Energy Saving Process Scheme and Quality of Wheat-Cassava Spaghetti Using Fresh Cassava Substitution

Abstract

Escalating energy costs in resource-limited cassava growing regions impede industrial exploits, which contribute to high postharvest loss in the cassava value chain. Studies have uncovered potentials for replacing up to 50% of spaghetti wheat flour (WF) with cassava flour (CF) (i.e., cassava-wheat flour spaghetti (CWFS)). Modification of the CWFS scheme is proposed to eliminate the CF drying energy and explore the direct use of dewatered cassava pulp (DCP) and WF to produce spaghetti (i.e., cassava dough-wheat flour spaghetti (CDWFS)). However, uncertainties regarding the energy and product quality impacts of CDWFS compared to conventional wheat flour spaghetti (WFS) are foreseeable constraints to the industrial adoptions. Therefore, the referred impacts were analysed based on established schemes for the feedstock production (i.e., CF, WF, and DCP) and laboratory demonstrations of the spaghetti processing. All three schemes showed comparable product yields (≈0.665-0.671 kg/kg dough). Egg incorporation to augment the protein content in the CWFS and CDWFS also proved strategic for achieving comparable compositions (moisture, crude fiber, and carbohydrate), energy content, and cooking qualities (cohesiveness, adhesiveness, and water absorption) with commercial WFS products. The CWFS and CDWFS schemes could mitigate the process energy by 5.64% and 14.25%, respectively, compared to the WFS. Hence, the CWFS and CDWFS schemes are promising for energy cost reduction and advancing sustainable spaghetti industries in energy-resource-limited cassava growing regions.