). tlr4 plays a critical role in innate immune signaling by recognizing pathogen-associated molecular patterns, including viral components, and initiating inflammatory responses (olejnik et al., 2018; kim et al., 2023). polymorphisms in tlr4 may modulate the strength and efficiency of immune responses, influencing susceptibility or resistance (noreen et al., 2012), with no exception to ndv. therefore, the observed variation in tlr4 sequences, combined with differential antibody titres, suggests a potential association between specific tlr4 figure 4: phylogenetic tree showing the relationship between four chicken genotypes following vaccination with attenuated newcastle vaccine. each genotype is indicated by a different colour legend, while the major clades are shown with separate branch colours. pa ge 63 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 57-64, 2025 alleles and enhanced nd vaccine responsiveness. ffc and nnc, which exhibited higher titres, also displayed higher nucleotide diversity and multiple haplotypes, supporting the hypothesis that tlr4 variation contributes to immune competence. the findings emphasize the importance of preserving and utilizing indigenous chicken genetic resources for sustainable poultry production. high genetic diversity and favorable immune responses in ffc and nnc highlight their potential for inclusion in selective breeding programmes aimed at improving nd resistance. in contrast, the low diversity and reduced antibody responses in exc highlight the potential vulnerability of highly selected commercial lines to infectious diseases. incorporating tlr4 genotyping into breeding programmes could provide a molecular tool for selecting birds with superior innate and adaptive immune competence, thereby enhancing disease resilience. conclusion this study revealed genotype-specific differences in tlr4 diversity and immune response to newcastle disease vaccination. frizzle feather (ffc) and naked neck (nnc) chickens exhibited the highest antibody titres and greater genetic diversity, while exotic (exc) chickens showed the lowest titres and least diversity. phylogenetic analysis indicated genetic admixture across genotypes, with only one divergent ffc sample. these findings suggest that tlr4 polymorphisms contribute to enhanced disease resistance in indigenous chickens, underscoring their value as genetic resources for breeding programmes aimed at improving newcastle disease resilience. acknowledgments the authors wish to acknowledge prof. brillant ogagaoghene agaviezor of the department of animal science, university of port harcourt, nigeria, for the technical support he provided that culminated in the success of this research. we also sincerely appreciate the tertiary education trust fund (tetfund) for funding this research. conflict of interest the authors declare that there is no existing conflict of interest. funding this research was funded by the tertiary education trust fund (tetfund) under the reference number: tetfund year(s) 2019-2024 (merged) batch 9/13. references ajayi, f. o. 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(2025). first report of the emergence of novel sub-genotype xiii.2.3 of newcastle disease virus in chickens from selected regions of bangladesh. infection, genetics and evolution, 130, 105742. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. meegid.2025.105742 pa ge 1 pa ge 26 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) green growth and renewable energy adoption in bangladesh: economic and policy perspectives chaiti paul1*, shuvo kumar mallik2, g. m. m. didar diyan muyed3 volume 4 issue 2, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i2.5778 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: july 20, 2025 accepted: august 24, 2025 published: september 19, 2025 the purpose of this paper is to highlight the potential implications and nexus of green growth with renewable energy uptake in bangladesh, providing a policy context that sets examples crucial for ensuring an appropriate understanding of sustainable development on a longer-term horizon. based on a detailed bibliometric analysis of 6,794 research papers from the web of science database related to renewable energy ownership by inducible, published between 1990 and june 2023, this paper provides an updated understanding of the evolution of renewable energy in response to bangladesh’s economic growth. detailing significant findings, academic luminaries, and thematic trends on the subject, this study provides a critical analysis of renewable energy in supporting bangladesh’s green economic transition. one understated point made by the study is that to curb environmental degradation, renewable energy use is more than necessary; it is also beneficial for a growing economy. renewable energy holds the key to a green economy in bangladesh, which will generate employment, improve local community welfare, and support energy security. the study further reveals an extensive positive relationship between the deployment of renewable energy and key economic parameters, such as gdp growth, industrial output & innovation in technology. the correlation is robust in resource-rich locations of bangladesh, demonstrating the significant economy-wide implications of renewable energy, including its ability to draw in appropriate investment needed for higher economic growth and inclusive development. the study underscores the importance of proper policy frameworks and strategies to mainstream renewable energy in the bangladesh economy model. bangladesh must align its economic policies with the practice of sustainable energy if it wants to light up and flourish a resilient tomorrow for itself. the study provides important insights for policymakers, academics, and other stakeholders to further green growth of bangladesh through renewable energy and achieve sustainable development in the long run. keywords bangladesh, economic growth, energy transition, green economy, policy development, renewable energy, sustainability 1 department of fisheries, chattogram veterinary and animal science university, bangladesh 2 department of economics, southeast university, dhaka, bangladesh 3 international relations, bangladesh university of professionals, dhaka, bangladesh * corresponding author’s e-mail: nextgenresearch.info@gmail.com introduction one of the most critical elements of national agendas throughout the world has been the pursuit of economic growth, which spurred improvements in technology, infrastructure, and industrialization in various industries and sectors. however, the relentless pursuit of economic growth, primarily driven by fossil energy sources, has had severe repercussions for the environment (wang & zhang, 2023). the situation was further exacerbated by global development, prompting climate studies to warn international organizations, such as the intergovernmental panel on climate change and the united nations environment programmed, to call for a rapid transition to sustainable energy. as a means of promoting green growth that fosters growth-oriented policies without the harmful side effects of traditional energy sources, the implementation of renewables such as solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal has been crucial (khalid et al., 2024). in bangladesh, the transition towards green energy is one of the primary factors that ensures both economic and environmental sustainability (kilinc-ata et al., 2025). further, the use of renewable energy holds the potential to reduce the contamination of the environment resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. green energy and the renewables industry also promise to disrupt the establishment through job creation, revenue generation, and infrastructure. nonetheless, renewables have been challenged by issues such as high costs, technological hitches, and policy (issa et al., 2023). it is resourceful to examine the relationship between renewable energy and the economy in bangladesh and what policymakers could do to encourage the use of these forms of energy (akash et al., 2024). the literature on the use of energy and economy has been explored by other researchers, showing that reduced emissions through more cycleefficient energy use are life-enhancing. policymakers can examine energy efficiency and innovative economies to develop strategies that encourage investors and consumers to favor renewable resources over existing ones (mushafiq et al., 2023). bangladesh offers a unique opportunity to explore these issues since it is endowed with massive potential for the development of renewable energy resources. pa ge 27 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 26-33, 2025 research questions 1. to what extent does the utilization of renewable energy sources correlate with key economic indicators such as gdp growth, industrial productivity, and technological innovation in bangladesh? 2. how does renewable energy integration contribute to job creation, local development, and enhanced energy security in bangladesh, particularly in regions rich in renewable resources? 3. what are the emerging research themes, significant works, and influential authors in the field of economic growth and renewable energy, as revealed by a bibliometric analysis of studies from 1990 to june 2023? how can these insights inform strategies for promoting sustainable economic growth in bangladesh through renewable energy adoption? this study aims to bridge existing research gaps, providing a comprehensive understanding of the complex relationship between renewable energy, economic growth, and policy development in bangladesh. the findings will offer valuable guidance to policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers in shaping effective strategies for achieving green growth and sustainable development. literature review economic growth came to be closely associated with the burning of fossil fuels, a major cause for many of the ecological challenges that we now face, including climate change and environmental degradation (li et al., 2023). the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) advises that the world needs to take a new and better path towards all things economic, and relying on renewables is just one of these steps (fressoz, 2025). in this literature review, the proposed study will search for relevant studies that scrutinize the relationship between economic growth and renewable energy adoption from many different perspectives. thereas is doing a fantastic job linking to some of the most important findings along with where more research is needed, as well as emerging trends that should be considered in future investigations (marvi et al., 2025). a large body of empirical research finds a positive association between the deployment of renewable energy (re) and a wide array of economic indicators, most notably growth in gross domestic product (gdp). all these studies highlight the double nature of renewable energy solutions: environmentally friendly and economically profitable (hayat et al., 2023). switching to renewable energy sources can contribute to significant economic growth and serve as a boost for those heavily dependent on non-renewable sources. this enables renewable energy infrastructure that lessens traditional energy source impacts on the environment and can also be an economic development tool for nations (gayen et al., 2024). the findings of this body of research underscore the broad value and beneficial aspects of renewable energy as a policy and investment driver to deliver sustainable economic growth. regional and country contexts influence the relationship between renewable energy penetration and regional heterogeneity in economic growth (yu et al., 2021). they are considered sts as they differ greatly in terms of local energy mix, regulatory environments, and socio-economic conditions that influence the success in implementing vres. solar and wind power could be significant sources of renewable energy in bangladesh, provided national energy policies are crafted to complement them effectively. a policy cannot be developed without understanding the regional and national contexts (wyborn & evans, 2021). policymakers can develop pathways to optimally capitalize on the economic prospects of renewables by adapting strategies according to national resources, technical capabilities, and institutional conditions. for instance, the local potential of renewable resources, combined with socio-economic conditions, will determine how to leverage renewable energy technologies best to create sustainable economic growth (abdalla et al., 2023). there are, however, several obstacles to using renewable energy sources, despite their long list of benefits. these include constraints from technology, expensive upfront investments, insufficient infrastructure, and regulatory challenges. conducted a thorough review of renewable energy deployment in the country and found that policy norms are one of the most formidable challenges faced by chinese renewable energies, like other renewables, all over the world (lo, 2014). given the technological challenges, such as integrating renewable sources and maintaining grid stability, which is complicated by the unpredictability and variability of renewables, these require modern energy storage solutions and smarter grids to store excess power during sunny/windy days. furthermore, for countries like bangladesh, the lack of financing for large investments to initiate renewable projects has been identified as a key hurdle (aziz et al., 2025). to mitigate these hurdles, financial tools such as subsidies and incentives are required to encourage investment in renewable energy infrastructure (onabowale, 2025). an even greater obstacle is the lack of proper infrastructure, especially in terms of energy transmission and distribution, not to mention the obvious financial and technological constraints. to unlock the potential for renewable energy, both to feed into existing grids and simultaneously help rejuvenate them with modernized powerlines. although non-renewable energy has seen us through growth in the past, renewable power stands out as a more environmentally friendly option that could carry our economy through and long into the future. the combination of solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal power is replacing fossil fuel sources of energy because they offer clean alternatives that guarantee a much more reliable supply to help remove the need for finite resources and increase energy security (mallik, 2024). in addition, investing in r&d and infrastructure for renewable energy would have the co-benefit of creating jobs, fostering innovation, and driving economic growth. green growth in bangladesh will not be possible unless renewable energy adoption takes precedence (mallik, 2024). renewable energy can play an important role in pa ge 28 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 26-33, 2025 this process, helping to mitigate negative environmental impacts, increase energy security, and support sustainable economic growth in the country (mallik & rahman, 2024). but they will need to solve for the technological, financial, and infrastructural challenges if we are to reach this potential. successful policies, strategic investments, and regional adaptation will be crucial in reaching the full potential for renewable energy as a piece of bangladesh’s economic development and environmental sustainability. materials and methods data collection the study used the web of science database, a prestigious resource for scholarly literature from numerous fields. the comprehensive database hosts countless peerreviewed journals, conference proceedings, and scientific publications that could greatly aid in obtaining prior knowledge on the relationship between renewable energy adoption and economic growth within the span of bangladesh. so, to collect an accurate and contextualized dataset, an exact but systematic method was implemented for the collection process. we inserted keywords such as renewable energy and economic growth, along with some nouns, into these two points. the systematic review was concisely performed after searching the literature from 1990 to june 2023, including only relevant and up-to-date studies. the articles were selected to be consistent with the study objectives, emphasizing research that sought to determine how economic growth and green growth have been influenced by renewable energy adoption. the review focused on the global and regional literature regarding the opportunities and constraints associated with integrating renewable energy, including existing case studies addressing how renewable energy can support green economic growth. following an initial search of the web of science database, strict screening processes were applied. titles, abstracts, and keywords were scanned to assess the relevance of these articles related to research questions. this brought the number of articles to be included in the dataset down to 6,794 scholarly articles (those with a pubmed id) that met our selection criteria. at least, this holistic data collection strategy substantially improved the validity of the study, and enabled a thorough examination of the research landscape on another aspect in economic terms for the adoption of renewable energy. bibliometric analysis this study utilized bibliometrics, a powerful research tool, to investigate the intricate relationship between renewable energy adoption and economic growth. a bibliometric analysis is a quantitative analysis of written publications or a corpus. it reports the frequencies of publication, citation, authorship, and co-authorship, and keywords in academic papers, which are part of a systematic examination of written publications. in this study, the tools above are used to unravel the key publications, prolific authors, and propose research that focuses on the green economy, with a particular emphasis on renewable energy & economic growth. the review was supported by citation analysis, which revealed the most important contributions to the literature on economic growth and renewable energy. this method exposed foundational publications informing the field and recognized leading scholars contributing to advancing the conversation. the study also employed a co-citation analysis to identify thematic clusters in the literature, providing insights into how various research ideas are related and where urgent attention is required. the co-authorship analysis was also performed to explore the collaboration network and the most productive authors. in particular, the method used in this study provided insights into the interdisciplinary nature of research on renewable energy and economic growth and identified key research groups with considerable contributions to the field. other results from this analysis revealed meaningful peer-reviewed partnerships that have impacted the knowledge on how renewable energy adoption can trigger economic development. to gain further insight from this search and discovery process, co-occurrence analysis was conducted on the model to examine keyword/term frequency and patterns in the literature. this analysis provided an indepth examination of the central themes and emerging trends in this area, focusing on those aspects of renewable energy-economic growth that have been a primary focus of academic investigation. it also suggested some new fields of research that could use additional development. this scient metric method, rather than an academic research tool, also benefits policymakers and industry executives. this approach also identifies areas requiring further study and offers insight into future research trends. it plays a role in influencing the formulation of policies and programs to support renewable energy usage and promotes sustainable economic innovation. the implications derived from this bibliometric study provide a valuable eye-opener for researchers and policymakers to promote green growth/economic development by successfully integrating renewables in bangladesh. results and discussion analysis of publication trends indicates that research on the interaction of renewable energy with economic growth has shown an increasing trend. numbers were small in the first decade between 1996 and 2006, with the publication tally in any given year never exceeding a handful of papers. yet there was a significant rise in the number of academic papers published around the mid2000s. after 2010, this increase was greater and led to significantly more papers concerning these proposed objects of study. with more than 50 published papers, the number of reprints per year has consistently exceeded this count since 2010. between 2017 and 2023, we observed a significant surge in publications, indicating a growing academic interest in the connection between renewable energy and economic growth. it is notable that 2021 and 2022 have been the most popular years by the number of published papers, with 1,308 and 1,731 pa ge 29 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 26-33, 2025 papers, respectively. this surge serves to illustrate the growing relevance that renewable energy has as a catalyst for economic growth. while the data collection ends in june, which justifies a slight dip in 2023, these new publications suggest that researchers and policymakers are becoming more interested as well. the study domains were distributed to reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the research. the most common subject of publication is environmental sciences and ecology at 47.5% (focused on the environmental properties of renewable energy). this was in second place overall and came from a different perspective – the exploration of energy technologies within the context of a revolutionary shift to renewable energy, except energy fuels accounted for 31.4% of the entire articles shared. notably, science, technology and other topics (26.3%), business economics (17.2%), and engineering (10.6%) are the other top three areas emphasizing the larger scope of research across various fields involved in this study. the present fields: thermodynamics, public administration, and development studies represent a multifaceted investigation on the socio-economictechnical basis of renewable energy. the interdisciplinary research underscores the need for collaboration across disciplines to adequately probe the multidimensional phenomena of renewable energy adoption as well as its place in sustainable economic development supporters. this holistic perspective is vital in creating successful frameworks for mainstreaming renewable energy into national economies (mallik et al., 2025). the map of scientific papers showed the participation of different countries in scientific research, emphasizing that renewable energy has an economic growth effect on a global scale. china accounts for 37.3% of the publications, with authors affiliated to chinese institutions highlighting its critical role in advancing renewable energy issues and utilizing renewable resources for sustainable development (as shown by cheng). turkey and pakistan followed, both accounting for 13.1% of the papers, reflecting the increasing research activities in these countries, too. the united states (6.7% of the research output), india (6.5%), malaysia, and several european nations are among the major contributors to this subject in terms of total numbers (fig. the latter is illustrated in the following map of the distribution of research conducted between these countries, thus emphasizing regional priorities and concerns when accepting renewable energy. each nation has its own set of resources, institutional structure, and needs that will determine its approach to renewable energy. the wide range of engagement suggests that the remaining entities are potential future collaboration partners and valuable contributors to global renewable energy adoption, enabling every country to maximize its strengths in this transformation through international collaboration and knowledge exchange. this study suggests a growing awareness regarding their importance as an economic policy for fostering sustainable development. as the research base continues to grow, public decision-makers need to draw on these scholarly works to develop better strategies for increasing the adoption of renewable energies. in addition, further research is necessary to address regional differences in renewable energy penetration and the particular hurdles for integrating renewable energy into developing nations like bangladesh. global cooperation for promoting interdisciplinary research and international collaboration can speed up the transition to renewable energy, securing economic gains across continents. the detailed information obtained from this study will serve as a guide for those interested in planning further research. it will help realize the policy implications of integrating sustainable renewable energy into national economic portfolios, specifically in achieving green growth within bangladesh. figure 1: publication years pa ge 30 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 26-33, 2025 the analysis of co-authorship reveals important patterns of collaboration and highlights the influential authors in the field of renewable energy and economic growth. as shown in the table below, several authors have made significant contributions to the body of research, both in terms of the number of publications and citations received. co-authorship analysis table 1: citation analysis results by documents. article title citations powering the planet: chemical challenges in solar energy utilization 6415 the impact of human capital on the early success of necessity versus opportunity-based entrepreneurs 3423 china’s 19-year city-level carbon emissions of energy consumptions, driving forces and regionalized mitigation guidelines 1058 renewable energy consumption and economic growth: evidence from a panel of oecd countries 787 the effect of renewable energy consumption on economic growth: evidence from top 38 countries 740 what an economic growth, renewable electricity, and natural resources contribute to co2 emissions 704 co2 emissions, resource rent, renewable and nonrenewable energy in 16-eu countries 663 co2 emissions, nuclear energy, renewable energy and economic growth in the us 620 renewable energy and economic regeneration in devon, uk: the role of stakeholders in the transition to a low-carbon economy 614 table 2: co-authorship number of publication author number of publications citations tomiwa adebayo 95 3845 festus victor bekun 80 4564 ilhan ozturk 74 7673 table 3: co-authorship analysis results. author affiliation country docs citations tls adebayo, tomiwa sunday cyprus international university cyprus 95 3845 160 bekun, festus victor istanbul gelisim university turkey 80 4566 138 ozturk, ilhan university of sharjah uae 74 7673 115 murshed, muntasir north south university bangladesh 73 2846 117 shahbaz, muhammad beijing institute of technology china 70 6670 80 kirikkaleli, dervis european university of lefke turkey 69 3206 103 alola, andrew adewale creds norway 51 3237 58 lin, boqiang minjiang university china 47 2050 5 fuinhas, jose alberto universidade de coimbra portugal 44 932 46 balsalobre-lorente, daniel university of castilla-la mancha spain 43 2906 77 one of the top 10 most prolific authors is tomiwa adebayo, who has written a reasonable number of entries and accumulated 95 articles with over 3,845 citations. similarly, festus victor bekun is not far behind with 80 publications and 4,564 citations to boot, reiterating his academic presence as well. ilhan ozturk, who has published 74 articles and a significant number of citations with 7,673; his contribution to the renewable energy and economic growth literature is very remarkable in 3rd place. the strong research productions of these authors have increased the knowledge at the aggregate level about how renewable energy adoption impacts sustainable economic growth. various scholars have made a meaningful contribution to the development of research in this field. most notably, murshed, muntasir, shahbaz, muhammad, and kirikkaleli, dervis, have published 73, 70, and 69 documents, 2,846, 6,670, and 3,206 citations. these authors have addressed a wide range of issues related to economic development and the use of renewable energy sources, which indicates their authority in this matter. other authors also made a significant contribution to science. for example, andrew alola adewale, whose publications were cited 3,237 times from 51 articles, lin boqiang, cited 2,050 times from 47 articles, jose alberto fuinhas, 932 times from pa ge 31 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 26-33, 2025 44 published works, daniel balsalobre-lorente, whose articles were cited 2,906 times from 43 citations. these authors, due to the wide range of work published, have shown a high activity and contribution to science. the reliability of these authors and the reliability of their work can be judged by the total link strength. total link strength is an indicator that shows the scientific links between authors based on the number of joint articles published by these authors. in other words, the metric calculated shows the reference resources from the author’s collaboration. therefore, a more detailed study of the co-authorship network, which contains information about the number of related documents, disciplines, and interdisciplinary relationships, will allow one to track how the knowledge is generated and disseminated within the subject field. the knowledge and cooperation of these scientists are useful in developing the best policies and interventions to successfully integrate renewable energy into bangladesh’s economic growth. the interdisciplinary nature of the field and the importance of cooperation in achieving the sdgs are once again emphasized by these authors. table 4: co-citation analysis results by source. source docs tls energy policy 29,344 1,494,010 renewable and sustainable energy reviews 24,588 1,276,801 environmental science and pollution research 22,915 1,297,011 energy economics 19,087 1,061,435 journal of cleaner production 16,071 900,721 energy 12,528 718,279 renew energy 10,737 615,019 science of the total environment 7,751 470,287 applied energy 6,988 387,000 ecological economics 5,910 345,509 transitioning to sustainable economic development and mitigating environmental damage is impossible without being realized. solar and wind power, renewable energies, help increase energy security and have a significant impact on energy efficiency while also mitigating the greenhouse effect of production. these are the technologies that lay the foundation for a stronger and greener energy system. the production of alternative energy can lead to an economic boom, creating jobs and at the same time providing a way to use natural resources responsibly with sustainability. understanding the integration of technology and policy replacements can lead to the decoupling of energy consumption from economic growth, thereby reducing resource waste and environmental pollution. adoption of renewable energy can result in the creation of new employment opportunities, which serve as an accelerator for local and regional economic development. this is a taste of what a green economy, where economic growth and sustainability are intertwined, could offer. the relationships among economic development, environmental sustainability, and renewable energy adoption are intricate. thus, the emphasis on carbon emissions, the environment, and pollution all demonstrate we need to act today to solve the environmental problems arising after years of economic growth. a