Nutritional and rheological properties of starter-produced Lafun, an African fermented cassava product

Abstract

Lafun is a product of cassava fermentation that is a good source of carbohydrate but has low protein content. The present work is aimed at obtaining an optimum biomass of Saccharomyces cerevisiae that will ferment cassava to produce nutrient-enriched lafunwithout changing its standard rheological properties. A typed variety of cassava (TMA 419, 30572) was collected from International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan, Nigeria. Samples of the cassava were inoculated with varying inoculum sizes of S. cerevisiae and fermented for 72 hours to produce lafun. Proximate, functional and rheological properties, and the sensory attributes of the poducts were determined after fermentation. Results obtained indicated that the protein content increases as the level of biomass increases. No significant difference was observed in the solubility index, breakdown viscosity and setback viscosity of sample B fermented with 1.18×106cfu/ml of S. cerevisiae and the control. Sensory evaluation of the samples revealed no significant difference in colour and texture with slight differences in the odour and flavour. This study suggests the use of about 1.18×106cfu/ml of S. cerevisiae biomass in the fermentation of cassava for lafun production to enhance the protein quality as well as to have a product with close rheology to the naturally fermented product.