Assessment of nutritional and sensory qualities of whole grains cookies formulated from vegetables and mushrooms

Abstract

Malnutrition and obesity keeps increasing in the developing countries alongside, the burden of diet-related diseases, therefore, regular food is expected to be functional by providing additional health benefits; other than basic nutritional needs. In this study, 10, 25 and 50 % of two edible mushrooms namely; Termitomyces robustus and Lentinus squarrosulus and four vegetables; Basella alba, Launea taraxacifolia, Senecio biafrae, and Crassocephalum ruben were used to substitute whole grain flours of wheat, millet, guinea corn and yellow corn, separately, in formulation of cookies, with the aim of improving the nutritional properties and health benefit potential of the cookies. Proximate composition of the cereal flours were in the range of 7.27±0.06 -11.56 ±0.20% (moisture), 0.52±0.05 - 2.51±0.26 % (Ash), 8.48a±0.44- 14.97d±0.10% (protein), 8.72a±0.86- 12.35e±0.13 (fat), 0.19a±0.05 - 1.91e±0.03 % (fibre) and 63.78±0.43- 68.84b±0.56 % (carbohydrate). The nutritional and sensory qualities of representative cookies from each formulation were determined. Generally, supplementation with the vegetables and mushrooms had positive effect on the mineral, vitamins and proximate compositions, which is an indication of good nutritional quality; also the non-wheat flours compared favourably with the wheat flour nutritional-wise. Although, there was significant difference in sensory quality and acceptability of the non-wheat and wheat cookies, the results show that it is possible to use the named mushrooms, vegetables and grains to partially (≤ 10 %) substitute for wheat flour in the production of flour -based food systems with acceptable physical characteristics.