key part of this is an increasingly greater role for renewable energy sources, which have the potential to lessen the environmental burden substantially. the findings also raise important policy questions regarding the need for ecological considerations in foreign direct investment (fdi), financial development, trade, and progrowth policies. in addition to that, the technological progress in clean energy & renewable energy systems is a notable tool for environmental sustainability. there is a clear requirement for international trade policies that support sustainable practices and, at the same time, reduce ecological externalities to achieve a balance of economic growth with the conservation of our planet. decades of research have shown that while energy use and economic development are related on a fundamental level, the precise nature of this relationship is subject to considerable variability. researchers have examined how changes in energy consumption can influence essential measures of economic performance, for instance, gdp. communication about long-term equilibrium in economic growth and energy consumption often involves the concept of cointegration. this approach has provided insight into the long-term relationship between these entities. in addition, the use of non-renewable energy is interconnected with oil prices and economic growth (mallik, 2025). in this framework, the research studying the effects of changes in oil prices on both economic performance and energy consumption remains a fascinating field to investigate, especially when considering the impact of renewable energy on sustainable development. this core research cluster probes modeling techniques employed in an examination of the linkage between economic expansion, environmental deterioration, and sustainability. central models, such as the autoregressive distributed lag (ardl) model, focus on the causation visibility between financial performance and environmental pa ge 32 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 26-33, 2025 outcomes, in this case, measuring co2 emissions. the environmental kuznets curve (ekc) hypothesis is most pertinent in this respect as it posits an inverted u-shaped nexus between income and environmental pollution. using these models, researchers can better understand the trade-off between trade, development, and ecological sustainability. these models have the potential to clarify how economic growth can be compatible with sustainable development goals, emphasizing striking a tenuous balance between economic activity and environmental conservation. the interconnections between human activities, population growth, and energy consumption provide a context for analyzing carbon emissions, thereby aiding our quest for ecological sustainability (raihan & tuspekova, 2022). the results of the carbon emissions, energy consumption, and population dynamics analysis demonstrate how consumptive forms of urbanization and further population increase result in higher energy demand and consequently larger volumes of carbon trapped in our atmosphere. the aim is to scan energy usage patterns, industrial processes, and transportation networks in search of insights into the components that trigger greenhouse gases. actions to reduce carbon footprints and mitigate emissions include increasing energy use efficiency, introducing renewables, and leveraging technology. at the same time, urbanization and a growing population are two significant challenges for efficient energy systems and for reducing carbon. it is imperative to understand these dynamics to ensure balanced urban planning and sustainability in the face of rising population and energy consumption, while also protecting our environment. conclusions this paper presents an up-to-date bibliometric review of 6794 scientific articles from 1996 to june 2023, utilizing the web of science (wos) database. the review focuses on energy development and economic growth, with a specific scope on renewable generation and its contribution to sustainable development. the results will support our readers in understanding the study context, key areas, significant papers, contributions, leading scholars, and emerging concepts. the findings underscore renewables as an essential pathway to sustainable economic growth over the long term. renewable energy adoption represents a move towards an environmentally sustainable economy, thereby mitigating the negative environmental externality that comes with traditional energy sources. in addition to the ecological advantages offered with renewable energy, it also represents considerable commercial opportunities for advancing clean energy that enhances energy security, promotes regional economic growth, and creates employment opportunities. analysis of scholarly literature citations shows a significant contribution of key publications and authors. a primary reference publication has now taken hold in the academic community, illustrating its impact with scholars and practitioners. related works have also played a crucial role in framing the nexus of renewable energy as well as economic advancements. the sources with the highest frequency of co-citation for renewable energy and economic growth are the journals that contributed the most to shape scholarly discussions and direct future research in this domain; the average number of citations those sources receive per year; the size and composition of five thematic clusters based on the results from co-occurrence analysis. the first cluster relevant to energy efficiency and environmental damage in this area highlights that renewable energies are a crucial factor. the second cluster focuses on the environmental problems caused by economic growth, including the role of renewable energy in addressing these issues. the results underscore the need for stakeholders to foster an economy that balances economic development with environmental concerns, including carbon emissions and inadequate wastewater treatment. however, the study has limitations, notably its reliance on more granular, sector-specific data for a tighter coupling of local environmental challenges. additionally, the use of cross-sectional analysis in this study implies that future research should consider using longitudinal techniques to examine the sustainability initiatives over time. future work should investigate whether technological progress or environmental regulation can break the link between economic growth and the environment. in addition, a focus on the social dimensions of sustainability can inform policy development related to behavioral and societal factors that implicitly drive sustainable practices. reference abdalla, a. n., jing, w., nazir, m. s., jiang, m., & tao, h. 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(2021). temporalspatial determinants of renewable energy penetration in electricity production: evidence from eu countries. renewable energy, 180, 438-451. pa ge 1 pa ge 85 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) comprehensive assessment of proximate profile and quality characteristics in commercially processed and traditionally prepared red chili powder sadman al safa1* volume 4 issue 2, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i2.6088 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: september 05, 2025 accepted: october 10, 2025 published: december 11, 2025 this study analyzed the proximate composition and heavy metal content of commercially processed and traditionally prepared red chili powder from baluchara bazar, chattogram. proximate analysis (aoac, 2016) measured moisture, ash, protein, fat, and carbohydrates, while atomic absorption spectroscopy detected pb, ni, cd, and hg. traditionally prepared samples had higher carbohydrate content, whereas commercial samples showed greater protein levels. nickel was found in all samples, with trace lead present only in commercial ones. the presence of heavy metals, even in small amounts, highlights potential health risks, emphasizing the need for stricter quality control and expanded research across regions, varieties, and quality parameters. keywords atomic absorption spectroscopy (aas), food safety, heavy metal contamination, proximate composition, red chili powder 1 faculty of food science and technology, chattogram veterinary and animal science university, chattogram, bangladesh * corresponding author’s e-mail: safap100@gmail.com introduction capsicum is a genus of plants belonging to the nightshade family solanaceae, tribe solaneae, subtribe capsicinae. it is the oldest cultivated crops of the america. it is the most produced type of spice used for coloring and flavoring food as well as providing minerals and vitamins. red peppers are the berries of capsicum plant, and these are used for culinary purposes as an essential ingredient of the culinary throughout the world. (khan et al., 2019). red chili peppers are good sources of vitamins a and c are rich in β carotene and minerals such as potassium. in order to extend the shelf life of chili pepper and utilize it in all seasons, it is usually dried after harvest (tavakolipour & mokhtarian, 2015). chili peppers are generally sundried conventionally, but it is time-consuming, and it is hard to control the final moisture content, thus yielding a lowquality product with bird, rodent, and insect infestation. moreover, post-harvest losses are as much as 40–60%. one of the most common and comparatively low-cost dehydration techniques is forced convection drying, which can lead to the degradation of vital constituents like vitamins, antioxidants, and capsaicin. this is because elevated temperatures are needed to speed up the drying process (krzykowski et al., 2024). the differences in red chili powder’s quality go beyond the nutritional profile. parameters like color, flavor, pungency, and microbial content also contribute significantly towards the product’s overall quality (navin venketeish et al., 2024). the conventional process of preparation involving hand selection and sun-drying can lead to a richer color and stronger flavor profile (khan et al., 2019). this difference in the moisture, protein, fat, fiber, ash and carbohydrates content both in commercially processed and traditionally prepared red chili can alter the health of consumers and their market preferences. over processing has been associated with loss of essential micronutrients and antioxidants which modifies the dietary and functional values of the spice. additionally, there are worries regarding contamination with artificial colors, aflatoxins, and pesticide residues in commercially processed products. this study, therefore, attempts an overall assessment of proximate profile and quality differences in commercially processed versus traditionally prepared red chili powder. such studies will provide insight into how the processing techniques apply to this common spice influence nutritional and functional properties. aims and objectives red chili powder is widely utilized across the globe, cherished for its sharp pungency and bright coloration. the method of processing, whether commercial or subsistent, has a great bearing on its nutritional value and grade. the present study seeks to investigate such differences to ensure the consumers are educated well with regards to the nutritional safety and content of the chili powder that they use in daily cooking. the objectives of this study are: • compare nutritional content: to compare the proximate composition (moisture, protein, fat, ash, fiber, and carbohydrates) of the traditionally prepared and commercially produced red chili powder. • determine quality differences: to ascertain and examine the quality differences between the two chili powders in terms of color, taste, and texture. • determine safety and purity: to determine that both pa ge 86 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 85-92, 2025 types of chili powder are safe for human consumption and free of adulterants and contaminants. • consumer preference analysis: to determine the preference and perception of consumers regarding the taste, aroma, and acceptability of both types of chili powder. • recommendations: to suggest recommendations on how the processing steps of red chili powder can be enhanced to enhance its nutritional content and quality. scope of the study the research aims to comprehensively compare the proximate composition and quality of traditionally prepared and commercially processed red chili powder. the research will entail analysis of the key parameters such as moisture content, ash content, crude fiber, protein, fat, and carbohydrate content to establish a comparative proximate profile. the research will compare physicochemical properties, including color, texture, particle size distribution, and potential adulterants, to determine differences in quality. besides, the study will analyze the impact of different processing methods on nutritional retention, bioactive compounds, and contamination risks, including artificial additives, heavy metals, and microbial load. the analysis will be conducted through laboratory-based analytical techniques such as proximate analysis, spectrophotometry, and chromatography for an unbiased evaluation of quality parameters. literature review red chili powder, a commonly used spice, undergoes various processing techniques that significantly affect its nutritional value, bioactive components, and quality. conventional processing techniques, like sun drying and grinding by hand, can retain more nutrients and antioxidants; however, industrial processing techniques of mechanical drying and milling can result in the loss of nutrients, with the inclusion of microbial safety and spices are common flavoring ingredients used in the preparation of culinary items and food products. red chili powder, a widely used spice, is processed using different methods that significantly influence its nutritional composition, bioactive compounds, and overall quality. traditional preparation methods, such as sun-drying and hand grinding, may preserve more nutrients and antioxidants, while commercial processing, involving mechanical drying and milling, may lead to nutrient degradation but offer better microbial safety and consistency (krithika & radhai sri, 2014). understanding the proximate composition, mineral content, bioactive retention, and quality variations between these two processing methods is crucial for both consumers and the food industry. the proximate composition of red chili powder is different based on the variety and processing method employed. the literature indicates that conventional processing techniques conserve greater percentages of crude protein, crude fiber, and vital minerals than commercial processing techniques. for instance, akhand et al. (2021) found that the level of crude protein (4.81%) and crude fiber (2.48%) in commercially processed chilies was significantly lower than in unprocessed ones (6.02% and 9.31%, respectively). in another similar study, (khan et al., 2019) reported that cherry-type chilies contained the highest crude fat (2.15%), ash (8.93%), and protein (9.09%) content, while intermediate-sized chilies contained the highest carbohydrate content at 52.28%. these studies, however, did not analyze the impact of various commercial processing methods on nutrient retention. mineral content is important in determining the nutritional value of chili powder. appreciable differences in the content of calcium, magnesium, and potassium have been determined in various chilies and processes (esayas et al., 2011)). ethiopian varieties of chili, for example, marako fana, had the highest crude protein content (11.9%) and oleoresin content (11.2%), thus rendering them more suitable for industrial extraction. besides, oda haro was also determined to contain the highest potassium (1.8 mg/100 g), calcium (54.6 mg/100 g), and iron (9.6 mg/100 g) content, thereby indicating its nutritional value (k et al., 2011). in terms of phytochemical content, (kalauni et al., 2024) noted that capsicum frutescens had the highest phenolic content (71.80 ± 3.36 mg gae/g), whereas the lowest was recorded for c. annuum var. cerasiforme (6.59 ± 0.50 mg gae/g). phytochemicals such as flavonoids, tannins, and phenolic compounds play a crucial role in the antioxidant activity of red chili powder (krithika & radhai sri, 2014). commercial processing, however, always comes with a loss of phenolic constituents as well as antioxidant activity. (akhand et al., 2021) stated that total phenolic content and antioxidant activity were considerably lower in commercially processed chilies than in their raw form. the methods of the study affect the sensory and physicochemical properties of chili powder which includes color, pungency, and texture. it was observed that unbranded commercial chili powders, as compared to traditionally prepared ones, had lower fiber and mineral content (krithika & radhai sri, 2014). furthermore, commercial processing normally causes more degradation of capsaicin and pigments because of high temperatures, as well as prolonged storage time. a different unbranded product may also have higher contamination and microbial safety risks. moreover, some unbranded chili powders were found to be contaminated with heavy metals where lead (pb) and chromium (cr) concentrations are above permissible limits (khalid et al., 2021; zhou & liu, 2024). while existing studies provide insights into the nutritional and quality differences between traditionally prepared and commercially processed chili powder, several research gaps remain: • impact of processing on bioactive compound pa ge 87 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 85-92, 2025 stability: more studies are needed to assess how different commercial processing methods affect capsaicinoid and carotenoid stability (krithika & radhai sri, 2014). • storage and shelf-life analysis: there is limited research on the effects of humidity, temperature, and light exposure on the long-term quality of chili powders (krithika & radhai sri, 2014). • nutrient bioavailability: while mineral composition has been reported, studies on how antinutritional factors influence mineral absorption remain scarce (moulick et al., 2023). • consumer preferences and market demand: limited research exists on consumer perception regarding sensory attributes such as pungency, color, and texture in chili powders processed using different methods (raji abdul ganiy et al., 2010). the comparison of commercially processed and traditionally prepared red chili powder highlights significant differences in proximate composition, phytochemical content, and quality parameters. while traditional methods retain more nutrients and bioactive compounds (kamal et al., 2019), commercial processing ensures better safety and standardization. materials and methods location of experimental area the experiment was conducted during january to february 2025 in the phytochemistry division of bangladesh council of scientific and industrial research (bcsir) laboratories chattogram. sample collection samples of commercially processed red chili powder and traditionally prepared red chili powder were collected from various markets and households in different regions. a total of 30 samples (15 commercial and 15 traditional) were selected to ensure diversity and representativeness. proximate analysis accepted aoac methodology used to determine the samples’ moisture, ash, crude protein and crude fat were determined in triplicate (aoac, 2016). the moisture content was determined by oven drying to a constant weight at 105°c. the kjeldahl method was used to determine the crude protein concentration (crude protein for plant origin: 5.85 n). to extract crude lipid, a soxhlet system was employed. ash was heated to a constant weight at 550 degrees celsius and then measured gravimetrically in a muffle furnace. each sample was analyzed in triplicate to ensure accuracy and reproducibility. moisture content the samples’ moisture content was assessed using the accepted aoac methodology (aoac, 2016). principle: the moisture content was determined by heating the samples at 105°c to a constant weight under normal atmospheric pressure. apparatus: electric balance, hot air oven, desiccators, metal tongs, crucible. procedure • accurately weigh a crucible of appropriate size. • add 10g of sample to the crucible and weigh. • place the crucible in a hot air oven at 105°c and dry for 48-72 hours. • remove the crucible from the oven, cover, cool in desiccators, and weigh. • re-dry repeatedly until a constant weight is achieved. calculation: % moisture=((w-w1 )/w) ×100 where, w = weight of fresh/air-dried sample, w1 = weight of dried sample. ash content the samples’ ash content was assessed using the accepted aoac methodology (aoac, 2016). principle: the ash fraction contains all the mineral elements and is determined by oxidizing all organic matter through incineration. apparatus: electric balance, muffle furnace, electric heater, desiccators, metal tongs, crucible procedure: • clean and dry the crucible in a hot air oven. • cool the crucible in desiccators and weigh. • place 5-10g of the sample in the crucible. • burn the sample until no smoke is observed. • cool the sample and transfer to a muffle furnace. • ignite the sample at 550-600°c for 6-8 hours until white ash is obtained. • cool the furnace to 150°c and transfer the crucible to the desiccators. • cool the sample and weigh while it is mildly warm. calculation: % ash=((w-w1 )/w2) ×100 where, w = weight of crucible and ash, w1 = weight of crucible, w2 = weight of sample. crude protein content (kjeldahl method) protein content was determined by using kjeldahl method, for estimation of protein, the steps were followed: • digestion • distillation • titration principle: the crude protein content is estimated based on nitrogen content using the kjeldahl method, which includes digestion, distillation, and titration step apparatus: kjeldahl apparatus, electric balance, hot air oven, desiccators, metal tongs, crucible, measuring cylinder, burette, pipette, hand gloves. reagents: concentrated h2so4, 40% naoh solution, 2% boric acid solution, standard 0.1n hcl solution, digestion mixture (cuso4 and k2so4 in a ratio of 1:20), mixed indicator. • procedure pa ge 88 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 85-92, 2025 • digestion • weigh accurately 1g of the food sample. • add 5g of the digestion mixture and 20ml of concentrated h2so4. • place the digestion flask on the kjeldahl digestion set, gradually increase heat, and digest until a clear residue is obtained. distillation • add 20ml of distilled water and transfer the content to the distillation flask. • add 100ml of 40% naoh solution and boric acid solution with the mixed indicator in a conical flask. • heat the distillation flask and continue until approximately 100ml of distillate is collected. titration • titrate the distillate against standard 0.1n hcl solution. • calculate the titration volume and predict the value. calculation: % crude protein = (a × b × 0.014× 6.25 ×100)/w where, a = volume of standard 0.1n hcl solution, b = normality of standard hcl solution, w = weight of the sample. crude fat content the samples’ moisture content was assessed using the accepted aoac methodology (aoac, 2016). principle: ether extract is estimated by extracting a known amount of the food sample with an organic solvent (diethyl ether) in a soxhlet apparatus. apparatus: soxhlet apparatus, hot water bath, electric balance, hot air oven, desiccators, hand gloves. reagents: anhydrous diethyl ether (boiling point 4060°c). procedure • dry the sample to moisture-free. • weigh the dry extraction flask carefully. • weigh 2g of the sample and transfer it into the thimble. • place the thimble into the extractor and close the top with cotton. • fit the extractor and pour ether up to siphoning. • pour ether again, half of the previous amount. • heat at 40-60°c for 6-8 hours. • after extraction, dismantle the extraction flask and dry on the extraction bath. • place the flask in a desiccator and weigh to measure ether extracts. calculation: % ether extract = ((a b) /w) ×100 where, a = weight of the flask with ether extract, b = weight of the flask, w = weight of the sample. estimation of total carbohydrate the available carbohydrate content was determined by subtracting the sum of the values of moisture, ash, protein and fat from 100/100gm (aoac, 2016). hence, it was calculated using the formula: % carbohydrate = 100 − (moisture % + ash% + protein% + fat%) heavy metal determination heavy metal was determined using aas (atomic absorption spectroscopy) (islam et al., 2023). principle: the atomic absorption spectroscopy (aas) is a widely used method for detecting and quantifying the concentration of heavy metals in samples. it relies on the absorption of light by free atoms in the gaseous state. in this process, a sample containing heavy metals is first atomized, usually in a flame or graphite furnace. a light source, typically a hollow cathode lamp, emits specific wavelengths corresponding to the target metal. as this light passes through the atomized sample, atoms of the target metal absorb the light at their characteristic wavelengths. the amount of light absorbed is directly proportional to the concentration of the metal in the sample. by measuring this absorbance, the concentration of heavy metals can be accurately determined, making aas a powerful and precise analytical technique. apparatus: electric balance, muffle furnace, electric heater, desiccators, metal tongs, crucible, aas. procedure • clean and dry the crucible in a hot air oven. • cool the crucible in desiccators and weigh. • place 5-10g of the sample in the crucible. • burn the sample until no smoke is observed. • cool the sample and transfer to a muffle furnace. • ignite the sample at 550-600°c for 6-8 hours until white ash is obtained. • cool the furnace to 150°c and transfer the crucible to the desiccators. • digest with 10ml hno3 • the mixture was then cooled and filtered using a filter paper in a 25 ml glass beaker and the volume was completed to 25 ml by adding deionized water. • measure the concentration using aas. results and discussion nutritional composition analysis result the proximate analysis of commercially processed and traditionally prepared red chili powder is done using the accepted aoac methodology (aoac, 2016). the moisture, protein, fat, ash, carbohydrate content found in commercially processed and traditionally prepared red chili powder are listed in table 1. table 1: proximate composition sample ash moisture protein fat carbohydrate commercial 5.58±0.52a 13.27±5.24a 14.47±2.70a 23.70±1.81a 42.98±2.24a traditional 5.50±0.22a 8.09±0.74a 10.60±0.74a 19.50±1.04a 56.32±1.26b pa ge 89 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 85-92, 2025 the proximate analysis reveals notable differences between commercially processed and traditionally prepared red chili powder. commercial processed red chili powder has higher protein (14.47%) content, whereas traditionally prepared red chili powder contains more carbohydrate. ash content is relatively similar in both types. heavy metal detection result atomic absorption spectroscopy is used to identify heavy metals. nickel, lead, cadmium, and mercury were measured. the result of the heavy metal detection is given below, table 2: heavy metal detection result sample pb cd hg ni commercial 0.03±0.05a bdl 0.01±0.02a 0.76±0.03a traditional bdl bdl 0.01±0.02a 1.24±0.66a table 3: proximate composition of red chili powder (fao) parameters rda by fao moisture ≤ 12% crude protein 10-15% crude fat 8-12% ash (minerals) ≤ 8% carbohydrates: 50-60% the heavy metal detection reveals slight difference between commercially processed and traditionally prepared red chili powder. commercially processed red chili powder has presence of pb, whereas traditionally prepared red chili powder contains trace number of heavy metals. nickel (ni) is present in both types. the proximate composition of red chili powder as recommended by the food and agriculture organization (fao) typically includes the following components: figure 1: the graphical representation of proximate composition of commercially processed and traditionally prepared red chili powder proximate composition pa ge 90 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 85-92, 2025 discussion the comparative study of industrially processed and traditionally prepared red chili powders revealed striking differences in their proximate content and heavy metal content. these variations can be attributed to differences in processing techniques, procurement of raw materials, and potential contamination during processing. the proximate analysis indicated that the homemade chili powders had higher carbohydrate (55.43%–57.21%) than commercial samples (40.97%–45.40%). this can be explained by the variations in drying and grinding procedures, which could affect the breakdown and retention of starch and fiber components. conversely, industrial chili powders were richer in fat (22.67%– 25.79%) and protein (11.76%–17.15%) than domestic samples, commercial 19 producers may use chili varieties with naturally higher oil content to impart more flavor and texture. research on the different types of chilies determined that some of them contain a higher level of fatty acids, which provides the flavor with a stronger character (zhang et al., 2024). industrial drying methods, such as hot air drying, can influence the retention of fatty acids in chili powders. research indicates that hot air-treated samples maintain higher levels of fatty acids, potentially leading to increased fat content in the final product (zhang et al., 2024). commercial chili powders may also contain oil-based additives or be treated with oil during processing for enhanced color, texture, and shelf life. even though there are few specific studies on oil addition to commercial chili powders, oil-based additives being utilized for the enhancement of spice blends is a widespread practice among the food industry. interestingly, ash content, an indicator of mineral presence, was remarkably greater in commercially processed (8.48%–18.86%) than in traditionally prepared samples (7.56%–8.61%), which could be attributed to the presence of added stabilizers or metallic impurities during commercial processing (rajeswari m et al., 2018). heavy metal analysis revealed the presence of mercury (hg), lead (pb), nickel (ni), and cadmium (cd) in both the samples at varying concentrations. nickel was found in all of the samples, and commercial samples had a little more (0.559–0.797 mg/kg) than homemade ones (0.593– 0.776 mg/kg). the presence of lead was found in just one commercial sample (0.0532 mg/kg), and no cadmium was found in any of the samples tested. chili peppers have the potential to accumulate lead from polluted soil, water, and air during their cultivation. industrial processes and the application of lead-containing pesticides are responsible for high concentrations of lead in farm products. the results presuppose that commercially processed chili powders have a higher likelihood of contamination from industrial processing procedures and packaging materials (zhou & liu, 2024). the american spice trade association (asta) suggests a maximum limit of 0.6 mg/kg of lead content for fruit-based spices, including chili powder. likewise, the european union has set a maximum of 0.5 mg/kg for lead in dried capsicum spices, i.e., chili powder. nickel levels in spices have varied between 3.90 and 6.70 mg/kg in research (adugna et al., 2024). the research had a limited scope because of the limited sample size and samples taken from a limited geographical area. the analyzed samples were confined to a geographical location, which might not represent the range of variability in the quality of red chili powder based on varying processing conditions and climatic regions. laboratory facilities utilized would not have offered the broadest analysis in addition, only some of the quality attributes were analyzed and other determinants like flavor profile, antioxidant, antinutrients, and sensory figure 2: the graphical representation of heavy metal detection level of commercially processed and traditionally prepared red chili powder pa ge 91 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 85-92, 2025 properties were not considered. future studies should include a larger range of samples and incorporate sensory evaluation procedures to give a clearer indication of variation in quality. more research should be conducted to identify hybrid processing methods that can achieve a balance between microbial safety and nutrient retention. investigation of other drying technologies, such as low-temperature air drying or vacuum drying, could yield alternatives that are minimally destructive to nutrients but still achieve food safety. more research should also investigate the storage stability of these two processing technologies over an extended period to ascertain their effects on quality during storage. extending studies to toxicological examination of impurities in other processing techniques would also be beneficial to food safety regulation conclusion the study provides a comparative analysis of the nutritional characteristics and quality parameters of red chili powder. from the results, it is apparent that red chili powder processed by traditional methods holds a higher carbohydrate content, whereas commercially processed red chili powder possesses a significantly higher protein content. these variations are a result of differences in the selection of raw materials, drying processes, processing conditions, and potential additives during industrial processing. the research offers a scientific foundation for subsequent research seeking to improve spice processing techniques in a manner that retains vital nutrients. the findings also have implications for food safety, quality control, and nutritional labeling, informing consumers and regulatory agencies to make informed decisions regarding spice utilization and standardization. it shows how different processes affect key nutrients like carbohydrates and protein. later studies may further improve chili powder production processes. the manufacturers can utilize this research for developing processing technologies to preserve better nutrients without loss in product quality future research can help improve chili powder production techniques. these improvements can ensure products meet health and quality standards. additionally, it can guide both consumers and manufacturers in making informed choices. reference adugna, t., selale, g., & regassa, g. (2024). assessment of heavy metal contents in some common spices available in the local market of north shewa zone, oromia regional state, ethiopia. biological trace element research, 202(7), 3349–3361. https://doi. org/10.1007/s12011-023-03921-8 akhand, r. n., islam, s., & khan, m. m. h. (2021). comparative analysis of crude protein, total phenolic and antioxidant contents of raw and commercially packed turmeric and red chilies. asian journal of biology, 47–56. https://doi.org/10.9734/ ajob/2021/v11i230139 islam, m. s., chowdhury, a. i., shill, l. c., reza, s., & alam, m. r. (2023). heavy metals induced health risk assessment through consumption of selected commercially available spices in noakhali district of bangladesh. heliyon, 9(11). https://doi.org/10.1016/j. heliyon.2023.e21746 k., e., a., s., f., a., r., n., b., t., & d., g. (2011). proximate composition, mineral content and antinutritional factors of some capsicum (capsicum annum) varieties grown in ethiopia. bulletin of the chemical society of ethiopia, 25(3). https://doi.org/10.4314/ bcse.v25i3.68602 kalauni, s. k., pokhrel, k. p., c., a. k., & khanal, l. n. (2024). proximate analysis and comparative evaluation of antioxidant, antidiabetic and antibacterial activities of capsicum species consumed in nepal. amrit journal, 4(1), 48–59. https://doi.org/10.3126/amritj.v4i1.73752 kamal, m. m., ali, m. r., rahman, m. m., shishir, m. r. i., yasmin, s., & sarker, m. s. h. (2019). effects of processing techniques on drying characteristics, physicochemical properties and functional compounds of green and red chilli (c apsicum annum l.) powder. journal of food science and technology, 56(7), 3185–3194. