MICROBIOLOGICAL AND QUALITY EVALUATION OF LOCAL SPICES FROM FERMENTED SOYBEANS (IRU) FLOUR AND CINNAMON BLENDS

Food processors are faced with the challenge of producing food products containing functional ingredients in order to meet the nutritional requirement of individuals and also for several decades, synthetic additives have been adopted in foods, having successfully slowed down or inhibit completely the activity of food spoilage micro-organisms, improved colour and flavour, and eventually extending shelf-life. The excessive or continuous use of these additives has been associated with allergic reactions, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Over the years, several studies have been conducted to assess the nutritional, microbial and antioxidant properties of some plant parts and their potential to extend the shelflife of food but little or no report have been done cinnamon. Therefore, the aim of this project is to study the microbial and quality evaluation of local spices from fermented soybeans and cinnamon. Soy bean flour was cleaned, washed, dehulled, soaked, fermented, oven dried, milled, sieved, packed and sealed. Dry cinnamon was sorted, washed, dried, milled, sieved, packed and sealed and spiced was produced at different formulation and was subjected to proximate, mineral, vitamins, phyto-chemical and sensory evaluation. The result of the experiment was subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA). ​The result showed that the proximate composition of the spices ranged from 7.066 to 8.066%; 33.386 to 39.733%; 25.166 to 27.483%; 3.000 to 3.166%, 16.333 to 22.133% for moisture, protein, ash, crude fibre and carbohydrate, respectively. The phytochemical compositions of spices samples ranged from 0.268 to 1.518 mg/100g; 1.377 to 1.908 mg/100g; 0.054 to 0.201mg/100g; 0.169 to 0.234 mg/kg for flavonoids, tannin, saponin, phytate content, respectively. The mineral composition of the spices ranged from298.851 to 382.716 mg/100g; 206.686 to 270.600 mg/100g; 82.674 to 108.240 mg/100g for potassium, magnesium and calcium content, respectively. The vitamin composition of the spices ranged from 0.499 to 0.627 mg/100g; 0.520 to 0.503 mg/100g for vitamin B1 and B3, respectively. The study thus, reveals that all samples were microbiologically safe for human consumption. It could thus be said that spices from 80:20% soybean-cinnamon flour and 70:30% soybean-cinnamon flour were more acceptable and it can commonly eaten in the Western part of Nigeria and could gain acceptability among customers of the product. This may help enhance the utilization of soybean and cinnamon, thereby reducing wastages normally associated with soybean and cinnamon, in Nigeria.