Effect of Packaging Material on the Quality Parameters of African Locust Bean Powder

Abstract

African locust bean condiment popularly referred to as ‘iru’ among the Western part of Nigeria is derived from the fermentation of  African locust bean (Parkia biglobosa) seeds. Its wide acceptance as a food condiment is owing to its nutritional composition in African diets. African locust bean powder was produced using a dehulling machine and was fermented for three days. The fermented locust  beans were dried in a cabinet dryer at 60 ^oC for 4 days and milled into fine powder. The African bean powder was then packaged into  three different packaging materials: nylon, plastic, and glass containers and stored for two months. Both fresh and stored samples were  evaluated for quality parameters. The results for the chemical analyses were 18.84- 19.63%, 4.44- 4.58%, 1.72-1.90%, 3.50- 3.71%,  8.85-11.80%, 59.69-61.34%, 5.75-5.76 kcal/g, 0.57-0.58% and 7.39-7.87 mg/100 g for protein, fat, fibre, ash, moisture, carbohydrate, energy,  total titratable acidity and vitamin c, respectively. According to the result of the chemical analyses, iru powder packaged in nylon  container had significantly lowest value for all the parameters evaluated except moisture content where it had significantly highest value.  The antinutritional properties ranged from 0.01-0.03%, 0.02-0.17%, and 1.42-1.61 % for phytate, oxalate and cyanide, respectively.  Microbiological properties which include the total microbial and coliform counts ranged between 3.54-3.90×10³ cfu/ml and 3.62-7.81×10⁴ cfu/ml. The quality parameters of the locust bean powder packaged in nylon containers reduced significantly compared to glass and  plastic containers. This implies that plastic and glass are better packaging materials for African locust bean powder