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-01903733-6 khalid, s., tufail, s., hussain, s., & iqbal, m. (2021). comparative studies of lead and chromium concentration in red chili and turmeric powder. biological sciences pjsir, 64(2), 198–201. https://doi. org/10.52763/pjsir.biol.sci.64.2.2021.198.201 khan, n., ahmed, m. j., & shah, s. z. a. (2019). comparative analysis of mineral content and proximate composition from chilli pepper (capsicum annuum l.) germplasm. pesquisa agropecuaria brasileira, 8(2), 1338–1347. https://doi.org/10.19045/ bspab.2019.80075 krithika, v., & radhai sri, s. (2014). physicochemical and nutritional characteristics of chilli cultivars. sciexplore: international journal of research in science, 1(2), 117. https://doi.org/10.15613/sijrs/2014/ v1i2/67550 krzykowski, a., rudy, s., polak, r., biernacka, b., krajewska, a., janiszewska-turak, e., kowalska, i., żuchowski, j., skalski, b., & dziki, d. (2024). drying of red chili pepper (capsicum annuum l.): process kinetics, color changes, carotenoid content and phenolic profile. molecules, 29(21), 5164. https://doi. org/10.3390/molecules29215164/s1 moulick, s. p., jahan, f., mamun, m. z. u. al, hossain, m. i. s., waliullah, m., & sathee, r. a. (2023). analysis of indigenous spices widely consumed in bangladesh: an assessment to explore its proximate contents, minerals, phytochemical compositions, and antioxidant activities. journal of agriculture and food research, 14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jafr.2023.100720 pa ge 92 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 85-92, 2025 navin venketeish, k. s., govindarajan, n., & pandiselvam, r. (2024). influence of processing techniques on the proximate composition, anti-nutritional factors, and amino acid profile of red kidney beans (phaseolus vulgaris l). plant foods for human nutrition (dordrecht, netherlands), 80(1), 13–13. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11130-024-01247-x raji abdul ganiy, o., falade kolawole, o., & abimbolu fadeke, w. (2010). effect of sucrose and binary solution on osmotic dehydration of bell pepper (chilli) (capsicum spp.) varieties. journal of food science and technology, 47(3), 305. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s13197-010-0048-7 tata, s., & bhagavatula, s. v. (2018). estimation of capscaicin content in commercial chilli powders by hplc and study of its functional properties. international journal of pharmaceutics & drug analysis, 6, 50–55. http://ijpda.com; tavakolipour, h., & mokhtarian, m. (2016). drying of chilli pepper in various conditions. quality assurance and safety of crops and foods, 8(1), 87–93. https://doi. org/10.3920/qas2014.0518 zhang, r., lv, j., li, p., mo, y., zhou, h., wu, r., li, m., cheng, h., zhang, h., wen, j., gui, m., & deng, m. (2024). analysis of changes in nutritional compounds of dried yellow chili after different processing treatments. scientific reports, 14(1), 1–15. https://doi. org/10.1038/s41598-024-72464-2;subjmeta zhou, l. q., & liu, w. z. (2024). pollution of four heavy metal elements in dried chili peppers in guizhou province and its health risk assessment. scientific reports, 14(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1038/ s41598-024-68564-8;subjmeta pa ge 1 pa ge 15 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) from indigenous to improved breeds: adoption dynamics and intensity of artificial insemination among farmers in western kenya g. o. awuor1, e. kipkemei1, a. serem1, a. k. kipkoech1* volume 4 issue 2, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i2.5280 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: may 09, 2025 accepted: june 14, 2025 published: september 01, 2025 adoption of artificial insemination (ai) has the potential to upgrade local dairy breeds for improved milk production in western kenya. this study employed the double hurdle probit model to analyze factors influencing the adoption and intensity of ai technology. a multistage random sampling technique was employed to identify sample units among adopters and non-adopters of ai technology. data was obtained from cross-sectional survey of 378 farmer households. results of the probit model showed that age, education level, experience, milk sales, ai cost, worker’s skill on heat detection, semen type, ai reliability, and availability of the inseminator positively and significantly influenced ai technology adoption. only training on livestock production negatively and significantly influenced ai technology adoption. results of the truncated regression showed that age, education level, experience, and training on livestock production positively and significantly influenced the intensity of ai technology use. group membership and the availability of the inseminator negatively and significantly influenced the intensity of ai technology adoption. it is concluded information is the most critical factor influencing adoption of ai. building more trust and confidence about ai technologies will lead to increased adoption. the study recommends the improvement of farmer education through introduction of effective farmer training and information sessions. there is need to conduct training needs assessments before the trainings are carried out so as to capture the farmers’ interest together with their socioeconomic environments. keywords adoption intensity, ai technology, probit, western kenya 1 department of agricultural economics and resource management, moi university, p.o box 3900, eldoret, 30100, kenya * corresponding author’s e-mail: akkipkoech@gmail.com introduction the primary objective of improving the livestock sector is meeting the increasing demand for livestock products for achieving food security and the sustainability of the economy. in kenya, the livestock sector contributes over 30% of the farm gate value of agricultural commodities, about 10% of the national gross domestic product (gdp), at least 50% of the agricultural gdp, and employ 50% of the labor force in agriculture (kalro, 2024). the dairy sub-sector are critical in the economy given the ever-increasing human demand of milk and the potential to generate frequent and sustainable household incomes. milk contributes substantially to the economy, accounting for 27% of the value added by livestock and 10% of the total agricultural value added (fao, 2016). in western kenya, dairy sub-sector faces significant challenges despite its potential to contribute to food security and economic growth. while cows are the most prevalent dairy animal, farmers typically keep just two or three cows, meaning that farmers experience a higher average cost of production compared to farmers in developed countries where average dairy herd size is around 90 cows in the uk and 300 in the usa (fao, 2016). herd quality is characterized by low productivity, with smallholder farms predominantly keeping exoticzebu (indigenous breed) crosses (41.7%), friesian (34.3%), and ayrshire (22.4). the average milk production per cow in is estimated at 6.47 liters per day, with a lactation yield of 2,400 liters (wanjala & njehia, 2014). these figures are significantly lower than the global average of 40 liters per day per cow and up to 14,000 liters per lactation. this disparity is attributed to genetic limitations of the available animal breeds low adoption of high-yield exotic breeds due to cultural preferences of the indigenous zebu breed and inadequate artificial insemination services (kiplagat et al., 2025), inefficient breeding services, inadequate management practices leading to poor-quality fodder production and seasonal scarcity (odero-waitituh, 2017) and insufficient extension and advisory services. studies have shown that the herd quality influence the ability of farmers to improve their milk production and herd size through influencing the rate of spread of reproductive diseases, conception rates, calf mortality rates, growth and maturity rates. the use of new technologies to improve herd quality has been found to increase productivity, lower the risk of livestock diseases, and ensures environmental sustainability in productive areas (kimunya, 2014). there are a number of reproductive technologies available to transfer desirable genetic materials such as artificial insemination, embryo transplant, and vitro fertilization, of which only artificial insemination (ai) is the most commonly used technique in developing countries including kenya. particularly used as a reproduction method in dairy farming, ai provides significant economic contributions to milk production and to farmers by pa ge 16 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 15-25, 2025 genetically improving animals (howley et al., 2012). the advancement and application of artificial insemination have significantly transformed cattle production and genetic enhancement, especially within the dairy industry in developed nations (henning et al., 2010). potential of artificial insemination (ai) to improve herd quality and productivity artificial insemination is the process by which semen is artificially introduced into the female reproductive tract for the purpose of conception (shehu et al., 2010). the process has become a popular avenue in the endeavour to the improve herd quality and milk production in western kenyan. the technology allows for future change of the herd breed by introducing semen from genetically superior bulls in to local cows. the semen is carefully selected to ensure they have the desired traits such as higher milk yield, disease resistance, and better adaptation to local environments. in western kenya, the government promote ai services on dairy cattle, highlighting the focus on boosting the productivity of the dairy sub-sector. the use of ai has helped to address challenges such spread of reproductive diseases, poor conception rates, social issues from sharing bulls, lack of control over progeny quality, limited financial resources, inadequate veterinary support, and poor performance of dairy breeds (gahakwa et al., 2014). the use of ai services enables farmers to access superior genetics that would otherwise be unavailable or unaffordable through natural mating. for instance, the cost of purchasing and maintaining a bull are inhibitably high. the adoption of ai service among farmers has resulted to emergence of crossbreeds heifer cows with significantly improved milk production potential compared to indigenous zebu breed. there has been a significant reduction in inbreeding, which was responsible for the undesirable traits inherent in the local cow breeds. for the purpose of this research the study sought to understand the frequency of use of artificial insemination by the ai expert in consultation with the farmer. there has been increase in promotional activities for the ai service by both government and private sector players through training of professionals in ai, provision of high-quality semen and training for farmers on various aspects of ai. there has also been a policy shift in to allowing for the privatization of ai services that improved accessibility. heat synchronization of heifers and cows was tried in siaya county among other counties, with the government of kenya collaborating with ilri to upgrade the local zebus using fixed time artificial insemination (ftai). this initiative saw the increase in the number of artificial inseminations in western kenya (in particular at alegousonga sub-county) with a peak being witnessed in 2016 as presented in table 1. despite the potential of ai technology to upgrade local zebus through selective breeding and meet growing milk demand, farmers have not fully embraced the technology, with sizeable number of farmers still opting for use of traditional bulls, or even preferring to maintain their traditional herd. several studies have explored the drivers of ai technology in different contexts, highlighting the complex interplay of socio-economic, institutional, and technical factors (gebre et al., 2022; ingabire et al., 2018; bayan, 2018; mwanga et al., 2019). these factors can include farmer characteristics (age, education, and experience), access to credit and extension services, cost of ai services, availability of liquid nitrogen, infrastructure, and cultural beliefs (ayantunde et al., 2008). understanding these factors is crucial for designing and implementing effective interventions to promote ai technology adoption and maximize its impact on livestock productivity. in alego-usonga sub-county, while livestock keeping is a common practice, there is a need for more in-depth research to understand the specific factors that influence adoption of ai technology. there is need to capture the local and unique context of alego-usonga, which might have distinct socio-economic, environmental, and cultural characteristics. a comprehensive analysis of the factors influencing ai adoption and intensity of use within this specific sub-county is essential. this study sought to address this gap by investigating the socio-economic, technical, and institutional factors that influence farmers’ decisions to adopt and consistently utilize ai technology in alego-usonga sub-county to improve their dairy herd and ultimately milk yield. materials and methods study area the study area was alego-usonga sub-county that covers an area of 599 square kilometers within siaya county in western kenya. the areas has a population of 224,363 people according to the 2029 kenya national bureau of statistics (knbs) census of 2019 (knbs, 2019). the population is made of smallholder farmers practicing mixed farming where they keep livestock and farm crops. there are 3,512 households in the study area producing 26% of the milk consumed in the area from the 81% of marketed of milk produce. the farmers are known to hire labour for dairy management activities. the smallholder dairy farmers keep 1-5 cows on an average of 0.5 to 3 acres. the improved cows produce 3.4 liters per cow per day compared to the indigenous zebu cows that produce an average of 2.4 liters/cow/day (asdsp, 2014). the area has a bimodal rainfall pattern with two rainy seasons in each year typically separated by drier periods, leading to alternating wet and dry phases throughout the year. the rains occur between march and may and again between october and december and is well distributed within the northern parts of ugunja, gem and ugenya receiving the highest amount between 1600-2000mm and rainfall gradually reducing to southern parts of bondo and rarieda which receive the lowest amounts between 800-1200mm annually. the temperature ranges from 15 to 32 degree celsius with an annual average of 28 degrees celsius (directorate of livestock production and veterinary, 2019). the weather characterized by pa ge 17 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 15-25, 2025 warm temperatures, consistent rainfall and high humidity provide reliable moisture for pasture growth, ensuring that grasses and forage crops can thrive throughout the rainy seasons. data collection, sampling technique and size this study utilized a cross-sectional study design. data was collected using a structured questionnaire administered to smallholder farmers. the questionnaire gathered information on socio-economic, technical, and institutional characteristics of smallholder farmers. the study employed a multi-stage sampling technique to identify adoptors and non-adopters of ai technology. a sample size of 378 was randomly selected. this study utilized the formula by kothari (2004) to estimate the sample size as follows: where, n = population size; n = the desired sample size; z – standard normal deviate at 0.05 significance level; p – the proportion in the target population estimate to have a characteristic being measured (an assumption of p =0.5 was made); q = 1 p; e = level of statistical significance desired; z statistic at 95% confidence level is 1.96. the level of significance being 0.05 therefore; the sample size, n was estimated as: data processing and analysis after data collection, cleaning of the data was done using microsoft excel software. stata software version 15 was utilized to analyze quantitative data collected from the household survey. both descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to the data to identify factors influencing the adoption of ai technology and intensity of use in alego-usonga. the cragg (1971) double hurdle model was employed in this study to analyze factors influencing the adoption and the intensity of use of ai technology in alego usonga sub county. according to cragg (1971), adoption is a process involving two stages/tiers; the first is decision on whether or not to adopt the technology, and second is to what extent to adopt. the model assumes that the decision not to adopt is a deliberate choice, thus the zeros from non-participants are considered as corner solution in the utility maximizing model. the model curbs bias in the continuous second tier dependent variable by linking a value to the piled up data, thus maintaining all the data within the sample. the cragg model is flexible, assuming that there are no restrictions regarding the components of independent variables in each estimation stage. the model requires a joint application of the probit and truncated regression models, sequentially or simultaneously. the probit model equation that was used in the study is given as: where subscript i is the ith household, is the latent discrete adoption choice variable, yi * is the observed adoption variable which takes a value of 1 if the farmer adopted ai technology and 0 otherwise, xi is kx1 vector of factors that influence ai technology adoption, βi is a kx1 vector of parameters to be estimated, ε is the error term. these coefficients βi represent changes in the latent variable (unobserved z-score) underlying the binary outcome and thus, the effect of each predictor on the latent propensity (z-score) to adopt ai. the change in probability that a farmer will adopt ai or not arising from the change in the variables xi depends on their effect on the cumulative normal distribution function (φ) evaluated at the mean predictor values.the marginal effect of an independent variable xk on the probability is: where, φ is the standard normal density the pdf of the standard normal at βx is: marginal effect of change in xx= φ(βx) x βk in the second hurdle, the truncated regression model was employed to determine factors that influence the intensity of ai technology adoption among farmers who adopted the technology. the truncated regression is given by: where, ii is the intensity of ai technology adoption, and depends on ii * is the latent variable being greater than zero on the condition that a decision is made to adopt ai technology.xi is a vector of parameters to be estimated for the intensity of adoption, is a vector of factors that influence the intensity of use of ai technology, μ is the error term which has a normal distribution. the double-hurdle regression equation is specified as follows: ....(1) ....(4) ....(5) ....(6) ....(7) ....(3) ....(2) where, yi is the ai adoption which takes a value of 1 for adopters and 0 otherwise, ii is intensity of use of ai measured by the number of times a farmer used the technology, βi is a vector of parameters to be estimated, xi is vector of the explanatory variables, and εi is the error term. results and discussions results in table 1 presents the descriptive statistics for the variables used in the analysis. the results indicate that, on average, the majority of small-scale dairy farmers pa ge 18 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 15-25, 2025 were aged 40-49 years , with 46% being male. most of the farmers had attained primary-level education and had more than five years of experience in dairy farming. the age and education level of the farmers suggests that the typical dairy farmer in this sample is a mature adult with basic to moderate educational attainment, which can influence their ability to adopt new technologies and management practices. the gender distribution (mean of 0.46) indicates a relatively balanced representation of men and women, though slightly more women may be involved. on average, 39.5% of male small-scale dairy farmers were members of various farmer groups that is relatively low, which could affect access to shared resources, training, and collective bargaining for better prices or services. the average herd size is 3.7, with a high standard deviation (2.08), indicating significant variation in the scale of dairy operations among households. milk sales average at kshs. 455.5, but with a large standard deviation (267.8), showing that while some households are quite productive, others are less so, possibly reflecting differences in whether a farmer has improved or indigenous breed, differences in herd size, management skills, or market access. the costs associated with breeding among the dairy farming are notable, with artificial insemination (ai) services of about kshs. 2000 and the cost of a bull was kshs. 854.5, which a high standard deviation of kshs. 376.3 for the cost of the bull. the high standard deviation pints to lack of standard prices for breeding that expose farmers to high charges from scrupulous breeders and the high financial investment required for herd improvement and breeding. the average worker’s skill in heat detection is 1.6 (in a scale of 1-4, 1 =poor, 2=fair, 3=good, 4=excellent) with considerable variability (std. error = 0.7), suggesting that most farmers are considered to have some knowledge on heat detection but majority need additional training. this skill is crucial for effective breeding and maximizing milk production, underlining the importance of capacity building in dairy farm management. this particular variable for the success of ai technology given that a farmers ought to have an excellent heat detection skill to ensure the inseminator is called in on the right time for successful breeding. table 1: descriptive statistics and measurement of variables influencing adoption and intensity of ai variable (characteristics of household head) measurement sample mean std. dev age 1 = 20 – 29 years, 2 = 30 – 39 years, 3 = 40 – 49 years, 4 = above 50 years 3.3 0.76 gender 1 = male, 0 = female 0.46 0.5 education level 1 =non-formal, 2=primary, 3=secondary 4 = college/university 2.3 1.0 years of experience in dairy farming 1 = less than 1 year, 2= 1 – 5 years, 3= more than 5 years 2.7 0.5 group membership 1 = yes, 0 = no 0.4 0.49 herd size in numbers 3.7 2.08 milk sales in ksh 455.5 267.8 cost of ai service 1 = ksh. 1000 – ksh. 2000, 2= above ksh. 2000 1.8 1.3 cost of bull cost in ksh 854.5 376.3 worker’s skill on heat detection 1 = poor, 2 = good, 3 = very good 4 = excellent 1.6 0.7 semen type 1 = poor, 2 = good, 3 = very good 1.8 0.4 perception about ai reliability if it is reliable 1 = yes, 0 = no 0.45 0.5 supplements use if they give supplement feeds 1 = yes, 0 = no 0.9 0.3 farmer access to extension access to extension service 1 = yes, 0 = no 0.9 0.3 farmer has attended atlease one farmer training attended any training 1 = yes, 0=no 0.72 0.45 farmers access other support services (apart from extension and training) if support services are available 1 = yes, 0 = no 0.07 0.25 information on availability of inseminator if the inseminator is available 1 = yes, 0 = no 0.9 0.3 source: author’s computation (2025) pa ge 19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 15-25, 2025 the results also shows high access to extension services by about 90% of the farmers. but this is surprising given that the although there is a high extension access, the perception about the reliability of ai remained low (45%). this points out at the need to re-look at the mode of extension service, the packaging of the extension information and assess the factors that influence the effectiveness of the service. results showed that 72% of the farmers had attended at least one training by the extension service. only 7% of farmers access other support services beyond extension and training. there is a high preference of non-sexed semen of 1.8 (in a scale of 1=sexed, 2=non sexed) pointing out to the limiting possibility of high cost of sexed semen. results showed that there was a high awareness among farmers (90%) on the availability of ai service within reach of the farmers meaning that the adoption and non-adoption of ai was deliberate decisions by farmers. factors influencing adoption of ai technology results of the probit regression from using equation 3 used to estimate the factors influencing the adoption of ai technology in the study area is provided in table 2 below. the results revealed that ten out of seventeen variables considered and analyzed were statistically significant and influenced adoption of ai technology in the study area. age, education level and experience of the household head, milk sales, cost of ai service, cost of use of bull service, worker’s skill on heat detection, semen type, perception about ai reliability and information on availability of inseminator positively influenced ai technology adoption. further, only training negatively influenced ai technology adoption in the study area that calls for a further analysis of the effectiveness of training in achieving the intended outcomes of promoting genetic improvements of dairy herd in the study area. training may negatively influence artificial insemination (ai) adoption if it is poorly designed, irrelevant, or not tailored to farmers’ needs and socio-economic circumstances. poorly designed training my lower farmers’ confidence in ai technology and may cause resistance, confusion and mistrust of the technology or the ai service and service providers. age was established to have a positive effect and statistically significant at 5% level of significance in explaining the adoption decision of ai technology. this showed that a shift to the higher next age category increases the probability of adopting ai technology by 25.3%. the findings suggests that older farmers are more likely to adopt ai technology. the argument is that older farmers have more experience, have a better access to resources, or a greater willingness to invest in ai technology due to accumulated resources and knowledge. the current finding is in line with those on factors for adoption of artificial insemination technology among pig farmers by sharma et al. (2020) who found out that age of the household head positively and significantly determined the adoption of ai technology in small scale pig production systems in india. the current finding is also consistent with those on factors influencing adoption of ai by smallholder livestock farmers in dryland production systems of kenya by abot (2020) who reported a positive influence of age on the adoption of ai technology. table 2: probit regression results on factors influencing ai technology adoption factors influencing adoption of ai (xi) coef. (βi) st. err. t-value p-value [95% conf interval] marginal effects age 0.253** 0.102 2.49 0.013 0.054 0.452 0.105 gender 0.095 0.186 0.51 0.609 -0.269 0.459 0.039 education level 0.201*** 0.03 6.80 0.000 0.143 0.258 