Article Sidebar
Article Details
NAJ supports free online communication and exchange of knowledge as the most effective way of ensuring that the fruits of research and development practice are made widely available. It is therefore committed to open access, which, for authors, enables the widest possible dissemination of their findings and, for readers, increases their ability to discover pertinent information. The Journal adopts and uses the CC: BY license and is open access. This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the Journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Copyright for articles published in this Journal is retained by the Journal.
Main Article Content
Effect of Drying Methods on the Nutritional Composition of Some Selected Yam Varieties Cultivated in Umudike, Abia State, Nigeria
Abstract
Yams are widely grown and consumed in various forms; these tropical food crops are abundant at a particular period. Since these food crops are highly perishable after harvest, drying is a common practice for preserving them. White yam (Dioscorea rotundata) and water yam (Dioscorea alata) were collected from (National Root Crops Research Institute Umudike) yam barn. The study investigated the effect of sun-drying and oven-drying methods on the nutritional composition of water yam and white yam varieties. Oven-drying was done at 60°C for 72 hrs, while sun drying was for 3 days, until a constant weight was obtained. The functional properties, proximate composition, mineral contents and pH were determined to investigate the effect of dry methods on the nutritional value of the yam flour. It was observed that all parameter examined were affected by the dry methods as they varied in composition with two different processed samples (sun and oven dried). The result showed that the proximate composition for samples sun dried were 5.01%, 3.45%, 1.93%, 0.65% and 85.63%, while samples oven dried were 6.46%, 1.23%, 2.26%, 1.60%, 0.77% and 87.35% respectively. Bulk density, water absorption capacity, oil absorption capacity, swelling power and gelation temperate for samples sun dried were 0.66%, 3.54%, 2.73%, 4.22% and 70.58b% respectively. The results of the experiment shows that sun dried yam flour retained the highest value in protein, ash, fiber, CHO and bulk density, and also in minerals (Ca, Mg and P), compared to oven dried method except moisture content which had a higher value than samples sun dried. Therefore, sun dried yam flour had the highest value, thereby retaining the best nutritional composition of the samples.
