Nutritional and Chemical Properties of Fermented Soybean-supplemented Cassava Flour

Cassava is the most important tropical root crop; its starchy roots are a major source of dietary energy for more than 700 million people. To combat the poor protein content of cassava and help with the malnutrition faced by the millions of people who consume cassava, the bulk of which are in developing countries, protein supplementation using soybeans is used to offset this deficiency. Even with the increasing amount of research on the nutritional benefits of soybean fermentation, there is a dearth of information on how using fermented soybeans as a protein supplement can help improve nutritional and physiochemical characteristics of soybean-supplemented cassava flour. This study investigated the effect of varying fermentation duration on the nutritive value of fermented soybean-supplemented cassava flour. The cassava flour was fortified with soybean flour in the ratio-90:10, and was grouped according to the duration of fermentation with cassava only and cassava: soybean flour both without fermentation serving as the negative and positive controls respectively. The results obtained showed varying effects on mineral content, with potassium, showing consistent increases with increasing fermentation, whilst zinc and phosphorous has its highest values after 4 days of fermentation, whilst Iron showed significant reduction across the treatment groups. Notable improvements in crude protein, ash content and crude lipid levels were observed with fermentation, with other proximate parameters showing no significant difference when compared to both controls (P=.05). There were significant reductions in the pH and Titratable acidity values of the treatment groups.

From this study, fermentation has been proved to be a useful tool that can be used to improve the nutritional quality and safety profile of protein supplemented cassava flour as raw materials for the development of food products.