0.083 years of experience in dairy farming 0.121** 0.059 2.05 0.041 0.005 0.237 0.050 group membership 0.154 0.212 0.73 0.468 -0.262 0.569 0.064 herd size -0.018 0.045 -0.39 0.696 -0.106 0.071 -0.007 milk sales 0.001*** 0.000 2.94 0.003 0.000 0.002 0.000 cost of ai service 0.542*** 0.205 2.64 0.008 0.14 0.943 0.225 cost of bull 0.001* 0.000 1.67 0.094 0.000 0.001 0.000 worker’s skill 0.198** 0.099 1.99 0.047 0.003 0.393 0.082 semen type 0.345*** 0.086 4.03 0.000 0.178 0.513 0.143 perception about ai reliability 1.862*** 0.289 6.45 0.000 1.296 2.428 0.772 supplements 0.283 0.271 1.04 0.296 -0.248 0.815 0.117 farmers access to extension access -0.332 0.29 -1.15 0.252 -0.900 0.236 -0.138 farmers attend at least one farmer training -0.496** 0.225 -2.20 0.028 -0.937 -0.054 -0.206 pa ge 20 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 15-25, 2025 information about inseminator availability 0.85*** 0.241 3.53 0.000 0.378 1.323 0.353 farmers access other support 0.204 0.379 0.54 0.59 -0.538 0.946 0.085 constant -4.239*** 1.095 -3.87 0.000 -6.385 -2.093 mean dependent var 0.696 sd dependent var 0.461 pseudo r-squared 0.357 number of obs 332 chi-square 145.649 prob > chi2 0.000 akaike crit. (aic) 300.309 bayesian crit. (bic) 372.606 βx = 1.33 ϕ(x) = 0.414 *** p<.01, ** p<.05, * p<.1 denotes significance at 1%, 5% and 10%, respectively. education level of the household head was found to have a positive effect and statistically significant at 1% level of significance in explaining the adoption decision of ai technology. this showed that an increase in education level is likely to increase the probability of ai technology adoption by 3.9%. studies have shown that education increases the awareness and promotes attitude change which creates a favourable environment for technology adoption (mwanga et al., 2019; okello et al., 2021). farmers with high levels of education are likely to have more knowledge and skills and hence their higher probability of adopting ai technology compared to those with low levels of education. the current finding are consistent with those on the determinants of utilization of agricultural technologies among smallholder dairy farmers in kenya by okello et al. (2021) who established that education level positively influenced the utilization of ai. similarly, a study on adoption of artificial insemination and the intensity of use in ethiopia by gebre et al. (2022) reported a positive relationship between the households’ level of literacy and adoption and intensity of use of ai. years of experience in dairy farming was established to have positive influence on ai technology adoption at 5% level of significance. this means that for every additional years in dairying experience, the likelihood of adopting ai technology increases by 5.0%. experienced farmers may have observed or learned about the benefits of ai over time which enhance their chances of adopting the technology. additionally, longer involvement in dairy farming may provide farmers with better financial resources to afford ai services. the current finding is consistent with the findings on factors for adoption of artificial insemination technology among pig farmers by sharma et al. (2020) who found out that farming experience positively and significantly determined the adoption of ai technology in small scale pig production systems in india. the current result is also similar to those on factors affecting the use of artificial insemination of farmers in dairy farming in turkey by özsayın (2020) who reported that dairy farming experience had a positive effect on the use of artificial insemination. however, other studies have reported negative influence of experience on adoption of technologies. kaaya et al. (2005) reported that experience negatively influences the utilization of ai in uganda. similarly, a study on adoption and intensity of improved fish feeds use in western kenya by wafula et al. (2021) established that experience negatively influenced the intensity of using improved fish feeds in kenya. it is imperative that as farmers accumulate years of experience in dairy farming, they experiment several strategies in their quest to improve earnings, including improving dairy herd using ai. farmers adopt and permanently use new agricultural technologies when they test them and find them working and perceive clear economic and practical benefits (castellini et al. 2025). milk sales was found to have a positive effect and statistically significant at 1% level of significance in explaining the ai technology adoption decision. this implies that a 1 ksh increase in milk sales is likely to influence the probability of adopting ai technology by a very low percentage (<0.1%). income from milk is an incentive and will determine the probability that a farmer will use ai technology or not. farmers who receive low incomes are not motivated to use this technology since they do not realize much from dairy farming as compared to those who earn more. the current finding is consistent with the findings by tefera (2013) who reported that income from milk sales positively influenced the farmer decision to adopt ai in ethiopia. a study on multicountry investigation of factors influencing breeding decisions by smallholder dairy farmers in sub-saharan africa by mwanga et al. (2019) reported that income from selling dairy products positively influenced the use of ai in ethiopia and negatively influenced the choice of ai as a breeding option in tanzania, uganda, and kenya. the cost of ai was found to be statistically significant at 1% level of significance and positively influenced ai technology adoption by 22.5%. the cost of any dairy technology will always determine its uptake and hence if the technology is affordable it will be embraced by the farmer, and if it is expensive only few farmers will adopt it. the current finding is divergent to the findings on the adoption of improved technologies and profitability of the catfish processors in ondo state, nigeria by olutumise et al. (2020) who reported that cost of equipment negatively influenced the decision to adopt and the rate of adopting improved fish processing technologies in nigeria. the current findings are also inconsistent with those on multicountry investigation of factors influencing breeding decisions by smallholder dairy farmers in sub-saharan pa ge 21 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 15-25, 2025 africa by mwanga et al. (2019) who found out that cost of ai service negatively influenced the choice of ai as a breeding option. the positive relationship between cost of ai and the probability of its adoption show that adoption decisions are strongly influenced by the expected profitability and cost-benefit considerations. while high costs is expected to be a barrier, farmers are more likely to evaluate benefits and costs of a technology and adopt technologies with higher costs if these technologies promise greater returns or efficiency gains that justify the investment (pope & sonka 2020). worker’s skill on heat detection was statistically significant at 1% level of significance and positively influenced the probability of adopting ai technology by 8.2%. successful conception is determined by proper heat timing and timely insemination. accurate heat detection leads to better reproductive management, shorter calving intervals, and increased milk production. a worker with good skill on heat detection will enhance the chances of a successful conception as compared to the one with poor skills. additionally, the worker spends most of his/her time with the cows and monitors the behaviour of the animal and hence is able to detect the possibilities that it is on heat or not. the success of ai technology depends majorly on the ability of the farmer to detect heat and invite an inseminator on time. without the skills, the success rate of ai can be highly compromised leading to economic losses and mistrust of the technology. semen type was statistically significant at 1% level of significance and positively influenced the adoption of ai technology by 14.3%. there are various types of semen available to the farmers for the select for insemination. it is important to note that farmers made deliberate decisions to adopt ai service based on expected benefits. the sexed semen was adopted by farmers who had perceived clear pathway to improving their dairy herd and milk production and are likely to continuously use ai service. moreover, farmers who used sexed semen were likely to be knowledgeable also preferring semen from genetically superior bulls that offer traits such as higher milk production, disease resistance, or faster growth thereby obtaining additional benefits from ai and help further promote adoption of ai. perception about ai reliability was statistically significant at 1% level of significance and positively influenced the adoption of ai technology by 77.2%. when farmers believe and trust the capability of a technology to improve the performance of their enterprises they are likely to adopt and continue using it. this could be attributed to the fact that farmers like trying out technologies that are believed to benefit them in the long-run. additionally, farmers are likely to adopt a given technology if it is being promoted by the government and trusted agencies. the perception about reliability is linked to access to extension service, farmer training and the availability of information about ai service and the associated benefits. farmers are more likely to adopt agricultural technologies if they receive correct information through the right sources (livondo et al. 2015). training on livestock production was established to be statistically significant at 5% level of significance and negatively influenced ai technology adoption by 20.6%. training impacts knowledge to farmers about existing technologies and hence enabling them to use them. the current finding is divergent to those on factors affecting small dairy farmers’ adoption and intensity of artificial insemination technology in ethiopia by herana and kumari (2017) who reported that training positively influenced adoption of ai. the current finding is also in line with the finding by sharma et al. (2020) who reported that participation in training and demonstration programmes positively influenced the adoption of ai technology in small scale pig production systems in india. moreover, the findings on adoption of artificial insemination service for cattle crossbreeding by smallholder farmers in ethiopia by abraha et al. (2020) who established that formal training positively influenced ai technology adoption contradict the current result. inseminator availability was statistically significant at 1% and positively influenced the probability of adopting ai technology by 35.3%. this finding could be attributed to the fact that most farmers stated that the inseminator was available when called. conception of a cow once heat signs are detected was time bound and tend to put farmers in a panic model. the information about availability determines chances for the farmer inviting the inseminator. supporting this findings are those on factors affecting adoption of artificial insemination technology by dairy farmers in tanzania by temba (2011) who revealed that proximity to ai service providers and access to information were significant factors affecting ai adoption by dairy farmers. factors influencing the intensity of ai technology use table 3 presents the truncated regression results on the factors influencing the intensity of ai technology adoption in the study area. the table of results shows that nine out of seventeen variables considered and analyzed were statistically significant and influenced the intensity of ai technology adoption on the level in the study area. among the variables that positively influenced the intensity of ai technology include; age, education level, experience, milk income, and training. further, group membership, ai cost, worker’s skill on heat detection, and availability of the inseminator negatively influenced the intensity of ai technology use. age positively influenced the intensity of using ai technology at 1% level of significance. this shows that a year increase in age increases the intensity of ai technology use by 5%. the argument is that as farmers increase in age their experience also adds up. farmers with a good history with ai use are likely to intensify as opposed to those with bad experiences. the current finding conform those by chen et al. (2020) who reported a positive effect of age on the intensity of tea consumption among men and women in china. the current finding however is divergent to finding by mahoussi et al. (2021) pa ge 22 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 15-25, 2025 who found out that age square had a negative quadratic relationship with the intensity of use of improved maize seeds in benin. education level was established to have a positive influence on the intensity of ai technology use at a 1% significance level. this implies that for each additional year in education, the intensity of using ai technology increased by 4.2%. this could be attributed to the fact that education improves the knowledge and skills of the farmer. the current finding is consistent with the findings on adoption of artificial insemination technology and its intensity of use in ethiopia conducted by gebre et al. (2022) who reported that literacy level increases the intensity of ai technology adoption. the current findings also conform to the finding by mahama et al. (2020) who noted that education level positively influenced the extent of ai adoption. however, the current finding contradicts the findings on factor influencing adoption of ai by smallholder farmers in dryland production systems of kenya by abot (2020) who found that education level negatively influenced the extent of ai adoption. experience was also found to positively influence the intensity of ai technology use at 1% level of significance. this means that a year increase in dairy farming experience is likely to increase the intensity of ai technology use by 5.8%. this could be attributed to the fact that more experienced farmers tend to continue employing technologies that they perceive beneficial with time. the current finding are consistent with the findings by olutumise et al. (2020) who reported a positive influence of experience on the intensity of adoption of improved technologies and profitability of the catfish processors in nigeria. the current finding is divergent from the findings by tefera (2013) who reported that experience of keeping crossbred cattle in the past years had negative effect on the extent of adoption of ai in ethiopia. the current findings also contradict those on factors influencing adoption decision of ai technology and the extent of adoption by bayan (2018) who found out that with one additional year older from start of a dairy farm, the probability of adoption and intensity of adoption goes down. group membership negatively influenced the intensity of ai technology use by 3.8% at a 5% level of significance. cooperatives offer a range of benefits to its members including marketing of output, inputs, education and new technologies. the decision to adopt and intensify dairy technologies may be independent of the influence of cooperatives. the current findings is consistent with the finding on the determinants of utilization of agricultural technologies among smallholder dairy farmers in kenya by okello et al. (2021) who reported a negative influence of group membership on utilization of dairy technologies in kenya. the current finding is also convergent to those on adoption and intensity of improved fish feeds use in western kenya by wafula et al. (2021) who reported that group membership negatively influenced the adoption and intensity of using improved fish feeds. the current finding are inconsistent with the finding on the determinants of artificial insemination use by smallholder dairy farmers in ethiopia by tefera (2013) who reported that being a member of dairy cooperative positively influenced the extent of ai use. the current findings are also divergent to the findings on factors affecting adoption of artificial insemination technology by dairy farmers in tanzania by temba (2011) who reported that group membership positively influenced adoption and intensity of ai. training was established to have a positive influence on the intensity of ai technology use at a 10% level of significance. this means that attending trainings increases the intensity of ai technology use by 5.6%. the argument is that farmers who have been trained have better access to information and agricultural knowledge about dairy farming as opposed to their non-trained counterparts. the current finding is consistent with the findings on factors affecting small dairy farmers’ adoption and intensity of artificial insemination technology in ethiopia by herana and kumari (2017) who reported that access to ai training positively influenced intensity of ai in ethiopia. the current finding also conforms to the findings by gebre et al. (2022) who reported that access to training positively influences the intensity of ai technology adoption in ethiopia. however, a study by dumara and zenbaba (2020) established that attendance in training had a positive and significant effect on the adoption and intensity of adoption of malt barley technology in ethiopia. table 3: truncated regression results on factors influencing intensity of ai technology adoption ai intensity factors xi coef. βi st.err. t-value p-value [95% conf interval] age 0.05*** 0.013 3.80 0.000 0.024 0.076 gender -0.023 0.016 -1.46 0.145 -0.054 0.008 education level 0.042*** 0.01 4.44 0.000 0.024 0.061 experience 0.058*** 0.017 3.40 0.001 0.025 0.091 group membership -0.038** 0.017 -2.17 0.03 -0.072 -0.004 herd size -0.003 0.004 -0.76 0.448 -0.011 0.005 milk sales 0.000** 0.000 2.07 0.039 0.00 0.00 ai cost -0.029* 0.016 -1.80 0.071 -0.06 0.002 cost of bull 0.000 0.000 0.75 0.456 0.00 0.00 pa ge 23 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 15-25, 2025 inseminator availability was found to have a negative influence on the intensity of ai technology use by 4.8% at a 5% level of significance. this could be attributed to some cases of dishonesty by the inseminators. farmers who have experienced any form of cheating from the service providers are less likely to intensify the adoption of ai technology (kaaya et al., 2005). the findings by abot (2020) on factor influencing adoption of ai by smallholder farmers in dryland production systems of kenya, who reported that dishonesty from the service providers negatively influenced the intensity of ai adoption supports our findings. conclusion the study highlights key factors influencing ai adoption among small-scale dairy farmers, emphasizing the role of age, education, farming experience, and economic considerations. older and more experienced farmers were more likely to adopt ai technology, while education and experience played a crucial role in both adoption and intensity of ai technology use. despite having relatively small herds, farmers exhibited significant variations in milk productivity and income, with high ai costs presenting a financial barrier. challenges such as poor heat detection skills, limited awareness of semen types, and concerns over ai reliability further impacted adoption rates. access to extension services and training was generally high, yet government support remained minimal. interestingly, while inseminator availability was not a major issue, group membership and livestock production training negatively influenced ai intensity, suggesting that certain collective or traditional farming practices may deter ai usage. the findings underscore the need for targeted interventions, including improved farmer education, financial support, and enhanced ai service reliability, to increase ai adoption and maximize its benefits in small-scale dairy farming. the single important factor influencing adoption of ai services was the perception about the reliability of ai services where a unit change in this variable would increase probability of farmers adopting ai by 77.2%. other factors with high impact in influencing adoption are information about inseminator availability (35.3%) and access to extension service (20.6%). the benefit will be increased awareness and positive impact on adoption of artificial insemination technology in the study area. farmers should be encouraged to form more farmer groups by promoting the benefits that are likely to be accrued when people form groups, such as markets for their outputs, education and training, and dissemination of dairy technologies such as ai. farmers should enhance the skills of their workers by allowing them also to attend trainings on livestock production and ai technology. enhance training effectiveness by conduct training needs assessments before the trainings are carried out so as to capture the farmers’ interest together with the environment. the government should support ai activities by subsidizing the cost of ai and feeds to individual farmers and groups, funding trainings and workshops, and provide capacity building for the trainers. references abot, d. m. 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(2014). herd characteristics on smallholder dairy farms in western kenya. journal of animal science advances, 4(8), 996– 1003. https://doi.org/10.5455/jasa.20140827111904 pa ge 1 pa ge 34 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) evaluation of the nutritional profile and obesogenic potential of a formulated highfat diet edith reuben1, bruno chukwuemeka chinko2*, nimisoere peace batubo1, precious whiskey ikete3, fortune somiari amah-tariah1 volume 4 issue 2, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i2.5213 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: april 28, 2025 accepted: june 02, 2025 published: october 14, 2025 high-fat diets (hfds) are commonly used in nutritional research to model obesity and associated metabolic disorders. however, detailed profiling of their nutritional composition and physiological effects is essential for model validation. the present study developed standardized hfds using locally available beef tallow as a cost-effective fat source and evaluated both the nutritional profile of these formulated diets and their efficacy in promoting obesity progression using male wistar rat models. fifteen (15) male wistar rats were locally sourced and used for the study. they were grouped into three (3) of five (5) animals each. group i served as the control and received standard rat chow (src) while groups ii and iiireceived src blended with 10% (hf-10) and 20% (hf-20) beef tallow respectively. the experiment lasted for ten (10) weeks during which all the animals were allowed access to feed and water ad libitum. proximate analysis of the rat diets and faecal matter were determined using standard methods. feed efficiency, nutrient digestibility, and morphometric parameters were determined using standard formula. results from the study indicate that protein and fibre content of the rats’ feed was reduced with increased fat supplementation with the hf20 rat showing the highest energy (4144.1 kcal/kg) and 64.8% increase in feed efficiency compared to the src diet. also, hf diets increased body weight (35%), lee’s obesity index (18.5%), abdominal circumference (43.5%), absolute adipose tissue weight (776.43%) and adiposity index (529.2%) in a dose-dependent manner. the faecal proximate composition analysis showed a slight increase in ash and lipid excretion with an enhanced fat digestibility coefficient. evidence from the present study shows that a high-fat diet containing 20% beef tallow (hf-20) effectively induced obesity and associated metabolic disturbances in male wistar rats. the findings demonstrate a clear dose-response relationship between dietary fat content and the development of obesity-related phenotypes. these findings highlight the use of hfd in understanding the pathophysiology of obesity and metabolic disease, while also providing a practical animal obesity model for preclinical research. keywords feed efficiency, high-fat diet, nutrient digestibility, obesity, proximate analysis 1 department of human physiology, faculty of basic medical sciences, college of medical sciences, rivers state university, port harcourt, nigeria. 2 department of human physiology, faculty of basic medical sciences, college of health sciences, university of port harcourt, port harcourt, nigeria. 3 department of human physiology, faculty of basic medical sciences, college of health sciences, federal university otuoke, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: bruno.chinko@uniport.edu.ng introduction obesity is a chronic metabolic disorder characterized by an abnormal or excessive accumulation of body fat that adversely affects health. recognized as a global epidemic by the world health organization (oecd/who, 2024; who, 2025). it is a leading risk factor for noncommunicable diseases (ncds) and represents a global public health crisis, with prevalence increasing across high, low, and middle-income countries (azeez, 2022; islam et al., 2024). obesity is a complex, metabolic, chronic, progressive, neurobehavioral disorder characterized by an increase in adiposity, which promotes adipose tissue dysfunction and abnormal deposition of fat mass resulting in adverse metabolic, biomechanical, and psychosocial health concerns (brown et al., 2024; ikete & chinko, 2022). it is associated with increased risks for several comorbidities, such as insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidaemia, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, atherosclerotic cerebrovascular disease, chronic liver disease, gallbladder disease, colorectal cancer, osteoarthritis, psychosocial problems as well as a higher mortality rate (zhang et al., 2014). the development of obesity primarily arises from a chronic energy imbalance, characterized by sustained caloric intake exceeding energy expenditure. this imbalance is influenced by factors such as excessive energy consumption, physical inactivity, and genetic predisposition (bays et al., 2024; billington et al., 2000; kopelman, 2000; showalter et al., 2018). while the aetiology of obesity is multifactorial, a prolonged positive energy balance remains a widely accepted mechanism underlying its pathogenesis. notably, excessive energy intake has been identified as a key driver of obesity, with studies suggesting it may play a predominant (if not exclusive) role in weight gain (bays et al., 2024; hu et al., 2018). long-term management and prevention of obesity rely on lifestyle modifications, including diet and physical activity, while pharmacological and surgical interventions may be necessary in severe cases to achieve substantial weight loss (encinosa et al., 2005; ikete & chinko, pa ge 35 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 34-43, 2025 2022; kushner, 2014). these interventions are enabled by research utilizing experimental models of obesity primarily rodents, to mimic human obesity and its metabolic complications (hariri & thibault, 2010). high-fat diets (hfds) are well-established inducers of obesity in both humans and animal models reinforcing that obesity primarily arises from excessive energy consumption (coelho et al., 2011; folorunso et al., 2020), with a dose-dependent relationship between dietary fat content and increased body weight or adiposity (de wit et al., 2011; enos et al., 2013). the hfd used in experimental obesity models, typically comprises 40– 60% of total caloric intake from fats with the type of fat, carbohydrate content, and protein sources significantly influencing metabolic outcomes (an et al., 2022; wali et al., 2020). lard and beef tallow, which are rich in saturated fatty acids (sfas), are commonly used fat sources in highfat diets (hfds). alternatively, plant-derived oils such as corn and safflower oil which are high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (pufas) are also employed in the experimental formulation of hfds (showalter et al., 2018; wali et al., 2020). these diets exhibit higher energy density compared to standard rodent chow due to their elevated fat content, which contributes to their obesogenic properties (sadievan gijsen & kotzé-hörstmann, 2023). the reliance on expensive commercial hfds or nutritionally incomplete formulations presents major challenges for obesity research, particularly in resourcelimited settings where diet-induced metabolic disorders are increasingly prevalent. developing standardized yet affordable hfds using regionally available fat sources could address both the nutritional inadequacies of current commercial formulations and the accessibility limitations of prepackaged diets. the present study is therefore aimed at formulating a standardising an hfd using locally and commonly available beef tallow and evaluating the nutritional composition of the hfd and monitoring its progression on induction of obesity using male wistar rat models. this may lead to the development of evidence-based, standardized high-fat diets (hfds) that are both cost-effective and nutritionally complete using locally available ingredients. this formulation could significantly improve the accessibility and reproducibility of formulated hfds, particularly in low-income research settings, where the prohibitive expense of imported, commercial obesogenic diets often restrict experimental capacity. materials and methods research animals fifteen (15) male wistar rats, 120-130g, were sourced from the animal house of the department of human physiology, university of port harcourt, and used for the study. males were selected to eliminate potential hormonal variations from the oestrous cycle that influence energy metabolism and to avoid inherent sex differences in body composition as females typically exhibit higher adiposity. the rats were maintained in well-ventilated wooden cages under controlled conditions (12:12 hr light-dark cycle; 28-31°c; 45-50% humidity) with ad libitum access to standard rat chow (src) and water. the floor of the cages was lined with sawdust and cleaned daily. the animals were allowed two (2) weeks of acclimatization before the commencement of the study. formulation of high-fat diet the experimental high-fat diet was prepared following the previously described protocol from our centre (alor & chinko, 2022) with modifications to the preparation schedule. fresh beef tallow was acquired from a local abattoir in the aluu community, rivers state under strict hygienic conditions immediately post-slaughter to ensure quality and minimize oxidation. the tallow was washed; impurities and bone particles were removed. it was then boiled and allowed to cool before the fat was removed and refrigerated until the time for use. the beef tallow was weighed using a digital weighing scale and melted before mixing with commercially standard rat chow. two distinct high-fat diets (hfd) formulations were prepared: the first comprised 90% standard rat chow (src) supplemented with 10% beef tallow (hf-10), while the second consisted of 80% standard chow (src) blended with 20% beef tallow (hf-20). the obesogenic diets were prepared daily to avoid rancidity. experimental design the fifteen (15) male wistar rats were randomly into three (3) groups of five (5). group i served as the control and received src and water ad libitum while groups ii and iiireceived hf-10 and hf-20 respectively alongside water ad libitum. the experimental procedure lasted for ten (10) weeks. feed analysis and calorific content the proximate analysis of the src (apple and pears, ogun