Nutritional, Sensory, and Microbial Quality of Cookies Produced by Partial Replacement of Wheat Flour with Plantain (Musa paradisiaca) and Cocoyam (Colocasia esculenta) Flours

Abstract

Nutritional, sensory, texture, and microbiological load analyses were made of cookies consisting of a partial replacement of wheat flour with plantain (Musa paradisiaca) or cocoyam (Colocasia esculenta) flour. There were slight differences in the amounts of protein, fat, and carbohydrate. Accordingly, the nutritional values per 100 g of the cookies correspond to 10-14% protein and 19-21% energy of the recommended daily allowance. In contrast, cookies containing either cocoyam or plantain flour have 20% and 30% more fiber, respectively, compared to cookies containing wheat flour alone. Similarly, plantain and cocoyam cookies’ iron and zinc contents were, respectively, 1-16% and 2-9% more than ( $p<0.05$ ) the control. The levels of aerobic plate count in the cookies were lower than recommended thresholds for such food products. Those cookies containing 20% and 40% of either plantain or cocoyam flour had comparable sensory, texture, and color quality compared to the control. The effect of intake of plantain and cocoyam cookies is likely to eliminate population mineral deficiencies, particularly iron, and zinc. These results underline the potential of enabling food security crops such as plantain and cocoyam in sustaining cookies production, utilization, nutritional value, and the role of such crops in addressing food and nutrition insecurity.