state nigeria ltd.), hf-10 and hf-20 diets was conducted at the department of biochemistry, faculty of science, university of port harcourt. the calorific content was calculated by multiplying the weight of each macronutrient by its respective energy density per gram: 4 kcal/g for protein and carbohydrates and 9 kcal/g for fat (food and agriculture organization of the united nations, 2003). the total caloric value was determined by summing the individual calorie contributions while the percentage of calories from each macronutrient was derived by dividing its kilocalorie contribution by the total kilocalorie content and multiplying it by 100. proximate analysis crude protein determination crude protein was determined using the micro-kjeldahl method, which measures nitrogen as the characteristic element in protein rather than the protein itself. a mixture of 15 g of potassium sulphate and 0.5 g of copper (ii) sulphate was prepared in an 800 ml kjeldahl flask. approximately 2 g of src, hf-10 and hf-20 pa ge 36 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 34-43, 2025 were weighed (mettler toledo ab 204) and transferred into the flask, followed by the addition of 25 ml of concentrated sulphuric acid. the flask was swirled to mix the contents and then inclined on a heating device in a fume cupboard. heating continued until foaming ceased and the contents liquefied. gentle boiling was maintained using the digestion catalyst, with occasional rotation of the flask, until the liquid turned clear and light blue. digestion was continued for an additional 1.5 hours, ensuring a total digestion time of at least 2 hours. the flask was then cooled to about 40°c, and 50 ml of distilled water was cautiously added. after mixing, the solution was allowed to cool further. the digested solution was transferred into a 250 ml standard flask and rinsed several times to reach the mark. a 50 ml aliquot of the digest was transferred to a steam distillation apparatus. in a separate conical flask, 25 ml of 4% boric acid solution was prepared and positioned under the condenser, ensuring the outlet was submerged in the liquid. then, 35 ml of 33% sodium hydroxide solution was added to the distillation flask, and steam distillation was carried out for 4 minutes after the first drop of distillate or until the distillate was no longer alkaline. the conical flask was then lowered so that the condenser outlet was above the liquid level, and distillation continued for an additional minute. next, four drops of indicator solution (0.2 g methyl red and 0.1 g methylene blue in 100 ml ethanol) were added to the distillate, which was then titrated with 0.1 m hydrochloric acid until a grey endpoint was reached. the analysis was repeated with a second 50 ml portion of the digest. a complete blank determination was also performed regularly for calibration. % nitrogen content = ((ml of standard acid-ml of blank) × n of acid × 1.4007)/(weight of sample in grams) nitrogen was finally converted to crude protein by multiplying by 6.25 and expressed in g/100g. determination of moisture content moisture content was determined by weighing the src, hf-10 and hf-20 in a porcelain crucible. the crucible with the sample was heated in an electric oven for about 6 hours at 105°c. it was then cooled in a desiccator and weighed again. % moisture content = (weight of moisture obtained (gm))/(weight of sample (gm)) × 100 determination of ash content the ash content was determined following the association of official analytical chemists (aoac) method. approximately 2 g of each sample (src, hf-10, and hf-20) was weighed in a pre-cleaned, pre-weighed crucible using an analytical balance (mettler toledo ab 204), and the initial weight was recorded. a muffle furnace was preheated and stabilized at 600°c. the weighed sample was evenly distributed in the crucible and carefully placed inside the furnace using tongs. the samples were ashed at the set temperature for 45 minutes to ensure complete combustion of organic matter. after ashing, the crucible was removed from the furnace and transferred to a desiccator to cool, preventing moisture absorption before final weighing. the ashed sample on the crucible was weighed, and the percentage of ash was determined using the formula: % ash content = weight of ash/initial weight of sample ×100 determination of crude fibre the crude fibre content was determined through a sequential extraction protocol. approximately 2 g of each sample (src, hf-10, and hf-20) was mixed with a sulphuric acid solution (1.25%) and maintained at boiling temperature for 30 minutes to solubilize non-fibrous components. the resulting acid-insoluble residue was isolated through vacuum filtration using a whatman 4 filter paper and washing with warm (60°c) distilled water until a neutral ph was achieved. the resulting residue was then mixed with 1.25% sodium hydroxide solution at boiling temperature for 30 minutes to remove proteinaceous and hemicellulosic materials. the alkali-treated residue was similarly filtered and washed to neutrality. the purified fibrous residue was then quantitatively transferred to a pre-weighed crucible and dried to constant mass at 105±2°c in a forced-air oven (w1). to determine the inorganic contaminant fraction, the dried residue was then ashed in a muffle furnace at 550±25°c for 4 hours and recorded as (w2). the crude fibre content was calculated gravimetrically by subtracting the ash mass from the preashed residue mass, with results expressed as a percentage of crude fibre relative to the original sample mass. % crude fibre content = (w1-w2 (g))/(initial weight of sample (g)) ×100 this analytical approach conforms to the standard principles of fibre quantification, effectively isolating the acidand alkali-insoluble dietary fibre fraction while accounting for mineral contamination through the ashing correction. determination of crude lipid about 3 g of the samples (src, hf-10 and hf-20) were weighed and poured onto a dry filter paper, which was then rolled carefully. the rolled filter paper was placed into an extraction thimble, and the fat was extracted using a soxhlet apparatus with ethyl ether as the solvent. after extraction, the fat-containing solvent was transferred into a pre-weighed flask, and the ether was evaporated. to ensure complete removal of residual solvent, the flask was placed in an air oven at 100°c for 30 minutes. once dried, the flask was transferred to a desiccator to cool to room temperature. finally, the flask was reweighed, and the total fat content was calculated. % fat content = (weight offat/lipid obtained (gm))/ (weight of sample (gm)) × 100 determination of carbohydrate content the carbohydrate content was calculated by difference, whereby the sum of the measured proximate components (moisture, crude protein, crude fat, ash, and crude fibre) pa ge 37 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 34-43, 2025 was subtracted from 100%. this approach assumes that the remaining fraction primarily consists of digestible carbohydrates, including sugars and starches. %carbohydrate content = 100 – [moisture content(g/100g) + protein content(g/100g) + fat content(g/100g) + ash content(g/100g) + crude fibre content(g/100g)] abdominal and thoracic circumferences and of lee obesity index at the end of the experiment, morphometric parameters were recorded for all obese wistar rats. the abdominal circumference (ac) and thoracic circumference (tc) were measured using a flexible measuring tape. additionally, each animal’s body length (nose-to-anus distance) and body weight were determined. the lee obesity index was subsequently calculated using the following formula: lee obesity index =(∛weight(g))/(naso-anal lenght (cm)) the abdominal/thoracic ratio (ac/tc ratio) was calculated as follows: ac/tc ratio =(abdominal circumference (cm))/ (thoracic circumference (cm)) determination of energy intake and feed efficiency determination of energy intake energy intake (g) = mean food consumed x dietary metabolizable energy (kcal) determination of feed efficiency feed efficiency is the ability to convert ingested food into body mass (zhang et al., 2023). the weight changes of the animals in the src, hfd-10 and hf-20 groups were summed up weekly to the end of the study. the weekly feed intakes were calculated and the feed efficiency was calculated as (zhang et al., 2023). feed efficiency= (weight gain (g) )/(feed intake (g)) carcass analysis and relative organ weight carcass analysis of unshaven rats was carried out on the animals. after euthanasia by cervical dislocation, thoracotomy, and median laparotomy were performed on the animals to remove the organs as well as the adipose tissue from the retroperitoneal and epididymal compartments. the fat pads, which include the retroperitoneal fat attached to the posterior abdominal wall near the kidneys and inguinal fat, visceral fat (subcutaneous adipose tissue between the lower rib cage and thigh), epididymal fat located in the lower abdomen and connected to the epididymis will be dissected, isolated and weighed. the adiposity index was derived by the sum of epididymal, visceral, and retroperitoneal fat weights and the adiposity index is expressed as a percentage. adiposity index = (total body fat (g))/(final body weight (g)) × 100 the liver, kidneys, heart and brain of the wistar rats were harvested and weighed and are expressed as a percentage of the body weight. relative organ weight = (weight of organ (g))/(final body weight (g)) × 100 fecal matter proximate analysis and apparent nutrient digestibility coefficients faecal output was recorded three times per week throughout the experimental period. upon completion of the experiment, faeces collected from individual rats were stored in pre-labelled plastic containers and subsequently pooled by the experimental group. the pooled faecal samples were oven-dried, homogenized, and ground to a fine powder for proximate analysis (crude fibre, crude protein and ash content). these prepared samples were also used to determine apparent nutrient digestibility coefficients by previously described methods (ingweye, 2015). apparent digestibility coefficient = (nutrient in feednutrient in faeces)/(nutritient in feed) × 100 ethical consideration the animals were cared for and handled in full compliance with the most stringent ethical guidelines established for the use of animals in scientific research. the study protocol was approved by the research ethics committee of the university of port harcourt with approval number uph/ceremad/rec/mm107/054. statistical analysis the statistical analysis was performed using ibm statistical product and service solutions (spss)version 26. the one-way anova was used to determine the difference among the groups followed by fisher’s least significant difference. a p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant (p<0.05). results and discussions table 1 shows the proximate composition of the three table 1: feed proximate analysis nutrients (g/100g) src hf-10 hf-20 protein 19.38 17.64 14.22 ash 6.75 6.54 5.61 carbohydrate 50.24 45.72 41.69 fibre 4.22 3.84 3.5 moisture 15.04 14.23 13.77 lipids 4.37 12.03 21.21 src= standard rat chow hf-10= src+ 10% beef tallow hf-20= src+ 20% beef tallow rat diets; the standard rat chow (src), src supplemented with 10% beef tallow (hf-10), and src supplemented with 20% beef tallow. our data show that the protein content decreased with increasing beef tallow inclusion (src: 19.38 g/100g; hf-10: 17.64 g/, hf-20: 14.22 g/100g). the ash content was highest in src (6.75 g/100g) and declined with tallow supplementation pa ge 38 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 34-43, 2025 (6.54 g/100g and 5.61 g/100g for hf-10 and hf-20 respectively. carbohydrates followed a similar trend of decreasing with increasing tallow supplementation (src: 50.24 g/100g; hf-10: 45.72 g/100g; hf-20: 41.69 g/100g). also, dietary fibre was highest in src (4.22 g/100g) and decreased with tallow addition: 3.84 g/100g and 3.50 g/100g for hf-10 and hf-20 respectively. expectedly, lipid content increased proportionally with tallow inclusion (src: 4.37 g/100g; hf-10: 12.03 g/100g; hf-20-21.21 g/100g) while moisture content marginally reduced with tallow inclusion; src: 15.04 g/100g vs. 14.23 and 13.77 g/100g in hf-10 and hf-20 respectively. table 2: feed calorific content, percentage energy and efficiency calorific content and % energy src hf-10 hf-20 protein calorific content (4 kcal) 77.52 70.56 56.88 protein energy percentage (%) 21.4 19.5 13.7 carbohydrate (4 kcal) 200 182.86 166.76 carbohydrate energy percentage (%) 55.40 50.50 40.00 fat calorific content (9 kcal) 39.33 108.18 190.89 fat energy percentage (%) 10.8 29.9 46.1% total calorific content 361.85 361.62 414.41 total calorific content in kcal/kg 3618.5 3616.2 4144.1 feed efficiency 37.63 43.82 62.00 src= standard rat chow hf-10= src+ 10% beef tallow hf-20= src+ 20% beef tallow table 3: effect of feed formulations on morphometric parameters of male wistar rats. parameters src hf-10 hf-20 body weight (g) 242.12± 2.92 272.16±0.02a 335± 1.12a,b lee’s obesity index 0.32±0.01 0.33±0.02 0.38±0.01a,b abdominal circumference (ac) 15.70+0.35 15.52±0.97 22.48±0.93a,b thoracic circumference (tc) 15.40±0.24 16.40±0.39 16.44±0.70 ac/tc ratio 1.02±0.04 0.95±.06 0.95±.06 absolute adipose tissue weight (g) 1.57±0.26 2.22±0.55a 13.76±1.43a,b adiposity index (%) 0.65±0.11 0.82±0.20a 4.09±0.34a,b src = standard rat chow; hf-10= src+ 10% beef tallow; hf-20= src+ 20% beef tallow all values are expressed as mean ± standard error of the mean ap < 0.05, significant change when compared with the control, bp < 0.05, significant change when compared with the hf-10 group table 2 presents the calorific content and percentage energy contribution of macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fat) across three feed types: src, hf-10, and hf-20. total calorific content per kilogram ranged from 3616.2 kcal/kg (src) to 4144.1 kcal/ kg (hf-20), with hf-20 exhibiting the highest energy density. protein contributed 21.4%, 19.5%, and 13.7% of total energy in src, hf-10, and hf-20, respectively, showing a progressive decline. carbohydrates were the primary energy source in src (55.4%) but decreased to 40% in hf-20. conversely, fat energy contribution increased from 10.8% (src) to 46.1% (hf-20), reflecting a shift toward higher fat content in hf feeds. the hf-10 and hf-20 diets showed a 16.5% and 64.8% increase in feed efficiency compared to the src diet table 3 compares the impact of the various feed formulations (src (control), hf-10 (10% fat), and hf20 (20% fat) on key morphometric parameters in male wistar rats. the results indicate that the body weight of animals increased significantly from 242± 2.92g as seen in the src diet group to 272±0.02g and 335± 1.12g in the hf-10 and hf-20 diets (p<0.05). following this, lee’s obesity index increased significantly from 0.32 in the src group to 0.38 in the hf-20 group (p<0.05), indicating a higher degree of obesity. similarly, abdominal circumference (ac) also significantly increased in the hf-20 group (22.48 cm) compared to the src (15.70 cm) and hf-10 (15.52 cm) groups (p<0.05). however, the thoracic circumference (tc) only slightly increased among the high-fat diet groups compared to the src. hence, the ratio of abdominal to thoracic circumference (ac/tc) remained consistent across all groups. absolute adipose tissue weight and adiposity index showed a dosedependent increase with dietary fat content. while the hf-10 group showed moderate increases in fat mass (2.22 g) and adiposity (0.82%), the hf-20 group showed a marked elevation (13.76 g and 4.09%, respectively). table 4 shows the impact of dietary formulation src, pa ge 39 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 34-43, 2025 table 4: effect of feed formulations on relative organ weights of male wistar rats relative organ weights (g) src hf-10 hf-20 left kidney 0.28±0.02 0.40±0.03 0.41±0.07 right kidney 0.28±0.01 0.35±0.01a 0.42±0.02a, b liver 0.27±.014 2.95±0.26a 3.40±0.19a spleen 0.27±0.01 0.28±0.02 0.21±0.02b heart 0.32± 0.02 0.36±0.01 0.54±0.03a, b pancreas 0.36±0.03 0.37±0.04 0.54±0.03a, b left testis 0.54±0.03 0.54±0.01 0.45±0.01a, b right testis 0.57±0.04 0.54±0.01 0.47±0.02a src = standard rat chow; hf-10= src+ 10% beef tallow; hf-20= src+ 20% beef tallow all values are expressed as mean ± standard error of the mean ap < 0.05, significant change when compared with the control, bp < 0.05, significant change when compared with the hf-10 group table 5: the faecal proximate composition analysis nutrients (%) src hf-10 hf-20 crude protein 20.49 19.7 19.86 ash 18.93 21.36 20.44 carbohydrate 29.42 28.35 28.53 fibre 15.35 14.79 14.89 moisture 13.28 12.6 13.03 crude fat 2.53 3.2 3.25 src= standard rat chow hf-10= src+ 10% beef tallow hf-20= src+ 20% beef tallow table 6: the apparent nutrient digestibility coefficients of various feed formulations in male wistar rats. nutrient digestibility src hf-10 hf-20 % fat digestibility 42.1 73.34 84.67 % protein -5.73 -7.70 39.66 % carbohydrate 41.44 37.99 31.57 src= standard rat chow hf-10= src+ 10% beef tallow hf-20= src+ 20% beef tallow hf-10 and hf-20 on the relative organ weights of male wistar rats. the results revealed significant alterations in multiple organs, demonstrating a dose-dependent relationship with dietary fat content. both kidneys exhibited increased weights in high-fat groups compared to src, with the right weighing heavier in the hf-10 (0.35 ± 0.01 g) and hf-20 (0.42 ± 0.02 g) compared to the control, p < 0.05). similarly, the liver underwent apparent hypertrophy in fat-fat groups as shown as their relative weight increased from 0.27 ± 0.01 g (src) to 2.95 ± 0.26 g (hf-10) and 3.40 ± 0.19 g (hf-20) (p < 0.05). however, the spleen showed a reduced weight in the hf20 group (0.21 ± 0.02 g) compared to src (0.27 ± 0.01 g) and hf-10 (0.28 ± 0.02 g) (p < 0.05). the heart and the pancreas increased significantly in hf-20 (heart: 0.54 ± 0.03 g; pancreas: 0.54 ± 0.03 g) vs src (heart: 0.32 ± 0.02 g; pancreas: 0.36 ± 0.03 g) and hf-10 (p < 0.05) while testicular weights declined in the hf-20 group (left: 0.45 ± 0.01 g; right: 0.47 ± 0.02 g) relative to src (left: 0.54 ± 0.03 g; right: 0.57 ± 0.04 g) (p < 0.05). the faecal proximate composition analysis revealed distinct patterns in nutrient excretion across the three dietary groups (src, hf-10, and hf-20) as shown in table 5. crude protein content showed minimal variation between diets (19.7-20.5%), suggesting consistent protein metabolism regardless of dietary fat content. there was a slight increase in ash excretion in the highfat groups (21.4% in hf-10, 20.4% in hf-20) compared to the control (18.9%). carbohydrate and fibre fractions demonstrated remarkable stability across all diets, with values around 28-29% for carbohydrates and 14-15% for fibre. moisture content showed a modest reduction in high-fat groups (12.6-13.0%) compared to the control (13.3%). table 6 shows the apparent nutrient digestibility coefficients in macronutrient utilization across the experimental diets. fat digestibility exhibited a pronounced dose-dependent increase, rising from 42.1% in the src group to 73.3% in hf-10 and further to 84.7% in hf-20, demonstrating enhanced lipid absorption efficiency with higher dietary fat content. protein digestibility showed negative digestibility coefficients in both src (-5.7%) and hf-10 (-7.7%) groups while the hf-20 diet showed a remarkable reversal to positive protein digestibility (39.7%). carbohydrate digestibility displayed an inverse relationship with dietary fat content, gradually declining from 41.4% in src to 38.0% in hf-10 and 31.6% in hf-20. discussion obesity and its associated metabolic disorders have become major public health concerns worldwide, with high-fat diets (hfds) widely implicated in their development (duan et al., 2018; tang et al., 2024). highpa ge 40 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 34-43, 2025 fat diets (hfds) are employed in experimental settings to induce obesity, with formulations typically deriving 40– 60% of total caloric intake from lipids (an et al., 2022; wali et al., 2020). this approach reinforces the well-established paradigm that obesity development is fundamentally driven by chronic positive energy balance. to address the dual challenges of nutritional inconsistencies in non-commercial high-fat diet formulations and limited accessibility of prepackaged diets, the study developed standardized hfds using regionally available beef tallows as a cost-effective fat source. the present investigation systematically evaluated both the nutritional profile of these formulated diets and their efficacy in promoting obesity progression using male wistar rat models. proximate analysis of the diets in the present study revealed that increasing beef tallow supplementation from 10 to 20% reduced the protein content from 19.38 to 14.22 g/100g, carbohydrates from 50.24 to 41.69 g/100g and fibre from 4.22 to 3.50 g/100g) while increasing the lipid content from 4.37 to 21.21 g/100g (table 1). the reduction in carbohydrate content is consistent with findings from a previous study that reported that hfds typically displace carbohydrates to elevate energy density (hariri & thibault, 2010). the hf20 diet exhibited the highest energy content (4144.1 kcal/ kg), with fat contributing 46.1% of total energy, which is consistent with diet-induced obesity models (hariri & thibault, 2010; winzell & ahrén, 2004). the dramatic shift in the energy contribution from fat is a key feature of an obesogenic diet, which promotes the accumulation of fat stores while potentially impairing glucose and lipid metabolism (grabner et al., 2021; richard et al., 2020). however, the decline in protein-derived energy from 21.4% in src to 13.7% in the hf-20 diet contrasts with some commercial hfds where protein levels are often stabilized to prevent malnutrition (levin et al., 1997). hfds, particularly those in saturated fats suppress protein metabolism in favour of lipid utilization (yiannakou et al., 2023). feed efficiency measures the ability of the animal to convert ingested food into body mass (benoit & mottet, 2023). the 64.8% higher feed efficiency in hf20 mirrors predictive models linking energy density to calorie intake efficiency in rats (beheshti et al., 2018) and suggests that high-fat diets support the promote obesity and lipogenesis and promote fat storage, due to the higher caloric density provided by the fat by lipogenesis and, even when food intake is not significantly increased (jahan et al., 2024; strable & ntambi, 2010; zhang et al., 2023). the present study demonstrated significant dosedependent increases in body weight and adiposity markers in male wistar rats fed beef tallow-supplemented high-fat diets (hfds). the progressive increase in body weight from 242 ± 2.92 g (src) to 335 ± 1.12 g (hf-20) (p<0.05) corresponds with previous reports of hfd-induced weight gain in rodent models (levin et al., 1997), however, the magnitude of increase (38% in hf-20 vs src) exceeds the 2030% typically reported for 60% fat diets (buettner et al., 2007) but falls with the 35% weight increase for obesity classification reported in our facility (alor & chinko, 2022). this suggests that have potent obesogenic effects. the elevated lee’s index (0.38 in hf-20) confirms the development of true obesity, not merely increased lean mass, matching the standard criteria (hariri & thibault, 2010). the larger increase in abdominal circumference (43% in hf-20 vs src) when compared to the change in thoracic circumference (6.7% in hf-20 vs src) indicates preferential visceral fat deposition. this aligns with clinical observations of classic abdominal obesity in metabolic syndrome (choi et al., 2015; després & lemieux, 2006). the stable ac/tc ratio across groups suggests this regional fat partitioning occurred proportionally at all diet levels. visceral obesity, as indicated by an elevated ac/tc ratio, is a well-known risk factor for metabolic diseases, including insulin resistance, fatty liver disease, and cardiovascular conditions (agboola et al., 2023). this highlights the detrimental effects of high-fat diets on fat distribution and underscores the importance of abdominal fat as a marker for obesity-related metabolic diseases (després, 2012; ritchie & connell, 2007). the substantial increase ( 8.8 fold) in absolute adipose tissue weight in high-fat diets (13.76 g in hf-20 vs 1.57 g in src) exceeds the 5-6-fold changes previously reported with 45-60% fat diets (softic et al., 2017). the adiposity index (4.09% in hf-20 vs 0.65 in src) reached levels comparable to genetically obese zucker rats (she et al., 2013; sisk et al., 2001). this suggests that beef tallow promotes particularly efficient fat storage due to increased caloric intake as observed in this study (table 1). this contrasts with plant-oil-based hfd showing lower adiposity indices (2.5-3.5%) at similar fat percentages (cintra et al., 2012). organ weight alterations were particularly striking with an increase observed in the weight of the liver and the kidney and a reduction in the weight of the spleen and testes among the hf10 and hf-20 diet groups compared to the control src group (table 4). the apparent hepatic hypertrophy (from 0.27 g in src to 3.40 g in hf-20) aligns with studies showing lipid accumulation in hfd-fed rats (softic et al., 2017), while renal enlargement may reflect early metabolic stress (declèves et al., 2011). the apparent spleen atrophy in hf-20 (0.21 g vs. 0.27 g in src) aligns with a previous study that observed a reduction in spleen weight in mice chronically fed with hfd (strandberg et al., 2009), however, this conflicts with reports of hfdinduced splenomegaly in obese female rats fed with hfd (altunkaynak et al., 2007) suggesting fat-source-specific immune modulation. testicular weight reduction (0.54 g in src to 0.45 g in hf-20) supports evidence of hfdinduced reproductive dysfunction (aly & polotsky, 2017; bakos et al., 2011). faecal proximate analysis revealed stable protein (19.7– 20.5%), carbohydrate (28–29%) and fibre (14–15%) and water (13.28% in src vs 12.6 and 13.03% in hf groups) excretions across diets. there was a marginal increase in pa ge 41 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 34-43, 2025 ash ((18.9 21.4%) and fat (2.53 to 3.25%) in hf groups compared to the control. the rise in fat excretion was lower than expected given the dietary fat load, suggesting enhanced lipid absorption efficiency. the observed faecal fat excretion reflects a saturation of intestinal absorption. these findings demonstrate that while high dietary fat intake led to modest increases in faecal fat excretion, the majority of absorbed lipids are efficiently partitioned into adipose tissue storage leading to disproportionate gains in adiposity despite marginal lipid excretion. the preferential visceral/abdominal fat accumulation suggests adipose tissue acts as a primary lipid dump, particularly for saturated fats. these observations align with the “spillover” hypothesis of lipid metabolism, where adipose tissue buffers excess lipid influx, explaining how even marginally reduced absorption efficiency can coexist with significant obesity development (ravussin & smith, 2002; sakers et al., 2022). a progressive increase in fat digestibility was observed with rising fat content, which can be attributed to increased bile acid secretion stimulated by fat leading to an enhanced activity of pancreatic lipase and improved micelle formation in the intestine, which facilitate efficient fat emulsification and absorption in high-fat diets (wang et al., 2025). the apparent negative protein digestibility, especially in the 20% hfd group may indicate inefficient nitrogen utilization, possibly due to metabolic disturbances induced by chronic high-fat intake such as low-grade inflammation, gut microbiota dysbiosis, and increased oxidative stress, which may impair amino acid absorption and increase protein turnover (wang et al., 2025). additionally, high-fat diets have been shown to downregulate intestinal amino acid transporters, further reducing protein digestibility (hijo et al., 2019). the decline in carbohydrate digestibility as seen in a study may be due to the metabolic shift from glucose oxidation to greater reliance on lipid metabolism (ludwig et al., 2021). this metabolic adaptation is well-documented in highfat experimental models, where insulin resistance and reduced expression of carbohydrate transporters (e.g., sglt1, glut2) impair glucose uptake and utilization (hijo et al., 2019; ludwig et al., 2021). conclusion evidence from the present study shows that a high-fat diet containing 20% beef tallow (hf-20) effectively induced obesity and associated metabolic disturbances in male wistar rats. the findings demonstrate a clear dose-response relationship between dietary fat content and the development of obesity-related phenotypes. the hf-20 increased body weight, feed efficiency, nutrient 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(2014). obesity: pathophysiology and intervention. nutrients, 6(11), 5153-5183. pa ge 1 pa ge 44 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) nutritional and biochemical evaluation of wild marine fishes lates calcariferlates calcarifer and alepes alepes djedabadjedaba from cox’s bazar, bangladesh khandakar zakir hossain1*, faisal rashid1, kawkabul saba2, farhat bashir2, shanzida islam3, mahmuda begum3 volume 4 issue 2, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i2.6031 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: august 23, 2025 accepted: september 30, 2025 published: october 31, 2025 marine fish are crucial for human nutrition, as they include high-quality protein, necessary amino acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids (pufas), and accessible minerals. this study examined the nutritional and biochemical content of two economically important wild marine fish species, asian seabass (lates calcarifer) and shrimp scad (alepes djedaba), obtained from artisanal landings in cox’s bazar, bangladesh, during the 2025 monsoon. analyses were carried out using standard protocols and advanced instrumentation. l. calcarifer had somewhat less protein (21.1 ± 0.6%) and more lipid (2.5 ± 0.3%) than a. djedaba (22.0 ± 0.7% protein, 1.5 ± 0.2% lipid). the fatty acid profile revealed that l. calcarifer was high in polyunsaturated (53.0%) and monounsaturated (44.4%) fatty acids but low in saturated fatty acids (2.6%), resulting in minor index of atherogenicity (ia: 0.01) and index of thrombogenicity (it: 0.01). in contrast, a. djedaba contained more saturated fatty acids (69.0%), as well as alpha-linolenic acid (4.2%) and eicosapentaenoic acid (4.6%), resulting in higher ia (2.03) and it (1.01). amino acid analysis revealed greater essential amino acids in l. calcarifer (~220 mg/g protein) than in a. djedaba (~135 mg/g protein). in contrast, mineral profiling showed a. djedaba contained high phosphorus (21,000 mg/100 g) and potassium (12,000 mg/100 g), and l. calcarifer had higher microminerals. principal component analysis identified amino acids and minerals as the primary differentiating factors. overall, l. calcarifer delivers superior amino acids and cardioprotective fatty acids, whereas a. djedaba provides rich macrominerals, implying that including a variety of marine fish species in diets can improve nutrition and food security. keywords biochemical profile, coastal people, fatty acids, marine fish, nutrition supplements 1 division of post-harvest technology, faculty of fisheries, sher-e-kashmir university of agricultural sciences and technology of kashmir, srinagar190025, india 2 division of fish nutrition and biochemistry, faculty of fisheries, sher-e-kashmir university of agricultural sciences and technology of kashmir, srinagar190025, india 3 zoology section, biological research division, bangladesh council of scientific and industrial research (bcsir), dhaka-1205 bangladesh * corresponding author’s e-mail: zakir_fisheries.bau2008@yahoo.com introduction fish is a vital component of human diets worldwide, particularly in regions where food insecurity, protein shortages, and micronutrient deficiencies are prevalent. in addition to providing almost 20% of the average amount of animal protein consumed by over 3.3 billion people worldwide, fish are an important source of essential amino acids (eaas), long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (pufas), and highly bioavailable micronutrients like calcium, zinc, iron, selenium, and iodine (fao, 2020). according to bogard et al. (2015) and tacon & metian (2013), these nutrients help prevent cardiovascular disease, promote neurological and cognitive development, boost immunity, and lessen the effects of micronutrient shortages or “hidden hunger.” marine fish both tiny pelagic and large demersal species are essential to public health and nutritional resilience in lowand middleincome countries (lmics), such as bangladesh, because they are frequently the most readily available and socially acceptable animal-source diets (rifat et al., 2023). one of the highest rates of fish intake per capita among lmics is seen in bangladesh (bogard et al., 2015), a deltaic nation with abundant inland and marine water resources. fish is deeply ingrained in the nation’s socioeconomic, nutritional, and cultural systems, accounting for approximately 60% of the country’s animal protein intake (dof, 2023). the bay of bengal’s most abundant marine and estuarine ecosystems may be found in the southeast coastal region, especially around cox’s bazar. these ecosystems support a wide variety of finfish and shellfish species, which help artisanal fishing communities make a living (manusher jonno foundation, 2021; sadia et al., 2022). among the region’s commercially important marine fish, lates calcarifer (commonly known as barramundi or asian seabass, locally “koral” or “red koral”) and alepes djedaba (shrimp scad, locally “pata kauya”) hold substantial dietary and economic value (belton et al., 2011). large, carnivorous, and euryhaline, l. calcarifer is found in brackish, coastal, and estuary marine environments in the tropical indo-west pacific (jerry, 2013). it commands premium market prices due to its big size, firm texture, and palatability. during the post-monsoon season in bangladesh, when nutrient-rich runoff boosts primary productivity, its abundance peaks in estuarine ecosystems (haque et al., 2020). a. djedaba, on the other hand, is a small to medium-sized pelagic fish that is found in tropical and subtropical indo-pacific waters. it belongs to pa ge 45 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 44-56, 2025 the carangidae family (majeed et al., 2022). this species’ flavor, tender flesh, and versatility in preparation make it reasonably priced, year-round, and widely consumed in both coastal and interior regions (sajana & nandan, 2019). despite the widespread consumption of both species, little is known about their nutritional makeup, especially when it comes to populations that are wild-caught from bangladesh’s maritime seas. the majority of research on l. calcarifer to date has been conducted in aquaculture populations, where controlled conditions, stocking densities, and prepared diets affect nutrient profiles (farhaduzzaman et al., 2023; mostofa et al., 2023; yasmin et al., 2023; seafood network bangladesh, 2024). comparably, the majority of the research on a. djedaba that is currently available comes from other regions and is not very applicable to bangladeshi stocks, which may have different biochemical compositions because of changes in prey availability, habitat-specific feeding ecology, and seasonal environmental variability (sirot et al., 2008; ullah et al., 2022). compared to their farmed counterparts, wild marine fish typically have higher amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, better amino acid balance, and greater mineral diversity, highlighting the significance of region-specific assessments (sarah et al., 2020; willer et al., 2024). therefore, generating robust, speciesand habitatspecific nutritional data is critical for several reasons: (i) to guide consumer education and encourage the consumption of nutrient-rich marine fish; (ii) to support nutrition-sensitive fisheries management and sustainable exploitation strategies; and (iii) to inform dietary planning and public health nutrition interventions in coastal and inland communities. these findings also offer a scientific foundation for assessing these species’ capacity to satisfy the 0.8 g of protein per kilogram of body weight that the world health organization (who) recommends adults consume daily, with higher needs for children, pregnant women, and physically active people (joint who/fao/unu expert consultation, 2007). given the great biological value of fish protein, even moderate consumption of these species might significantly improve bangladesh’s food quality and meet the country’s necessary amino acid demands. thus, the present study was undertaken to evaluate the proximate composition, amino acid and fatty acid profiles, and mineral content of wild-caught l. calcarifer and a. djedaba from the cox’s bazar coast, bangladesh. the results will set baseline nutritional information for these species, evaluate how well they contribute to achieving recommended protein intakes, and offer proof of their contribution to improving food and nutrition security at the national and regional levels. materials and methods sample collection and preparation fifteen adult fish of each species (lates calcarifer and alepes djedaba) were collected from artisanal landings at cox’s bazar sadar coast, bangladesh, in july-august 2025 (monsoon season). fish were cleansed of any surface material as soon as they were collected, put on ice in insulated styrofoam crates, and then taken to the hatchery of chattogram veterinary and animal sciences university (cvasu) cox’s bazar campus, for primary processing within 4 hours. biometric traits of samples were recorded at the hatchery lab immediately. the fish sample of each species was split into three groups, each having five fish. a pool sample of each group was collected and used as a replicate sample. the fish samples were cleaned in distilled water and filleted, and the meat was chopped before being dried to a consistent weight in an oven with heated air at 60⁰ c. before micronutrient analysis, the dried samples were crushed into a fine powder and preserved in sealed plastic bags at 4 ◦c. proximate compositions of the powdered samples were analyzed at the nutrition lab of cvasu, chittagong, while fatty acid, amino acid, and mineral analyses were conducted at the institute of technology transfer and innovation of the bangladesh council of scientific and industrial research (bcsir), dhaka, bangladesh, using established protocols and advanced instrumentation. biometric traits and proximate composition every specimen’s total body weight (g) and length (cm) were measured at the lab and recorded to the closest 0.01 g and 0.1 cm, respectively. the results were then displayed as mean ± standard deviation. the aoac technique (1995) was used to determine the proximate compositions (protein, lipid, ash, carbohydrate, and moisture) of collected koral and shrimp scad fish samples. to summarize, moisture content (5 g each sample) was evaluated by drying the sample at 105°c overnight until a consistent weight was achieved. the kjeldahl method (n × 6.25) was used to quantify crude protein concentration in homogenized samples (0.5 g) following acid digestion, distillation, and titration. to measure lipid content, 2 g of wet homogenized samples were placed in a crucible thimble and extracted with petroleum ether (boiling point 100° c) for 1 hour using a soxhlet apparatus (lsfa-a10, labtron, uk). after lipid extraction, the solvent was evaporated, and the extracted lipid was dried in a hot oven at 105 °c, cooled in a desiccator, and weighed. lipids were measured gravimetrically, and lipid content was estimated as the fat percentage relative to the initial dry sample weight. the ash content of samples (4 g each) was tested using a muffle furnace at 550 °c for 4 hours. the carbohydrate content of each sample was calculated by subtracting the protein, fat, ash, and moisture content from 100. all analyses were performed in triplicate from three pooled samples of each fish species, and the results were expressed on a wet weight basis and on average: moisture (%) = [(wet sample weight – dried sample weight)/ wet sample weight] × 100 crude protein (%) = % nitrogen (n) × 6.25 % nitrogen = [milliequivalent of nitrogen (0.014) × titrant value (ml) × strength of hcl / sample weight] × 100 crude lipid (%) = (weight of lipid/ weight of sample) × 100 pa ge 46 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 44-56, 2025 ash (%) = (weight of ash/ weight of sample) × 100 carbohydrates (%) = 100 (moisture – lipids – proteins ash) fatty acids measure fatty acid composition was determined using gas chromatography with a flame ionization detector (gcfid, gc6000, sciencepower, china). the fat content of each dried powdered sample was extracted in a combination of methanol (ch3oh) and chloroform (chcl3) (v/v = 1:2 ratio) with 0.1 mg per 100 g of butylated hydroxytoluene. next, 200 mg of fat sample was added to each 10 ml test tube, followed by 3.5 ml of 0.5 m sodium methoxide (ch₃ona). following that, the mixtures were heated on the burner to remove bubbles before adding 1.5 ml of n-hexane and homogenizing consistently with the vortex mixture. to speed up the phase separation of fat content, 5 ml of deionized water was gently added to the mixtures. after giving appropriate time for phase separation, the superior layer was used to analyze fatty acids. the data were identified, quantified, and processed by comparing the withhold times to known fatty acid standards. amino acids measure the amino acid content of each sample was evaluated using an automatic amino acid analyzer (sykam s4300, gmbh, germany). the powder samples were first treated with 25 ml of 7n hcl, homogenized uniformly, and filtered to remove insoluble materials before being hydrolyzed in the hydrolyzer for 24 hours. after the hydrolysis, leftover hcl was neutralized with 7.5 n naoh and measured using a ph meter (sension tm 156, hach, usa). the sample volumes were increased to 250 ml in calibrated volumetric flasks using a buffer solution with a ph of 3.4. after filtration via a 0.45 µm pore-sized filter paper, 1 ml of the prepared sample, consisting of 100 µl sample solution and 900 µl of ph 3.4 buffer solution, was serially analyzed to detect amino acids. a standard amino acid solution was also evaluated at the same time for data comparison, quantity accuracy, and quality assurance purposes. minerals measure mineral composition analysis was performed using the agilent aa240fs fast sequential atomic absorption spectrometer (agilent technologies, usa). approximately 0.5 to 1.0 g of dried powdered sample was precisely weighed and placed in a teflon digesting vessel. the sample was digested with 10 ml of concentrated nitric acid (hno₃) and 2-3 ml of hydrogen peroxide (h₂o₂) using controlled microwave digestion (ramped to 180°c over 15 minutes and held for 30 minutes). after cooling, the digested solution was diluted with 50 ml of deionized water. calibration standards with known concentrations (0.1 to 10 mg/l) were prepared for each target mineral element. the aa240fs was outfitted with element-specific hollow cathode lamps, and appropriate flame and nebulizer settings were used. approximately 10 ml of each sample solution was aspirated, and absorbance was measured in triplicate at characteristic wavelengths for each mineral. blanks, verified reference materials, and replication samples were analyzed to guarantee quality control, with relative standard deviations of less than 5%. mineral concentrations were estimated using interpolation from calibration curves and represented in mg per 100 g dry weight. statistical analyses the biometric traits (length and weight) of l. calcarifer and a. djedaba were analyzed using descriptive statistics, including means and standard deviations (sd). variations in proximate composition of fish were analyzed using one‐way anova followed by tukey’s hsd post hoc for multiple comparisons, with statistical significance set at p < 0.05. comparative figures on the fatty acid composition, amino acid composition, and mineral contents between two species were generated using r software. principal component analysis (pca) was applied to investigate multivariate patterns in the key nutrient groups (fatty acids, amino acids, and minerals), as well as to visually analyze species-specific variations in nutritional composition. the first two principal components (pc1 and pc2) explained the majority of the variation, enabling qualitative differentiation between l. calcarifer and a. djedaba. results and discussion biometric traits and proximate composition the biometric measurements of the harvested l. calcarifer and a. djedaba fish species are shown in table 1. the mean total length and weight of l. calcarifer were 42.2 ± 4.20 cm and 900 ± 20 g, respectively, while a. djedaba specimens measured 33.2 ± 1.08 cm in length and 500 ± 10 g in weight. all measurements represent mean values ± standard deviation (sd). these observations are consistent with previous research highlighting l. calcarifer as a fast-growing predatory species widely farmed for its adaptability to aquaculture systems (jerry, 2013; venkatachalam et al., 2018), whereas a. djedaba plays a significant ecological role as a mid-trophic species with lower per-individual economic importance (sivakami, 1990). table 1: biometric traits of the two fish species english name local name scientific name length (cm) weight (g) barramundi/ asian seabass koral lates calcarifer 42.2 ± 4.20 900 ± 20 shrimp scad icha mouri/pata kauya alepes djedaba 33.2 ± 1.08 500 ± 10 values are mean ± standard deviation; n = 15 fish per species pa ge 47 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 44-56, 2025 the proximate composition analysis revealed notable biochemical differences between the two species (table 2), reflecting distinct nutritional profiles. a. djedaba had substantially greater moisture content (74.4 ± 1.8%) than l. calcarifer (71.4 ± 1.5%) (p < 0.05), suggesting that the former had leaner muscular tissue. this finding is consistent with that of sajana and nandan (2019), who found that leaner species tend to have higher water percentages in their muscle tissue, which are inversely correlated with lipid content. protein content was marginally higher in a. djedaba (22.0 ± 0.7%) than in l. calcarifer (21.08 ± 0.6%), with both species representing high-quality protein sources enriched in essential amino acids (fao/who, 1991; fao, 2019; sajana and nandan, 2019). these findings demonstrate both species’ capacity to significantly increase dietary protein intake, especially in areas where malnutrition is still a problem. a considerable difference was found in the amount of lipids, with l. calcarifer having far greater quantities (2.5 ± 0.3%) than a. djedaba (1.5 ± 0.2%) (p < 0.05). l. calcarifer’s lipidrich profile indicates that it is a nutritious dietary source that is high in important fatty acids, particularly omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (pufas), which are well known for their cardioprotective qualities (pervin et al., 2012; sikder et al., 2025). as a result, customers looking for dietary fat sources may favor l. calcarifer, whereas lowfat diets may benefit from the leaner a. djedaba (sajana and nandan, 2019). ash content, reflecting mineral composition, was comparable in both species (1.2 ± 0.1% in l. calcarifer and 1.1 ± 0.1% in a. djedaba), consistent with findings by islam et al. (2012), which emphasized the relatively uniform mineral content in marine fish species. carbohydrate content was below 1% in both species, as expected for fish muscle predominantly relying on proteins and lipids for energy metabolism (wilson, 2003). table 2: proximate composition (% of wet weight basis) of the two fish species fish species moisture protein lipid ash carbohydrate barramundi 71.4 ± 1.5b 21.08 ± 0.6a 2.5 ± 0.3a 1.2 ± 0.1a 0.82 ± 0.05a shrimp scad 74.4 ± 1.8a 22.00 ± 0.7a 1.5 ± 0.2 b 1.1 ± 0.1a 0.9 ± 0.05a values are mean ± standard deviation of three pooled samples. different superscripts under each column indicate significant differences (p < 0.05). fatty acid composition l. calcarifer and a. djedaba’s mean fatty acid composition differed significantly across individual fatty acids, major fatty acid groups, and lipid quality metrics (figure 1-3). individual fatty acids a thorough analysis of fatty acid profiles (figure 1) highlighted the nutritional variations between species. linoleic acid (c18:2, la; 34.5%), oleic acid (c18:1; 19.0%), and gamma-linolenic acid (c18:3 n-6, gla; 16.5%) dominated the lipid profile of l. calcarifer. these three acids are essential precursors in pufa biosynthesis, supporting physiological processes like inflammation regulation and cell membrane integrity (simopoulos, 2002). conversely, a. djedaba showed comparatively larger amounts of saturated fatty acids (sfas), including stearic acid (c18:0; 8.5%) and tetracosanoic acid (c24:0; 7.6%), but very low concentrations of la (0.2%), oleic acid (1.3%), and gla (0.2%). essential omega-3 fatty acids, alpha-linolenic acid (c18:3 n-3, ala; 4.2%) and eicosapentaenoic acid (c20:5, epa; 4.6%), were significantly more abundant in a. djedaba than in l. calcarifer (<0.5%), aligning with prior studies that report speciesspecific fatty acid profiles influenced by dietary habits and environmental conditions (sajana & nandan, 2019; gladyshev et al., 2009). interestingly, no docosahexaenoic acid (dha) was found, which could be explained by trophic level, species-specific lipid metabolism, or the fatty acid makeup of the prey (tocher, 2003). although polyunsaturated fatty acids (pufas) are necessary for many physiological processes, the n-6/n-3 ratio in l. calcarifer that was found in this study (93.84) was very high, indicating a possible nutritional imbalance if it is not supplemented with sufficient consumption of n-3 pufas from other sources (simopoulos, 2002). alphalinolenic acid (18:3n-3; 0.39%) and eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5n-3, epa; 0.16%) were among the n-3 pufas that were comparatively low in content in l. calcarifer (figure 1). if l. calcarifer is ingested as the only or main source of dietary pufa, the unbalanced n-6/n-3 ratio may provide a nutritional risk (scaioli et al., 2017). excessive levels of n-6 fatty acids are already common in modern diets, and a higher ratio has been linked to non-communicable diseases and inflammatory conditions (simopoulos, 2002; hilton et al., 2019; mariamenatu et al., 2021). therefore, increasing the n-3 content and optimizing the nutritional profile may be achieved by changing the feeding schedules of fish to incorporate n-3-rich oils (such as fish oil or algae) or by diversifying the sources of pufa. pa ge 48 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 44-56, 2025 fatty acid group at the fatty acid group level, sfas made up 69.0% of the total fatty acid content in a. djedaba, while they only made up 2.6% in l. calcarifer. according to kris-etherton et al. (2002), l. calcarifer’s low total sfa concentration supports a lower risk of cardiovascular illnesses by contributing to a good lipid quality index. in contrast, l. calcarifer exhibited considerably higher polyunsaturated (53.0%) and monounsaturated fatty acids (44.4%) than a. djedaba (15.5% and 15.0%, respectively) (figure 2). it is well known that these mufas have antiinflammatory and hypocholesterolemic properties, which help to improve metabolic profiles and regulate plasma lipid levels (gillingham et al., 2011; coniglio et al., 2023). the high 16:1 ratio is in line with findings for carnivorous marine finfish, which are frequently connected to endogenous synthesis pathways and dietary lipid sources (bruno et al., 2016). these results highlight the nutritional superiority of l. calcarifer in delivering unsaturated fatty acids, which are widely known to promote cardiovascular health (brenna et al., 2009; mozaffarian & wu, 2011; calder, 2015). figure 1: fatty acid composition (% of total fat) in the muscle of koral and shrimp scad fish species. values represent the mean of three pooled samples. here, c8:0 = caprylic acid; c10:0 = capric acid; c11:0 = undecanoic acid; c12:0 = lauric acid; c13:0 = tridecanoic acid; c14:0 = myristic acid; c15:0 = pentadecanoic acid; c17:0 = heptadecanoic acid; c18:0 = stearic acid/octadecanoic acid; c20:0 = arachidic acid /eicosanoic acid; c21:0 = heneicosanoic acid; c22:0 = docosanoic acid; c23:0 = tricosanoic acid; c24:0 = tetracosanoic acid; c14:1 = myristoleic acid; c16:1 = palmitoleic acid; c17:1 = heptadecenoic acid; c18:1/c18:1(cis) = oleic acid; c20:1 = gondoic acid; c22:1 = erucic acid; c24:1 = nervonic acid; c18:2, la = linoleic acid; c18:2 (trans) = trans-linoleic acid; c18:2 (cis) = cis-linoleic acid; c18:3 (n-6) = gamma linolenic acid (gla); c18:3 (n-3) = alpha linolenic acid (ala); c20:2 = eicosadienoic acid (eda); c20:3 (n-6) = dihomo-gamma-linolenic acid (dgla); c20:3 (n-3) = eicosatrienoic acid (ete); c20:4, aa = arachidonic acid (aa); c20:5 = eicosapentaenoic acid (epa); c22:2 = docosadienoic acid; c22:6, dha = docosahexaenoic acid (dha) pa ge 49 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 44-56, 2025 lipid quality indices (lqi) lipid quality indices mirrored the two species’ distinct nutritional consequences (figure 3). in a. djedaba, the index of atherogenicity (ia) and thrombogenicity (it) were significantly higher (ia: 2.03; it: 1.01), whereas in l. calcarifer, they were remarkably low (ia: 0.01; it: 0.01) (figure 3). the idea that l. calcarifer is a healthy food choice is supported by low ia and it values, which indicate a lipid profile that presents little danger of encouraging atherogenesis and thrombosis (ulbricht & southgate, 1991). in contrast, the higher ia and it in a. djedaba are consistent with its elevated sfa content, which is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease when consumed in excess (siri-tarino et al., 2010; baum et al., 2012). figure 2: sfa, mufa, pufa comparison of fishes. values represent the mean of three pooled samples. here, sfa = saturated fatty acids; mufa = monounsaturated fatty acids; pufa = polyunsaturated fatty acids figure 3: lipid quality indices of two fish species. values represent the mean of three pooled samples here, ia = index of atherogenicity; it = index of thrombogenicity collectively, the findings show that l. calcarifer is a good source of healthy fatty acids, especially pufas and mufas, which help to regulate lipid metabolism and have anti-inflammatory properties (simopoulos, 2002; pervin et al., 2012). despite having important polyunsaturated fats (pufas) like ala and epa, a. djedaba’s high sfa content and poor lipid quality indices indicate that it may offer limited health benefits if consumed in large quantities over extended periods (sajana & nandan, 2019). amino acid composition the amino acid profiles in the muscle tissue of l. calcarifer and a. djedaba are thoroughly compared in this work (figure 4-5). amino acid composition plays a pivotal role in evaluating the nutritional and functional quality of fish proteins, which are increasingly valued as high-quality dietary protein sources (fao, 2013; ghosh et al., 2017; zhang et al., 2021). individual amino acids non-essential amino acids (neaas), especially glutamic acid and aspartic acid, which are known to contribute to the taste and umami qualities of fish flesh (misako et al., 2002; özden, 2005; golam et al., 2012), dominated the qualitative profiles of both species. according to quantitative analysis, l. calcarifer had somewhat more aspartic acid (67.148 mg/g protein) and substantially more glutamic acid (111.063 mg/g protein) than a. djedaba (66.399 mg/g protein and 100.650 mg/g protein, respectively) (figure 4). these variations point to a possibly higher organoleptic quality in l. calcarifer, which is consistent with earlier findings that emphasize the function of glutamic acid in flavor improvement (golam et al., 2012; sikder et al., 2025). aromatic amino acids, especially tyrosine, were higher in l. calcarifer (17.67 mg/g) than in a. djedaba (12.50 mg/g), aligning with the view that marine fish often provide substantial precursors for neurotransmitter synthesis (fernstrom & fernstrom, 2007). notably, a. djedaba had significantly greater levels of cystine and proline (26.564 mg/g protein and 25.884 mg/g protein, respectively) than l. calcarifer (5.715 mg/g and 17.394 mg/g) (figure 4). given that cystine is a precursor of glutathione, a crucial cellular antioxidant, a. djedaba’s high cystine content may help explain its antioxidant potential (wu et al., 2014). increased amounts of proline and cystine also suggest possible functional pa ge 50 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 44-56, 2025 advantages in specific dietary applications, such as promoting skin health or serving as an additional source of amino acids in food formulations (wu, 2010; zhang et al., 2021). in terms of essential amino acids (eaas), leucine (40.996 mg/g protein), lysine (56.887 mg/g protein), and threonine (28.547 mg/g protein) concentrations were consistently greater in l. calcarifer than in a. djedaba (27.037 mg/g, 36.335 mg/g, and 20.178 mg/g, respectively) (figure 4). these amino acids are essential for human nutrition because they support immunological response, metabolic homeostasis, and muscle protein synthesis (fao/who, 2013; wu, 2016). l. calcarifer had nearly twice as much methionine (19.28 mg/g) as a. djedaba (9.13 mg/g), indicating that it offers a more balanced sulfur amino acid profile that is crucial for methylation and antioxidant defense (li et al., 2009). overall, l. calcarifer’s eaa content scored well against fao/who reference amino acid scoring patterns, suggesting a complete protein profile appropriate for people of all ages, including young children, the elderly, and those with higher protein needs (harper, 1981). figure 4: amino acid composition (mg/g protein) in the muscle of koral and shrimp scad fish species. values represent the mean of three pooled samples essential vs. non-essential amino acids at the aggregated level (figure 5), the l. calcarifer muscle had a total eaa content of around 220.847 mg/g protein, which was significantly higher than that of a. djedaba (134.859 mg/g protein). in a similar vein, l. calcarifer had a greater neaa content (349.359 mg/g protein) than a. djedaba (324.481 mg/g protein) (figure 5). the overall balance of eaas to neaas in l. calcarifer was superior, consistent with the amino acid scoring pattern proposed by who/fao for evaluating protein quality (fao/who, 2013). this elevated eaa and neaa content suggests a higher biological value of l. calcarifer protein, rendering it a more balanced and nutritionally favorable option for human consumption (fao/who, 1991; reddy et al., 2019). these findings collectively imply that although both species provide valuable amino acids, l. calcarifer has a more nutritionally favorable profile with higher eaa content, especially leucine, lysine, and methionine, while a. djedaba stands out for having higher cystine and proline, which may have an impact on connective tissue integrity and collagen metabolism (karna et al., 2020). these results are consistent with other research on tropical marine fish that shows species-specific variations in amino acids related to diet, metabolic physiology, and environment (venugopal & shahidi, 1996; syed et al., 2020; kumar et al., 2024; traina et al., 2024). figure 5: essential amino acids (eaa) and non-essential amino acids (neaa) (mg/g protein) in koral and shrimp scad fish species. values represent the mean of three pooled samples. pa ge 51 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 44-56, 2025 mineral composition the mean mineral composition of muscle tissues from l. calcarifer and a. djedaba fish species is presented in figure 6. mineral concentrations were determined on a dry weight basis (mg/100 g) and plotted using a log₁₀ scale to accommodate the wide range of concentration values and enable clearer comparison. the result demonstrated significant interspecific differences in both macromineral and micromineral concentrations between two species (figure 6). in l. calcarifer, micromineral contents were higher than a. djedaba, with fe recorded at 22.18 mg/100 g, cu at 16.11 mg/100 g, k at 20.37 mg/100 g, p at 10.91 mg/100 g, zn at 10.70 mg/100 g, and mn at 1.45 mg/100 g. according to earlier research on the mineral profiles of marine fish species, these microminerals are necessary for metabolic processes like hemoglobin synthesis (fe), antioxidant enzymes (zn and mn), and enzymatic reactions (cu) (fao/who, 2001; fao, 2019; lall et al., 2021; frydrych et al., 2023). as opposed to l. calcarifer, a. djedaba showed a remarkably distinct profile with extraordinarily high macromineral concentrations, including p at 21,000 mg/100 g and k at 12,000 mg/100 g, which were roughly three orders of magnitude higher. a. djedaba’s high p and k levels may be an indication of adaptation to particular environmental factors, such as sediment composition or brackish water environments, which are known to affect mineral bioavailability (scott et al., 2001; hamza et al., 2019). similarly, eutrophication and environmental deterioration in aquatic ecosystems are associated with excessive phosphorus discharge, according to kuldeep et al. (2015) and hamza et al. (2019). even though these high macromineral concentrations might be essential for energy metabolism, osmotic control, or skeletal growth, the possible physiological and environmental effects of such high p levels call for more research (graham sustainability institute, 2025). conversely, the micromineral levels were lower: cu (11 mg/100 g), fe (4.15 mg/100 g), zn (1.5 mg/100 g), and mn (0.8 mg/100 g). this discrepancy likely reflects species-specific differences in mineral accumulation due to dietary choices, environmental conditions, or physiological adaptations (bayissa et al., 2021; lall et al., 2021; rodrigues et al., 2021; khawar et al., 2024). these findings scientifically validate l. calcarifer as a valuable dietary source of key microminerals such as fe, zn, cu, and mn, all of which play important roles in human metabolic processes. the relatively greater micromineral concentrations observed in l. calcarifer compared to a. djedaba highlight its nutritional significance, consistent with previous reports (kamruzzaman et al., 2015; rahman et al., 2019; rifat et al., 2023; ghosh et al., 2024; kanij et al., 2025). this underscores the potential of l. calcarifer as a key component in correcting micronutrient deficiencies in human diets. figure 6: mineral composition (mg/100 g dry weight) in the muscle of koral and shrimp scad fish species. values represent the mean of three pooled samples and were converted to log₁₀ scale for improved visualization of the wide concentration range. here, cu = copper; fe = iron; zn = zinc; mn = manganese; p = phosphorus; k = potassium correlation of major amino acid groups, fatty acid groups, and vital minerals between species a principal component analysis (pca) was conducted to compare the patterns of variation in main nutritional groups—amino acids, fatty acids, and minerals—between the l. calcarifer and a. djedaba fish species (figure 7). the pca intended to reduce dimensionality and identify critical variables that contributed to species differences based on nutritional profiles. the first principal component (pc1) accounted for 60.8% of the overall variance, showing that it captured the majority of the variation in nutritional content among species. the second main component (pc2) accounted for 39.2% of the variation, further separating the nutritional groups (figure 7). essential amino acids (eaa) and non-essential amino acids (neaa) had significant positive loadings along pc1 and pc2, clustering together and showing a high correlation. these amino acids made a major contribution to species differentiation, particularly promoting separation along the positive axis of pc1 and pc2. l. calcarifer and a. djedaba both showed significant quantities of amino acids; however, the pca indicated that l. calcarifer had a greater amino acid content, which contributed to this pattern. this aligns with the finding by kamruzzaman et al. (2015), who reported high amounts of essential amino acids in muscles of l. calcarifer. conversely, monounsaturated fatty acids (mufa) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (pufa) clustered together pa ge 52 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 44-56, 2025 and had moderate loadings on pc1 and slightly negative loadings on pc2. these fatty acids mostly contributed to differentiation along pc1, although their impact was less substantial when compared to amino acids and minerals. the pca suggested that l. calcarifer had slightly higher mufa and pufa content than a. djedaba, as indicated by the direction of the vectors. these results are consistent with the findings of chan et al. (2021), who reported that the tissue oil of l. calcarifer contained high levels of monounsaturated fatty acids (mufa), particularly oleic acid. in contrast, purushothaman et al. (2024) found a different result in their experiment that koral fish muscle contained less pufa and sfa than another marine fish malabar red snapper (lutjanus malabaricus). vital minerals such as p, k, fe, zn, mn, and cu were tightly clustered with high negative loadings along pc1 and pc2. phosphorus and potassium had very high loadings along pc2, indicating a considerable contribution to differentiation along this axis. the pca indicated that a. djedaba was more enriched in vital minerals than l. calcarifer, particularly with higher p and k content, which drove the separation toward the negative side of pc1 and positive pc2. a similar finding was also reported by sajana and nandan (2019) that a. djedaba, regardless of their sexes, was enriched with important minerals, especially p and k. overall, the comparative investigation revealed that amino acids and minerals played key roles in the differentiation of l. calcarifer and a. djedaba species. l. calcarifer contained more amino acids (neaa and eaa) and minerals, whereas a. djedaba had a higher concentration of saturated fatty acids (sfa). this nutrient profiling using pca highlights species-specific nutritional advantages, with implications for dietary recommendations and aquaculture strategies. limitation of the study this investigation was hampered by seasonal and logistical constraints. all specimens were obtained during a single monsoon season, and financial constraints precluded multi-seasonal sampling, limiting the research to a snapshot of biochemical composition. future studies should encompass multiple seasons to capture temporal fluctuations in proximate composition, fatty acids, amino acids, and mineral profiles, resulting in a more complete understanding of these species’ nutritional dynamics. conclusion this study revealed significant nutritional differences between l. calcarifer and a. djedaba, two major wild marine fish species of bangladesh’s cox’s bazar coast. l. calcarifer was discovered to have a healthier lipid profile, including higher levels of unsaturated fatty acids and necessary amino acids, making it an excellent source of protein and lipids for human health. in contrast, a. djedaba had a lipid composition dominated by saturated fats and very high concentrations of phosphorus and potassium, as well as considerable levels of cystine and proline, contributing to mineral intake and particular metabolic functions. based on these findings, l. calcarifer should be included in diets regularly to support protein sufficiency and cardiovascular health, while a. djedaba can be used as a supplement to important minerals, particularly phosphorus and potassium, to help address macronutrient deficiencies in coastal and inland populations. together, these species can play an important role in increasing dietary diversity and boosting nutrition security in vulnerable communities. however, further research exploring seasonal dynamics in the biochemical composition of these fish is needed to inform sustainable harvesting practices and nutritional assessment strategies. references aberoumand, a. 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(1996). structure and composition of fish muscle. food reviews international, 12(2), 175-197. https://doi. org/10.1080/87559129609541074 willer, d. f., newton, r., malcorps, w., kok, b., little, d., lofstedt, a., de roos, b., & robinson, j. p. w. (2024). pa ge 56 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 44-56, 2025 wild fish consumption can balance nutrient retention in farmed fish. nat food, 5(3), 221-229. https://doi. org/10.1038/s43016-024-00932-z. wilson, r. p. (2003). utilization of dietary carbohydrate by fish. aquaculture, 124, 67-80. https://doi. org/10.1016/0044-8486(94)90363-8 wu, g. (2010). functional amino acids in growth, reproduction, and health. advances in nutrition, 1(1), 31-37, https://doi.org/10.3945/an.110.1008 wu, g., bazer, f. w., & davis, t. a. (2014). amino acid nutrition in animals: protein synthesis and beyond. annual review of animal biosciences, 2(1), 387-417. https:// doi.org/10.1146/annurev-animal-022513-114113 wu, g. (2016). dietary requirements of synthesizable amino acids by animals: a paradigm shift in protein nutrition. journal of animal science and biotechnology, 5, 34. https://doi.org/10.1186/2049-1891-5-34 yasmin, f., bosu, a., ullah, m., khan, a., akhter, m., karim, e., hasan, k., & mahmud, y. (2023). assessment of growth performance and survivability of asian seabass (lates calcarifer) under different stocking densities in brackish water ponds of the south-west coast of bangladesh. sustainable aquatic research, 2(2), 92-100. https://doi.org/10.5281/ zenodo.8296609 pa ge 1 pa ge 65 american journal of food science and technology (ajfst) optimization of the proximate composition and functional properties of a composite flour formulated from malted sorghum, sprouted mung bean and date fruit using response surface methodology ntukidem, victor edet1*, edima-nyah, anne peter1, bello, florence abolaji2, enidiok, sunday edet1 volume 4 issue 2, year 2025 issn: 2834-0086 (online) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajfst.v4i2.5552 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst article information abstract received: july 10, 2025 accepted: august 11, 2025 published: september 27, 2025 this study evaluated the effects of varying proportions of malted sorghum flour (msf), sprouted mung bean flour (smf), and date fruit powder (dfp) on the functional and nutritional properties of composite flour blends. a d-optimal mixture design was used to generate fourteen formulations, varying msf (60–80%), smf (10–30%), and dfp (5–10%). the blends were assessed for functional attributes including bulk density, foaming capacity, wettability, gelatinization temperature, water and oil absorption capacities, and swelling capacity as well as proximate composition (moisture, protein, fat, ash, fiber, carbohydrate, and energy). significant differences (p < 0.05) were observed across samples, reflecting the influence of blend ratios on product characteristics. increased levels of smf and dfp significantly improved nutritional quality and functional properties, including protein content, foaming ability, and fiber enrichment. response surface plots revealed that higher proportions of smf and dfp enhanced most quality attributes. regression models (linear to quartic) were statistically significant (p < 0.05) for the majority of responses, though gelatinization temperature and water absorption capacity did not fit well. model performance metrics including high r², adjusted r², predicted r², low lack-of-fit, and adequate precision validated model reliability. numerical optimization using response surface methodology (rsm) identified an optimal formulation of 69.93% msf, 21.38% smf, and 8.69% dfp, with a composite desirability of 0.620. the optimized blend demonstrated desirable shelf stability, nutritional density, and functional performance, making it suitable for healthoriented foods such as snack bars and other bakery products. this research highlights the potential of underutilized, climate-resilient crops in developing nutrient-rich, functional food systems for improved dietary diversity and food security. keywords date fruit powder, malted sorghum, optimization, snack bars,sprouted mung bean 1 department of food science and technology, university of uyo, uyo, nigeria 2 department of food science and technology, university of calabar, calabar, nigeria * corresponding author’s e-mail: vicksonybless@gmail.com introduction the rising demand for health-promoting, sustainable, and gluten-free food products has intensified interest in nutrient-rich composite flours, which serve as versatile functional ingredients across various food systems. composite flours, typically combining cereals, legumes, and fruits, offer a promising strategy to improve the nutritional, functional, and sensory properties of food while promoting food security and dietary diversity especially in regions relying on underutilized crops (ubbor & akobundu, 2022; ezeama et al., 2023; edima-nyah et al., 2023; ntukidem et al., 2025. sorghum (sorghum bicolor), a resilient, gluten-free cereal, is valued for its dietary fiber, phenolic content, and slowly digestible starch. malting enhances its nutritional and functional attributes by increasing enzyme activity, reducing antinutritional factors, and improving starch gelatinization and fermentation potential (agu et al., 2017; musa et al., 2022). mung bean (vigna radiata), a protein-rich legume, gains further nutritional and functional benefits through sprouting, which improves vitamin content, bioavailability of nutrients, and reduces antinutrients. sprouted mung bean flour also exhibits enhanced foaming, water absorption, and emulsifying capacities (saini et al., 2021; olagunju et al., 2023). date fruit (phoenix dactylifera) contributes natural sugars, fiber, minerals, and antioxidants. its addition improves the energy value, taste, and consumer appeal of food products while promoting gut health and glycemic control (al-hooti et al., 2020; el sohaimy & hafez, 2021; khan et al., 2022). the combination of malted sorghum, sprouted mung bean, and date fruit flours offers synergistic advantages enhancing protein, fiber, and functional properties like bulk density, absorption capacity, and emulsification. however, to achieve optimal formulation, a statistical approach such as response surface methodology (rsm) is essential. rsm, through designs like d-optimal and central composite design, enables the modeling of complex interactions between ingredients while minimizing experimental runs (myers et al., 2016; adebo & oyedeji, 2021; ifesan et al., 2024). therefore, this study aims to optimize the proximate and functional properties of this composite flour using rsm, contributing to the development of high-quality, glutenfree functional food ingredients. material and methods source of raw materials sorghum grains improved variety (ksv-15) was obtained pa ge 66 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 from the seed production unit of the institute of agricultural research (i.a.r), ahmadu bello university, samaru, zaria, kaduna state, nigeria. mung bean seeds were obtained, identified, and authenticated at the department of agronomy, michael okpara university of agriculture, umudike, abia state, nigeria, as vigna radiata l. wilczek species (nm 94 variety). dried date palm fruit was purchased from nassarawa market, mbak itam iii, akwa ibom state, nigeria, and was identified and authenticated as phoenix dactylifera l. species (dabinoin hausa variety) under the voucher number: uuph 8(h) at university of uyo pharmacy herbarium. baking ingredients were bought from etaha itam market in itu local government area. akwa ibom state, nigeria. all the reagents used throughout the study were of analytical grade. processing of malted sorghum flour the method of bello et al. (2020) was used for malted sorghum flour production. five (5) kg of sorghum grains were sorted to remove foreign matter and soaked for 12 h in portable water (w/v; 1:2). soaked grains were drained and sprouted by spreading out on a covered jute bag in a germination box. water was sprinkled on it daily until sprouting began. after 48 h of sprouting, sprouted sorghum was in an oven (naafco bs, ovh – 102, china) at 65˚c for 6 h, sprouts were removed by rubbing through palms. the dried malted sorghum was milled using a laboratory hammer mill (cu – 600 glufex medicals and scientific, uk), and sieved through a 425 µm mesh sieve, the flour was cooled and packaged in a polyethylene bag for further use. processing of sprouted mung bean flour sprouted mung bean flour was carried out using the method described by offia-olua and akubuo, (2019). three (3) kg of mung bean seeds were sorted, cleaned, steeped in a portable water for 12 hours. the steeped beans were spread on a moistened muslin cloth and sprinkled with water daily while allowed to sprout for 48 hours. the water sprinkled on the mung bean seeds contained a small amount of sodium hypochlorite to destroy or discourage the growth of microorganisms while the seeds were allowed to germinate at 30oc in the germination box. after 48 h of sprouting, the sprouted seeds were kilned in an oven (naafco bs, ovh – 102, china) at 650c for 4 h to terminate germination, sprouts were removed on palm by abrasion and winnowing. the dried malted mung bean seeds were milled using using hammer mill (cu – 600 glufex medicals and scientific, uk), sieved through a sieve-shaker, cooled and packaged in an air-tight container for further use. processing of date palm fruit powder three (3) kg of dried date fruits were cleaned, pitted and then cut in small pieces and dried in the oven (naafsco bs, ovh – 102, china) at 650c for 4 h to obtain constant weight and then milled in a grinder (m-20, ka – werke, gmbh and co. kg, staufen germany) to obtain date powder. the date powder was packaged in an air-tight container for further use, as described by oraby et al. (2021). experimental design for the preparation of the flour blends d-optimal mixture design of response surface methodology (designexpert software version 12.0.3.0., statease inc., minneapolis, usa) was used for the formulation of the flour blends from malted sorghum flour, sprouted mung bean flour and date fruit powder. the proportion of each flour was expressed as a fraction of the blend form to make the sum of the component ratio as 100%. the independent variables and their constraints limits were malted sorghum flour (60 80%), sprouted mung bean flour (10 30%) and date fruit powder (5 10%). the responses were (physical properties weight, diameter, thickness, width and spread ratio). the range obtained here were selected based on information obtained from literature and preliminary experiments. table 1. shows the formulated mixture runs generated from the design. table 1: composite flour formulation of malted sorghum, sprouted mung bean and date fruit powder blends using d-optimal mixture design experimental runs samples malted sorghum flour (%) sprouted mung bean flour (%) date fruit powder (%) 1 msd 1 70.00 20.00 10.00 2. msd 2 80.00 10.00 10.00 3 msd 3 80.00 15.00 5.00 4 msd 4 65.00 30.00 5.00 5 msd 5 80.00 10.00 10.00 6 msd 6 65.63 25.62 8.75 7 msd 7 75.63 15.63 8.75 8 msd 8 62.50 30.00 7.50 9 msd 9 75.63 18.13 6.25 10 msd 10 65.00 30.00 5.00 pa ge 67 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 11 msd11 60.00 30.00 10.00 12 msd 12 60.00 30.00 10.00 13 msd13 80.00 15.00 5.00 14 msd 14 72.50 22.50 5.00 msd 1-14 = malted sorghum, sprouted mung bean and date fruits functional properties determinations bull density, foaming capacity, wettability, gelatinization temperature, water absorption capacity, oil absorption capacity and swelling capacity were performed following the methods of aoac, (2010). the experiment was done in triplicate. proximate composition determinations moisture, ash, crude fiber, crude protein, crude fat was performed following the methods of aoac, (2010) carbohydrate calculated by difference. the experiment was done in triplicate. statistical analysis analysis of data was performed using ibm spss (version 23 software). one-way analysis of variance (anova) was used to determine significant (p<0.05) differences between means which were separated using new duncan multiple range test (ndmrt) to perform multiple comparism between means at p < 0.05. all statistical analysis, mixture design, generation of response surfaces, desirability functional analysis, and optimization were accomplished using design-expert (12.0.3.0) software (stat-ease, minneapolis, united states) software, significant at p < 0.05. results and discussion effect of mixture component on the functional properties of flour blends from malted sorghum, sprouted mung bean and date fruit bulk density is an essential functional property in flourbased food systems, influencing texture, packaging efficiency, and transportation costs. in this study, bulk density values of the composite flour blends ranged from 0.83 to 0.86 g/ml. the highest values (0.86 g/ml) were recorded in formulations such as msd 2, msd 4, msd 5, msd 6, msd 7, msd 9, and msd 14, all containing at least 65% malted sorghum flour (msf). this suggests that msf enhances bulk density due to its fine particle size and high starch content, which facilitate tighter packing. in contrast, msd 8 had the lowest bulk density (0.83 g/ ml), attributed to its higher sprouted mung bean flour (smf) content and lower msf inclusion. germination increases smf porosity, reducing particle compaction. additionally, the presence of date fruit powder (dfp), though nutritionally beneficial, may reduce cohesiveness due to its hygroscopic nature. these observations align with findings that cereal-based flours tend to have greater compactness compared to legume or fruit-derived flours (adebowale et al., 2020). the bulk density data fit well to a special quartic response surface model, which was statistically significant (f = 14.97, p < 0.05) and exhibited a high r² value (0.9599). however, the predicted r² (0.5025) was considerably lower than the adjusted r² (0.8958), suggesting the model may not generalize well to new data. despite this, the low coefficient of variation (0.3764%) and high adequate precision (11.96) support model reliability. a non-significant lack-of-fit (f = 0.1215) further validated model adequacy. among the components, dfp had the most substantial positive effect on bulk density (+1.98), followed by smf (+0.8599) and msf (+0.8451). negative binary interactions and synergistic higher-order effects (e.g., a²bc, ab²c) were also observed. the 3d surface plot effectively visualized these interactions, aiding formulation optimization (njapndounke et al., 2023). bulk density = + 0.8451a + 0.8599b + 1.98c-0.0506ab 1.44ac 1.55bc + 4.57a²bc + 4.04ab²c 11.50abc² ....(1) where, a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder foaming capacity is a vital functional attribute in flour blends, particularly for baked goods where air incorporation and gas retention are crucial for structure and texture. in this study, foaming capacity varied significantly among the formulations, ranging from 5.66% to 7.68% (p < 0.05). the highest values were observed in msd 10, msd 3, msd 4, and msd 13, which contained 15%–30% sprouted mung bean flour (smf). the improved foaming in these samples is likely due to enzymatic hydrolysis of storage proteins during germination, which enhances protein solubility and surface activity two key factors in foam formation and stability (saini et al., 2021; olagunju et al., 2023). in contrast, lower foaming capacities were recorded in samples such as msd 1, msd 2, and msd 5, each with malted sorghum flour (msf) levels ≥70%. this can be attributed to the presence of kafirins hydrophobic, tightly packed proteins in sorghum that are less effective at stabilizing foams (musa et al., 2022). although malting improves sorghum’s enzymatic activity, it has limited impact on enhancing foaming potential (agu et al., 2017). while date fruit powder (dfp) contributes minimal protein, its presence may modify viscosity and dispersion characteristics, subtly supporting foaming in mixed systems. statistical modeling using a special quartic response surface model confirmed a strong fit (f = 16.75, p < 0.05), explaining 91.28% of the variation in foaming capacity (r² = 0.9128). the adjusted r² (0.8583) and predicted r² (0.7281) were well-aligned, indicating strong model performance (abasiekong et al., 2023; anchang and okafor, 2022). the model’s robustness was pa ge 68 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 further supported by a low coefficient of variation (cv = 5.09%) and high adequate precision (10.53). however, a significant lack-of-fit (f = 34.82) suggests that higherorder interactions were not fully captured (elochukwu et al., 2019). linear effects showed dfp (c) had the strongest positive influence (+34.91), while binary interactions (ab, ac, bc) were antagonistic. these relationships were clearly visualized in the 3d response surface plots (njapndounke et al., 2023). foam capacity = + 5.91a + 5.85b + 34.91c 1.89ab 29.26ac 30.63bc ....(2) where, a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder wettability is a crucial functional property that affects how quickly flour particles absorb water and disperse, directly influencing the preparation ease and consumer acceptance of instant foods. in this study, wettability times ranged from 70.33 to 77.33 seconds, with significant differences among samples (p < 0.05). the shortest wetting times were observed in msd 7, msd 8, and msd 10 (70.33 s), which had higher levels of sprouted mung bean flour (smf ≥ 15%) and lower levels of malted sorghum flour (msf < 75%). the enhanced wettability in these samples is linked to the enzymatic modifications from sprouting, which increase flour porosity and hydrophilicity through the breakdown of cell walls and proteins (saini et al., 2021; olagunju et al., 2023). conversely, samples msd 11 and msd 12 both containing 10% date fruit powder (dfp) exhibited the longest wetting times (77.33 and 75.66 s, respectively). this reduced wettability may be due to dfp’s high sugar and fiber content, which can create a sticky, hygroscopic surface layer that delays water absorption (el sohaimy and hafez, 2021). these results emphasize the importance of ingredient balance in instant flour blends (adebowale et al., 2020). the quadratic model fitted to the data was statistically significant (f = 24.00, p < 0.05), explaining 93.75% of the variation in wettability (r² = 0.9375). the adjusted r² (0.8984) and predicted r² (0.8084) were closely aligned, indicating good predictive reliability (anchang and okafor, 2022; abasiekong et al., 2023). the low coefficient of variation (0.94%) and high adequate precision (13.99) further confirmed model precision. the non-significant lack-of-fit (f = 0.5740) supports its validity (elochukwu et al., 2019). coefficient estimates revealed that dfp (c) had the strongest positive effect on wettability (+207.59), followed by msf (+76.41) and smf (+72.14), though dfp interactions (ac, bc) negatively influenced rehydration—highlighting its dual role in water absorption. wettability = + 76.41a + 72.14b + 207.59c + 1.53ab 205.37ac 180.12bc ....(3) where a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder gelatinization temperature (gt) is a critical functional property reflecting the heat required for starch granules to absorb water, swell, and rupture key processes influencing texture, consistency, and processing behavior in flour-based products. in this study, gt values of the composite flour blends ranged from 80.00°c to 84.66°c, with statistically significant differences observed across samples (p < 0.05). the highest gt (84.66°c) occurred in msd 3, which contained 80% malted sorghum flour (msf), 15% sprouted mung bean flour (smf), and 5% date fruit powder (dfp). this result is attributed to the dominance of msf, whose partially malted starches retain crystalline integrity, making them more resistant to thermal disruption. additionally, smf may contribute through resistant starch and protein-starch interactions formed during germination (saini et al., 2021; musa et al., 2022). conversely, samples like msd 4 through msd 7 with higher smf (≥30%) and dfp (7.5–10%) recorded lower gts (80.33–80.66°c). the enzymatic breakdown of starches in smf and the presence of sugars and fibers in dfp likely disrupted starch–water interactions, thereby reducing gelatinization energy requirements (olagunju et al., 2023; el-sohaimy and hafez, 2021). the quadratic model for gt had limited explanatory power, with an f-value of 2.38 (p = 0.1325) and r² = 0.5976. adjusted and predicted r² values (0.3461 and −0.2513, respectively) indicated weak predictive reliability (abasiekong et al., 2023). despite this, the model’s precision (4.51) and low coefficient of variation (1.27%) suggest acceptable experimental consistency (elochukwu et al., 2019). among factors, dfp had the strongest positive effect (+95.28), followed by msf (+81.83) and smf (+80.83). however, interactions such as ac (–25.36) and bc (–5.12) reduced gt, highlighting the complex interplay of components. a 3d response plot was not generated due to the model’s low statistical significance. gelatinization tempt: + 81.83a + 80.83b + 95.28 1.25ab 25.36ab 5.12bc ....(4) where a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder water absorption capacity (wac) is a vital functional property of flour blends, influencing dough handling, product texture, and shelf life. in this study, wac values of the composite flours ranged from 1.70 to 2.33 ml/g, though differences among the samples were not statistically significant (p > 0.05), as indicated by shared superscripts. despite this, clear formulation trends emerged. the highest wac (2.33 ml/g) was observed in samples such as msd 1, msd 2, msd 4, msd 9, and msd 10, all of which had ≥70% malted sorghum flour (msf). the enhanced wac in these samples likely stems from msf’s partially degraded starches and fibrous structure developed during malting, which increases water-binding capacity (musa et al., 2022; agu et al., 2017). in contrast, lower wac values (1.70–1.79 ml/g) were recorded in samples with higher levels of sprouted mung bean flour (smf) and/or date fruit powder (dfp), such as msd 3, msd 6, msd 7, msd 8, and msd 14. germination of smf may decrease wac by breaking down macromolecules, while dfp’s high sugar and fiber content may reduce hydration by limiting water accessibility (olagunju et al., 2023; el-sohaimy and hafez, 2021). the cubic model used to describe wac variation pa ge 69 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 was not statistically significant (f = 3.24, p = 0.1348), suggesting limited predictive reliability. while the r² value was relatively high (0.8794), the wide discrepancy between adjusted r² (0.6080) and predicted r² (−0.3421) indicates potential overfitting (abasiekong et al., 2023). nonetheless, model diagnostics revealed acceptable experimental consistency, with a coefficient of variation of 8.71% and an adequate precision of 4.32. coefficient analysis showed that dfp (c) had the strongest linear positive effect (+2.10), followed by msf (a, +1.83), while smf (b) had a strong negative effect (−378.84), possibly due to scaling issues. positive interactions were observed in ab (+1.47) and ab(a–b) (+3.17), although model limitations precluded generation of a response surface plot. wac = + 1.83a + 2.10b -378.84c + 1.47 ab + 662.41 ac 582.43 abc + 3.17 ab(a-b) 304.36 ac(a-c) 262.30 bc(b-c) ....(5) where, a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder oil absorption capacity (oac) is a key functional property influencing flavor retention, mouthfeel, and texture in low-moisture food products such as snack bars. in this study, oac values of the composite flours varied significantly (p < 0.05), ranging from 0.83 to 1.23 ml/g, depending on the formulation. the highest oac (1.23 ml/g) was recorded in msd 1, msd 4, and msd 12, which contained higher proportions of sprouted mung bean flour (smf) and/or date fruit powder (dfp). these ingredients are rich in proteins, fibers, and sugars with polar side chains and hydrophilic structures, enhancing oil retention (adebowale et al., 2012; mohammed et al., 2022). conversely, the lowest oac (0.83 ml/g) in msd 8 may be attributed to its limited dfp content, despite high smf levels. samples like msd 3, msd 5, and msd 14 also exhibited low oac, likely due to a reduced presence of oil-binding components. the results reflect the differing oil-holding capacities of the ingredients: malted sorghum flour (msf), being starch-rich, tends to have lower oac, while legumes like mung bean improve lipid interaction through protein structures (kaur and singh, 2005; aremu et al., 2020). anova revealed that the data fitted well to a special quartic model (f = 4.83, p = 0.0367), explaining 84.93% of the variation (r² = 0.8493). however, a large gap between adjusted r² (0.6736) and predicted r² (0.1020) indicated limited predictive strength, possibly due to overfitting or weak correlation among variables. despite this, the model showed good reproducibility with a low coefficient of variation (6.73%) and strong signalto-noise ratio (adequate precision = 7.21). the nonsignificant lack-of-fit (f = 0.26) confirmed the model’s suitability (elochukwu et al., 2019). coefficient analysis identified dfp (factor c) as the most impactful on oac (+17.60), while interactions like ab²c (+42.70) were synergistic, and ac and bc showed antagonistic effects. oac = + 1.18a + 0.9746b + 17.60c + 0.5577ab 21.98ac 22.05bc + 42.70 ab²c 88.39 abc² ....(6) where, a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder swelling capacity is a crucial functional property that reflects the ability of flour particles to absorb water and expand, influencing texture and hydration in food applications. in this study, swelling capacity values ranged significantly (p < 0.05) from 48.80% to 59.98% across the composite flour formulations. the highest values were observed in msd 3 (59.98%), msd 12 (59.92%), and msd 11 (59.70%), which contained moderate levels of sprouted mung bean flour (smf) and higher proportions of date fruit powder (dfp). these combinations enhance water uptake and volumetric expansion due to improved hydration and matrix structure (ojo et al., 2021). malted sorghum flour (msf), rich in partially hydrolyzed starch, facilitates water absorption and granule swelling. smf contributes solubilized proteins and disrupted cell walls, improving hydration (eneche et al., 2020; ocheme et al., 2022). however, excessive smf, as seen in msd 10 and msd 4, reduced swelling capacity (48.80–49.90%), likely due to denser protein matrices that bind water without expansion. similarly, high msf content in msd 2 (80%) led to lower swelling (50.93%). dfp, known for its soluble sugars and fiber, positively influenced swelling through enhanced gelation and water retention (gbadamosi et al., 2019). anova confirmed a highly significant special quartic model (f = 71.48, p = 0.0001), with an excellent fit (r² = 0.9913, adjusted r² = 0.9775, predicted r² = 0.8122). the low coefficient of variation (1.20%) and adequate precision (20.01) demonstrated strong reliability and signal strength. the non-significant lack-of-fit (f = 0.2636) validated the model’s accuracy. dfp (c) had the strongest positive effect on swelling (+95.68), while msf (a) and smf (b) followed. significant interactions included synergistic ab (+10.42) and a²bc (+372.88), while ac, bc, ab²c, and abc² had antagonistic effects. these findings emphasize the critical role of dfp and optimal blend balance in maximizing swelling performance (njapndounke et al., 2023). swelling capacity = + 59.83a + 51.56b + 95.68c + 10.42ab 103.72ac 16.52bc + 372.88 a²bc 387.39 ab²c 611.23 abc² ....(7) where, a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder. effect of mixture component on the proximate composition of flour blends from malted sorghum, sprouted mung bean and date fruit powder the proximate composition analysis of the composite flour samples offers valuable insights into their nutritional quality and suitability for developing health-enhancing snack bars. moisture content is a vital quality attribute in snack formulations due to its influence on shelf-life, microbial stability, and sensory characteristics such as texture and mouthfeel. in this study, moisture levels in composite flour blends of malted sorghum, sprouted mung bean, and date fruit powder ranged from 8.58% to 9.52%, remaining within the safe storage threshold (<10%) recommended pa ge 70 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 for ready-to-eat cereal-based snacks (nwanekezi et al., 2023). the lower moisture in msd 2 indicates reduced spoilage risk, while the slightly higher value in msd 4 is likely due to the water-binding capacity of sprouted mung bean flour, which is rich in fiber and protein (fekadu et al., 2022). analysis of variance (anova) for the special cubic model confirmed statistical significance (f = 12.34, p = 0.0020), suggesting that the model effectively explains moisture variability. significant linear effects of malted sorghum (a), sprouted mung bean (b), and date fruit powder (c), along with the ab interaction, were identified (p < 0.05), while ac, bc, and abc interactions were non-significant. the model showed good fit (nonsignificant lack of fit: f = 0.08, p = 0.9701), with strong performance metrics (r² = 0.9136, adj. r² = 0.8396, pred. r² = 0.6730). high adequate precision (10.853) and low coefficient of variation (1.21%) confirm its robustness. date fruit powder (c) had the greatest positive influence on moisture (+10.73), followed by malted sorghum (a) and sprouted mung bean (b). however, high variance inflation factors (vif > 200) for ac and bc suggest potential multicollinearity, warranting caution. a 3d surface plot visualized the interaction effects, especially between a and b, supporting the model’s predictive table 2: functional properties of composite flours sa m pl es m sf (% ) sm f (% ) d fp (% ) b ul k de ns ity (g / m l) fo am in g ca pa ci ty (% ) w et ta bi lit y (s ec .) g el . t em pe ra tu re (c 0 ) w a c (m l/ g) o a c (m l/ g) sw el lin g c ap ac ity (% ) m sd 1 70 .0 0 20 .0 0 10 .0 0 0. 84 cd ± 0. 01 5. 66 f ± 0. 01 74 .3 3bc ± 0. 57 81 .6 6bc ± 0. 57 2. 33 a ± 0. 57 1. 23 a ± 0. 05 58 .3 5c ± 0. 04 m sd 2 80 .0 0 10 .0 0 10 .0 0 0. 86 a ± 0. 00 5. 77 de f ± 0. 11 72 .3 3de ± 0. 57 81 .3 3bc d ± 0. 57 2. 33 a ± 0. 57 1. 03 ab c ± 0. 05 50 .9 3e ± 0. 73 m sd 3 80 .0 0 15 .0 0 5. 00 0. 85 ab c ± 0. 00 7. 64 a ± 0. 03 72 .6 6cd ± 1. 15 84 .6 6a ± 05 7 1. 70 a ± 0. 01 0. 93 bc ± 0. 05 59 .9 8a ± 0. 03 m sd 4 65 .0 0 30 .0 0 5. 00 0. 86 ab ± 0. 00 7. 61 a ± 0. 02 70 .6 6ef ± 0. 57 80 .0 0d ± 0. 00 2. 33 a ± 0. 57 1. 23 a ± 0. 05 49 .9 0ef ± 0. 08 m sd 5 80 .0 0 10 .0 0 10 .0 0 0. 86 a ± 0. 01 5. 85 de ± 0. 06 72 .3 3de ± 0. 57 80 .3 3cd ± 0. 57 1. 86 a ± 0. 05 0. 93 bc ± 0. 05 52 .2 6d ± 0. 32 m sd 6 65 .6 3 25 .6 2 8. 75 0. 86 ab ± 0. 01 5. 85 d ± 0. 02 72 .3 3de ± 0. 57 81 .3 3bc d ± 0. 57 1. 79 a ± 0. 01 1. 01 ab c ± 0. 02 58 .5 4bc ± 0. 05 m sd 7 75 .6 3 15 .6 3 8. 75 0. 86 a ± 0. 01 5. 67 ef ± 0. 01 70 .3 3f ± 0. 57 80 .3 3cd ± 0. 57 1. 79 a ± 0. 00 1. 06 ab c ± 0. 11 53 .0 3d ± 0. 25 pa ge 71 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 m sd 8 62 .5 0 30 .0 0 7. 50 0. 83 d ± 0. 01 6. 68 c ± 0. 02 70 .3 3f ± 0. 57 80 .6 6cd ± 0. 57 1. 73 a ± 0. 05 0. 83 c ± 0. 05 52 .9 4d ± 0. 12 m sd 9 75 .6 3 18 .1 3 6. 25 0. 86 a ± 0. 0 5. 77 de f ± 0. 01 70 .6 6ef ± 0. 57 82 .6 6b ± 0. 57 2. 33 a ± 0. 57 1. 10 ab c ± 0. 17 50 .6 9e ± 0. 06 m sd 1 0 65 .0 0 30 .0 0 5. 00 0. 86 ab ± 0. 01 7. 68 a ± 0. 00 70 .3 3f ± 0. 57 81 .3 3bc d ± 0. 57 2. 33 a ± 0. 57 1. 10 ab c ± 0. 17 48 .8 0f ± 0. 07 m sd 11 60 .0 0 30 .0 0 10 .0 0 0. 85 ab c ± 0. 01 5. 82 de f ± 0. 01 77 .3 3a ± 0. 57 80 .6 6cd ± 0. 57 1. 83 a ± 0. 01 1. 13 ab ± 0. 05 59 .7 0ab ± 0. 26 m sd 1 2 60 .0 0 30 .0 0 10 .0 0 0. 84 bc d ± 0. 01 5. 67 ef ± 0. 01 75 .6 6ab ± 0. 57 82 .6 6b ± 0. 57 1. 83 a ± 0. 05 1. 23 a ± 0. 05 59 .9 2a ± 0. 08 m sd 13 80 .0 0 15 .0 0 5. 00 0. 85 ab c ± 0. 00 7. 52 a ± 0. 02 71 .3 3de f ± 0. 57 82 .6 6b ± 0. 57 1. 83 a ± 0. 06 1. 06 ab c ± 0. 11 58 .9 9ab c ± 1. 07 m sd 1 4 72 .5 0 22 .5 0 5. 00 0. 86 ab ± 0. 01 7. 19 b ± 0. 20 72 .3 3de ± 0. 57 80 .6 6cd ± 0. 57 1. 70 a ± 0. 01 0. 93 bc ± 0. 05 50 .2 3e ± 0. 33 values are means of the triplicate determination ± standard deviation. means with different superscript in the same column are significantly (p<0.05) different. msf = malted sorghum flour, smf = sprouted mung bean flour, dfp = date fruit powder, msd = malted sorghum, sprouted mung bean and date fruits, oac = oil abasorption capacity, wac = water absorption capacity table 3: diagnostic parameters for the fitted model of the functional properties of the composite flours pa ra m et er s m od el r -s qu ar ed a dj us te d r -s qu ar ed pr ed . r -s qu ar ed la ck o f fit pr e ss a de qu at e pr ec is io n p v al ue bulk density (g/ml) special quartic 0.9599 0.8958 0.5025 0.7450 0.0006 11.9688 0.0043* foam capacity (%) quadratic 0.9128 0.8583 0.7281 0.0023 2.69 10.5341 0.0005* wettability (sec) quadratic 0.9375 0.8984 0.8084 0.6980 11.26 11.1315 0.0001* gelatinization temperature (o c) quadratic 0.5976 0.3461 -0.2513 0.6907 26.58 4.5056 0.1325ns pa ge 72 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 figure 1: response surface plot for the effects of mixture components on the bulk density of malted sorghumsprouted mung bean-date flour. figure 2: response surface plot for the effects of mixture components on the foam capacity of malted sorghumsprouted mung bean-date flour. wac (ml/g) cubic 0.8794 0.6080 na 4.3236 0.1348ns oac (ml/g) reduced special quartic 0.8493 0.6736 0.1020 0.7838 0.1811 7.2130 0.0367* swelling capacity (%) special quartic 0.9913 0.9775 0.8122 0.6347 46.27 20.0075 0.0001* *: means in the same row are significantly different at p<0.05, respectively. ns: means in the same row are not significantly (p>0.05) different pa ge 73 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 figure 3: response surface plot for the effects of mixture components on the wettability of malted sorghumsprouted mung bean-date flour. figure 4: response surface plot for the effects of mixture components on the swelling capacity of malted sorghumsprouted mung bean-date flour. figure 5: response surface plot for the effects of mixture components on the oil absorption capacity of malted sorghum-sprouted mung bean-date. pa ge 74 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 strength. moisture = +8.93a+8.61b+10.73c+1.19ab+0.3578ac1.79bc ....(8) where a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder protein content, a critical macronutrient essential for growth, maintenance, and repair, varied significantly (p<0.05) across the composite flour samples, ranging from 12.38% in msd 2 to 21.92% in msd 11 and msd 12. the notable increase in protein content was primarily linked to the inclusion of sprouted mung bean flour (smf), which is known to enhance protein digestibility and bioavailability through enzymatic modification during sprouting (nkhata et al., 2018; onuorah et al., 2024). additionally, sprouting improves lysine levels a limiting amino acid in cereals like sorghum thereby boosting the overall protein quality of the blends (fao, 2023). this improvement holds relevance for combating proteinenergy malnutrition, particularly in low-resource regions. anova results for the special cubic model used to evaluate protein content demonstrated a highly significant fit (f = 2070.16, p < 0.0001), with an exceptionally low probability of results arising from random variation. the linear terms for malted sorghum (a), sprouted mung bean (b), and date fruit powder (c), along with the binary interactions ab, ac, and bc, were significant (p < 0.05), while the ternary interaction (abc) was not. the model’s robustness was confirmed by high r² (0.9994), adjusted r² (0.9990), and predicted r² (0.9956), all within the acceptable deviation range (<0.2). a low coefficient of variation (0.64%) and high adequate precision (118.25) further reinforced the model’s precision and predictive power (mehmood et al., 2018). among the ingredients, date fruit powder (c) had the strongest positive effect on protein content (+36.98), followed by malted sorghum (a: +21.94) and sprouted mung bean (b: +12.41). ab had a synergistic effect, while ac and bc interactions were antagonistic (–23.00 and –19.61). high vifs (>230) for ac and bc suggest multicollinearity, requiring careful interpretation. a 3d surface plot highlighted the ab interaction as critical in protein optimization. protein content = + 21.94a + 12.41b + 36.98c + 1.53ab 23.00ac 19.61bc + 7.01abc ....(9) where a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder fat content, a key determinant of energy density, mouthfeel, and oxidative stability, ranged from 1.67% to 2.85% across the composite flour samples. the lower fat levels observed in msd 10 and msd 4 are desirable for extending shelf life and aligning with growing consumer preferences for low-fat, health-conscious snacks. conversely, the highest fat content in msd 13 is likely due to the inclusion of date fruit powder, which contributes minor lipid quantities alongside natural sugars (al-farsi and lee, 2022). while reduced-fat formulations are beneficial for cardiovascular health, moderate fat levels remain important for flavor and caloric adequacy (obinna-echem et al., 2024). the anova for the reduced cubic model applied to fat content yielded a highly significant fit (f = 404.98, p < 0.0001), confirming the model’s strong explanatory power. significant contributors included the linear effects of malted sorghum (a), sprouted mung bean (b), and date fruit powder (c), along with interaction terms ab, abc, and ab(a–b). although ac and bc were not statistically significant (p > 0.05), they were retained to preserve model hierarchy. the model exhibited excellent performance metrics: r² = 0.9979, adjusted r² = 0.9954, and predicted r² = 0.9849. a low coefficient of variation (1.27%) and high adequate precision (55.576) confirm the model’s precision and reliability (mehmood et al., 2018; abasiekong et al., 2023). among the ingredients, date fruit powder had the greatest positive effect on fat content (+3.23), followed by sprouted mung bean (+2.56) and malted sorghum (+1.88). notably, ab(a–b) enhanced fat content (+1.79), while ab and abc had negative effects (−0.6165 and −7.54). high variance inflation factors (>240) for ac and bc indicate multicollinearity, warranting cautious interpretation. fat = + 1.88a + 2.56b + 3.23c 0.6165ab 2.85ac + 0.5283bc 7.54abc + 1.79ab(a b) ....(10) where, a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder ash content, which represents the total mineral composition of food products, varied significantly across the snack bar formulations. the highest ash content was observed in msd 11 and msd 12 (3.67%), while the lowest was found in msd 5 (2.49%). elevated ash levels suggest higher mineral content, largely contributed by sprouted mung bean flour (smf) and date fruit powder (dfp), both rich in essential minerals such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, and iron (ocheme et al., 2020). the inclusion of legumes like mung bean enhances the micronutrient density of composite flours, supporting dietary adequacy and helping to address micronutrient deficiencies in vulnerable populations (afolayan et al., 2023). the anova for the special quartic model revealed a highly significant fit (f = 620.59, p < 0.0001), indicating strong explanatory power for ash content variability. key significant terms included the linear effects of malted sorghum (a), sprouted mung bean (b), and date fruit powder (c), along with higher-order interactions ac, bc, ab²c, and abc². the a²bc term was nearly significant (p = 0.0556), while ab showed no significant impact. a non-significant lack of fit (f = 0.24, p = 0.6488) indicated that model errors were mostly due to random variation (elochukwu et al., 2019; kumari et al., 2022). model performance was excellent, with r² = 0.9990, adjusted r² = 0.9974, and predicted r² = 0.9796. a low coefficient of variation (0.65%) and high adequate precision (71.67) confirmed strong precision and signal strength (mehmood et al., 2018). while dfp had the most positive effect on ash content (+19.30), its interactions with a and b were strongly negative (−21.80 and −21.00). the ab²c term increased ash content (+34.89), but abc² significantly decreased it (−67.04). high vifs (>1000) pa ge 75 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 for some terms indicate multicollinearity, warranting cautious interpretation. ash = + 3.67a + 2.52b + 19.30c 0.0050ab 21.80ac 21.00bc + 10.23 a²bc + 34.89ab²c 67.04 abc² ....(11) where, a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder crude fiber content across the composite snack formulations ranged from 4.01% to 8.66%, with the highest values recorded in samples with greater proportions of date fruit powder (dfp) and sprouted mung bean flour (smf). dietary fiber plays an essential role in digestive health, regulating blood glucose, supporting cholesterol reduction, and promoting regular bowel movements (wolever, 2023). the elevated fiber content in samples such as msd 5 and msd 1 suggests their potential utility as functional foods, especially for managing non-communicable diseases like diabetes and obesity. furthermore, the integration of cereallegume-fruit components may enhance the solubility and fermentability of dietary fiber, improving prebiotic potential and gut health benefits (chinma et al., 2022), in line with who (2022) recommendations on increasing fiber intake for chronic disease prevention. the quadratic model used to analyze fiber content in the blends demonstrated a statistically significant fit (f = 10.38, p = 0.0024), indicating reliable model performance. linear terms for malted sorghum (a) and sprouted mung bean (b) were both significant (p < 0.05), underscoring their individual contributions to fiber content. interaction terms ab, ac, and bc were not significant but retained to preserve model hierarchy. the non-significant lack of fit (f = 0.31, p = 0.8594) confirmed model adequacy (elochukwu et al., 2019; kumari et al., 2022). the model’s r² (0.8664), adjusted r² (0.7829), and predicted r² (0.5915) reflect acceptable reliability, as the difference between adjusted and predicted r² remains within 0.2 (abasiekong et al., 2023). adequate precision (8.82) and a cv of 11.82% further support model robustness. dfp had the most substantial positive influence on fiber (+19.29), though its high vif (511.04) and those of ac and bc (>228) suggest multicollinearity. future modeling should address this to improve parameter stability (mehmood et al., 2018). crude fibre = + 7.72a + 8.44b + 19.29c 0.5515ab 35.01ac 27.68bc ....(12) where a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder carbohydrate content, calculated by difference, varied inversely with the levels of protein and fiber across the composite flour blends. samples msd 3 and msd 2 recorded the highest carbohydrate contents 65.82% and 65.62%, respectively which correlates with their lower inclusion of sprouted mung bean flour (smf), a component known for its high protein and fiber content. carbohydrates are essential in snack formulations, serving as a primary energy source and contributing to texture, flavor, and satiety. the natural sugars in date fruit powder (dfp) offer a healthier alternative to refined sugars, enhancing sweetness while aligning with global dietary trends aimed at reducing added sugar intake, particularly in products targeted at children and adolescents (al-farsi et al., 2022). the anova results for the quadratic model assessing carbohydrate content demonstrated a highly significant model fit, with an f-value of 48.41 and a p-value < 0.0001. this signifies that the model reliably explains the variation in carbohydrate content with only a 0.01% chance of the results occurring randomly. significant linear terms included malted sorghum (a) and sprouted mung bean (b) (p < 0.0001), while interaction terms ab, ac, and bc were not statistically significant (p > 0.05). these were retained to preserve the model hierarchy, as recommended in mixture design analysis (elochukwu et al., 2019; kumari et al., 2022). the model’s adequacy was further confirmed by a non-significant lack of fit (f = 0.39, p = 0.8064) and strong performance metrics: r² = 0.9680, adjusted r² = 0.9480, and predicted r² = 0.9008. a minimal difference between adjusted and predicted r² (<0.2) indicates strong predictive capability (abasiekong et al., 2023). adequate precision (18.99) and a low coefficient of variation (1.26%) highlight excellent model precision and reliability (mehmood et al., 2018). coefficient estimates showed sprouted mung bean (b) had the highest impact on carbohydrate content (+65.46), followed by malted sorghum (a, +55.84). date fruit powder (c) had the lowest effect (+13.68), with a high vif (511.04), indicating multicollinearity, also seen in ac and bc terms. these findings underscore the dominant role of individual components in determining carbohydrate content, consistent with prior studies (njapndounke et al., 2023; ukoha et al., 2022). carbohydrate = + 55.84a + 65.46b + 13.68c 1.59ab + 78.32ac + 65.44bc ....(13) where a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder energy content, calculated using atwater factors, ranged from 328.28 to 348.16 kcal/100g, with the highest value recorded in msd 3, likely due to its elevated carbohydrate and fat composition. these energy values fall within the recommended range for nutrient-dense snack bars targeted at children, athletes, and individuals facing undernutrition. such formulations are suitable for school feeding programs and emergency nutrition responses, offering a portable and cost-effective source of calories (fao, 2023). the blend of energy-yielding macronutrients carbohydrates, fats, and proteins alongside fiber-induced satiety and plant-based protein quality, supports the development of functional snacks that can address both undernutrition and emerging lifestyle-related diseases. the anova for the quadratic model evaluating energy values in blends of malted sorghum (a), sprouted mung bean (b), and date fruit powder (c) revealed a statistically significant model fit (f = 8.21, p = 0.0052). this suggests that the model adequately explains variation in energy content, with only a 0.52% chance of random influence. linear terms a, b, and c were significant (p < 0.05), while interactions ab, ac, and bc were not but were retained pa ge 76 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 for structural integrity (elochukwu et al., 2019; kumari et al., 2022). the model’s lack of fit was non-significant (f = 0.23, p = 0.9079), affirming its validity. model performance was moderate, with r² = 0.8369, adjusted r² = 0.7350, and predicted r² = 0.5192. the >0.2 difference between adjusted and predicted r² suggests issues like high variability or outliers, implying that model refinement may be necessary (mehmood et al., 2018; abasiekong et al., 2023). despite this, the model showed strong experimental consistency, with a low coefficient of variation (cv = 0.86%) and adequate precision (7.36). among the components, sprouted mung bean (b) contributed most to energy (+335.05 kcal/100g), followed by malted sorghum (a, +329.01) and date fruit powder (c, +317.64). however, the estimate for c had a high standard error and vif (>511), indicating multicollinearity. similar caution applies to ac and bc terms. these results support prior findings on energyenhancing properties of cereal-legume-fruit blends (njapndounke et al., 2023; ukoha et al., 2022). energy = + 329.01a + 335.05b + 317.64c 11.22ab + 80.71ac + 65.43bc ....(14) where, a = malted sorghum flour, b = sprouted mung bean flour, and c = date fruit powder. optimization of numerical values optimization of numerical values of independent variables and simultaneous optimization of the multiple responses with significant models were carried out by choosing the desired goals for each variable and response by using design expert software (designexpert software version 12.0.3.0., statease inc., minneapolis, usa). the ingredients (malted sorghum flour, sprouted mung bean flour and date fruit powder) were set in ranges. the relative importance of “3” was assigned to all the parameters. the optimization goal of for the design specifications are presented in table 6. optimization formulation for the functional properties and proximate composition of composite flour from malted sorghum flour, sprouted mung bean flour and date powder stat-ease inc (2023) showed that the response optimizer of the software generated six (6) solutions in the ingredient value with desirability of 0.178 to 0.620 and their respective responses values as shown in tables 7 and table 8. optimization solutions presented in in tables 7 and table 8, suggested that composite flour made with 69.925 % malted sorghum flour, 21.382 % sprouted mung bean flour and 8.693 % date fruit powder was selected as the best solution for this combination of variables with a desirability of 0.620 which is 62 % for all the responses evaluated. conclusion this study demonstrated the significant influence of varying proportions of malted sorghum flour (msf), sprouted mung bean flour (smf), and date fruit powder (dfp) on the nutritional and functional characteristics of composite flour blends. using a mixture design with fourteen formulations, the research revealed notable differences (p < 0.05) across key properties such as bulk density, foaming capacity, swelling, wettability, oil and water absorption capacities, gelatinization temperature, and proximate composition (moisture, protein, fat, ash, fiber, carbohydrate, and energy). response surface table 4: proximate analysis on the composite flour samples sa m pl es m sf (% ) sm f (% ) d fp (% ) m oi st ur e co nt en t ( % ) pr ot ei n (% ) fa t ( % ) a sh (% ) fi br e (% ) c ar bo hy dr at e (% ) e ne rg y (k c al /1 00 g) m sd 1 70 .0 0 20 .0 0 10 .0 0 9. 07 ab cd e ± 0. 05 17 .6 4e ± 0. 14 2. 08 c ± 0. 02 3. 09 d ± 0. 00 8. 25 b ± 0. 11 59 .8 7e ± 0. 10 32 8. 76 f ± 0. 78 m sd 2 80 .0 0 10 .0 0 10 .0 0 8. 58 e ± 0. 02 12 .3 8h ± 0. 57 2. 59 b ± 0. 06 2. 54 g ± 0. 08 8. 29 b ± 0. 23 65 .6 2b ± 0. 00 33 6. 11 d ± 0. 82 m sd 3 80 .0 0 15 .0 0 5. 00 8. 85 cd e ± 0. 08 14 .8 8g ± 0. 04 2. 80 a ± 0. 05 2. 79 f ± 0. 92 4. 86 h ± 0. 10 65 .8 2a ± 0. 06 34 8. 16 a ± 0. 53 m sd 4 65 .0 0 30 .0 0 5. 00 9. 52 a ± 0. 08 21 .4 5b ± 0. 19 1. 69 f ± 0. 07 3. 48 b ± 0. 46 4. 01 i ± 0. 02 59 .8 5e ± 0. 29 34 0. 41 b ± 0. 30 pa ge 77 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 m sd 5 80 .0 0 10 .0 0 10 .0 0 8. 64 de ± 0. 04 12 .4 5h ± 0. 08 2. 53 b ± 0. 04 2. 49 g ± 0. 70 8. 66 a ± 0. 08 65 .2 3b ± 0. 25 33 3. 49 d ± 1. 03 m sd 6 65 .6 3 25 .6 2 8. 75 9. 10 ab cd ± 0. 63 19 .7 0c ± 0. 01 1. 95 d ± 0. 06 3. 23 c ± 0. 03 7. 07 d± 0. 02 58 .9 5f ± 0. 12 33 2. 15 e ± 0. 06 m sd 7 75 .6 3 15 .6 3 8. 75 8. 88 cd e ± 0. 09 15 .0 9g ± 0. 98 2. 11 c ± 0. 02 2. 81 ef ± 0. 23 6. 69 e ± 0. 09 64 .4 2c ± 0. 09 33 7. 03 d ± 0. 55 m sd 8 62 .5 0 30 .0 0 7. 50 9. 17 ab c ± 1. 44 21 .4 7b ± 0. 15 1. 76 ef ± 0. 01 3. 24 c ± 0. 00 5. 64 f ± 0. 02 58 .7 9f ± 0. 28 33 6. 88 d ± 0. 10 m sd 9 75 .6 3 18 .1 3 6. 25 8. 99 bc de ± 0. 04 16 .2 8f ± 0. 08 2. 13 c ± 0. 04 2. 93 e ± 0. 02 5. 28 g ± 0. 06 64 .3 9c ± 0. 03 33 7. 10 d ± 0. 73 m sd 10 65 .0 0 30 .0 0 5. 00 9. 40 ab ± 0. 01 21 .2 3b ± 0. 19 1. 67 f ± 0. 03 3. 50 b ± 0. 01 4. 02 i ± 0. 01 60 .1 8g ± 0. 19 34 1. 85 b ± 0. 13 m sd 11 60 .0 0 30 .0 0 10 .0 0 8. 76 cd e ± 0. 57 21 .9 2a ± 0. 01 1. 88 de ± 0. 00 3. 67 a ± 0. 02 7. 50 c ± 0. 02 56 .2 7g ± 0. 05 32 9. 68 f ± 0. 33 m sd 12 60 .0 0 30 .0 0 10 .0 0 9. 12 ab cd ± 0. 04 21 .9 2a ± 0. 01 1. 88 de ± 0. 00 3. 67 a ± 0. 23 7. 49 c ± 0. 00 55 .9 2g ± 0. 05 32 8. 28 f ± 0. 24 m sd 13 80 .0 0 15 .0 0 5. 00 8. 75 cd e ± 0. 00 14 .8 8g ± 0. 04 2. 85 a ± 0. 03 2. 76 f ± 0. 04 1 7. 49 c ± 0. 00 63 .2 7a ± 0. 05 33 8. 25 c ± 0. 23 m sd 14 72 .5 0 22 .5 0 5. 00 9. 11 ab cd ± 0. 11 18 .6 8d ± 0. 20 1. 91 d ± 0. 00 3. 14 cd ± 0. 02 4. 74 h ± 0. 05 62 .4 2d ± 0. 08 34 1. 59 b ± 0. 40 values are means of the triplicate determination ± standard deviation. means with different superscript in the same column are significantly (p<0.05) different. msf = malted sorghum flour, smf = sprouted mung bean flour, dfp = date fruit powder, msd = malted sorghum, sprouted mung bean and date fruits pa ge 78 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 table 5: diagnostic parameters for the fitted model of the proximate composition of the composite flour from malted sorghum flour, sprouted mung bean flour and date fruit powder pa ra m et er s m od el r -s qu ar ed a dj us te d r -s qu ar ed pr ed . r -s qu ar ed la ck o f fit pr e ss a de qu at e pr ec is io n p v al ue moisture (%) special cubic 0.9136 0.8396 0.6730 0.9701 0.0006 10.8530 0.0020* protein (%) special cubic 0.9994 0.9990 0.9956 0.1441 0.7042 118.2537 0.0001* fat (%) reduced cubic 0.9979 0.9954 0.9849 0.5422 0.0315 55.5756 0.0001* ash (%) special quartic 0.9990 0.9974 0.9796 0.6488 0.0408 71.6652 0.0001* crude fibre (%) quadratic 0.8664 0.7829 0.5915 0.8594 14.11 8.8206 0.0024* carbohydrate (%) quadratic 0.9680 0.9480 0.9008 0.8064 14.86 18.9924 0.0001* energy value (%) quadratic 0.8369 0.7350 0.5192 0.9079 197.92 7.3591 0.0052* *: means in the same row are significantly different at p<0.05, respectively. ns: means in the same row are not significantly (p>0.05) different figure 6: response surface plot for the effects of mixture components on the moisture content of malted sorghumsprouted mung bean-date flour. figure 7: response surface plot for the effects of mixture components on the protein content of malted sorghumsprouted mung bean-date flour. pa ge 79 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 figure 8: response surface plot for the effects of mixture components on the fat content of malted sorghumsprouted mung bean-date flour. figure 9: response surface plot for the effects of mixture components on the ash content of malted sorghumsprouted mung bean-date flour. figure 10: response surface plot for the effects of mixture components on the fibre content of malted sorghumsprouted mung bean-date. pa ge 80 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 figure 11: response surface plot for the effects of mixture components on the carbohydrate of malted sorghumsprouted mung bean-date. figure 12: response surface plot for the effects of mixture components on the energy value of malted sorghumsprouted mung bean-date. methodology (rsm) effectively guided the optimization process, resulting in a gluten-free, nutrient-dense flour blend with improved functional performance. msf contributed to higher bulk density and energy value, smf enhanced foaming and wettability due to its modified protein structure from germination, while dfp increased fiber and sugar content, promoting energy availability and digestive benefits. the optimized formulation comprising 69.93% msf, 21.38% smf, and 8.69% dfp achieved a composite desirability score of 0.620, meeting criteria for nutritional adequacy and shelf stability. these findings support the use of underutilized, climate-resilient table 6: optimization constraints for the functional properties, nutrient content and caloric value of malted sorghumsprouted mung bean-date flour name goal lower limit upper limit lower weight upper weight importance a: malted sorghum flour is in range 60 80 1 1 3 b: sprouted mung bean flour is in range 10 30 1 1 3 c: date fruit powder is in range 5 10 1 1 3 bulk density maximize 0.83 0.86 1 1 3 foam capacity minimize 5.66 7.68 1 1 3 pa ge 81 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajfst am. j. food. sci. technol. 4(2) 65-84, 2025 table 7: optimization solutions for the functional properties of malted sorghum-sprouted mung bean-date flour blends. n um be r m al te d so rg hu m flo ur sp ro ut ed m un g be an flo ur d at e fr ui t po w de r b ul k de ns ity fo am ca pa ci ty w et ta bi lit y o a c sw el lin g ca pa ci ty d es ira bi lit y 1 69.925 21.382 8.693 0.871 5.545 71.641 1.121 56.720 0.620 selected 2 60.350 30.000 9.650 0.840 5.918 75.172 1.092 58.673 0.535 3 74.085 15.915 10.000 0.845 5.476 73.722 1.152 56.176 0.501 4 78.277 16.556 5.167 0.850 7.184 71.796 1.105 53.432 0.491 5 64.507 29.551 5.942 0.847 7.023 69.856 0.903 51.272 0.368 6 65.000 30.000 5.000 0.860 7.675 70.697 1.164 49.344 0.178 ingredients in functional food development, especially for health-targeted products like snack bars and other baked products. the statistical models showed strong predictive accuracy (r² values > 0.80), and 3d surface plots effectively visualized ingredient interactions, underscoring the strength of rsm in food formulation optimization. wettability minimize 70.33 77.33 1 1 3 oac maximize 0.83 1.23 1 1 3 swelling capacity maximize 48.8 59.98 1 1 3 moisture minimize 8.58 9.52 1 1 3 protein maximize 12.38 21.92 1 1 3 fat is in range 1.67 2.85 1 1 3 ash maximize 2.49 3.67 1 1 3 fibre maximize 4.01 8.66 1 1 3 carbohydrate is in range 55.92 65.82 1 1 3 energy maximize 328.28 348.16 1 1 3 table 8: optimization solutions for the proximate composition and caloric value of malted sorghum-sprouted mung bean-date flour blends n um be r m al te d so rg hu m flo ur sp ro ut ed m un g be an flo ur d at e fr ui t po w de r m oi st ur e pr ot ei n fa t a sh fi br e c ar bo hy dr at e e ne rg y d es ira bi lit y 1 69.925 21.382 8.693 9.069 17.939 1.971 3.108 6.735 61.308 332.934 0.620 selected 2 60.350 30.000 9.650 8.970 21.810 1.857 3.568 7.325 56.447 330.196 0.535 3 74.085 15.915 10.000 8.955 15.547 2.078 2.856 8.111 62.286 330.926 0.501 4 78.277 16.556 5.167 8.876 15.689 2.487 2.920 5.740 64.289 341.980 0.491 5 64.507 29.551 5.942 9.343 21.126 1.712 3.276 4.448 60.082 339.626 0.368 6 65.000 30.000 5.000 9.449 21.388 1.686 3.490 4.051 59.984 341.300 0.178 references abasiekong k. s., nwabueze t. u., & akobundu e. n. 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