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Food-to-Food Fortification of Rice Flour (Swarna Cv.) using Basil, Marjoram and Spearmint Dried Leaves Powder: A Physicochemical and Nutritional Study
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1  Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India
Academic Editor: Christopher J. Smith

Abstract:

Food-to-Food fortification is an emerging technique to enrich nutrient-deficient foods by adding foods with relatively high amounts of one or more than one type of micro and macronutrients. The dried leaves of herbs like basil, marjoram, and spearmint have excellent nutritional properties. These can fortify staple raw materials like rice flour (RF) to produce gluten-free fortified products. Thus, in this research, an attempt was made to find the effect of these dried herbs on the physicochemical and nutritional properties of RF with skim milk powder (SMP) (3% w/w) at different fortification levels (FLs) (1-4% w/w). The physicochemical and nutritional properties viz., water absorption index (WAI), water solubility index (WSI), oil absorption capacity (OAC), water absorption capacity (WAC), solubility (SL), iron (Fe), and proximate analysis was found out. Results showed insignificant (p>0.05) change in all physicochemical properties at 1% addition of marjoram, spearmint, and basil as compared to control (RF + SMP). However, a significant (p<0.05) increase in WAI was noticed at 2% addition of marjoram, spearmint, and basil. Further, no significant (p>0.05) change in WAI was noticed up to the highest FL in all fortificants. Similar behavior was observed with WSI, only in the case of marjoram; however, no significant (p>0.05) change was observed with spearmint at all FLs. In addition, basil at 4% fortification causes a significant (p<0.05) increase in WSI. In WAC, neither marjoram nor spearmint resulted in any significant (p>0.05) change at all FLs except basil at 4%. A similar resulted was noticed with SL. Nevertheless, a significant (p<0.05) color change was observed at all FLs. The iron, protein, and crude fiber were significant (p<0.05) improved at 4%. A similar result was noticed with carbohydrate, energy, and crude fat at a higher FL. The study will help food processors to formulate fortified foods using dried herbs.

Keywords: Food-to-Food fortification; basil; marjoram; spearmint; physicochemical and nutritional properties; Rice flour
Comments on this paper
siddharth vishwakarma
Nicely describe about food fortification

Shubham Mandliya
A new approach for fortification which can be helpful but have to consider the cost as well as the sensory properties as the consumer should have to like it.

1. How much cost will increase of the new fortified rice flour against the normal rice flour ?
2. For what purpose, the rice flour was fortified? Is it specific or can be used for developing any food product from the fortified rice flour?
siddharth vishwakarma
Thank you Mr. Shubham for appreciating my work. The following answer I have given for your queries:
1. The increment in price will be only around 15% as compared to normal rice flour.
2. The fortification was done to combat malnutrition particularly Iron deficiency anemia among children, women and adults.

Pallavi Singh
Very nice paper. It's a good approach to fortified the rice in such a way considering disease like iron deficiency, anemia. It will help the country to fight against such diseases considering good gut health.
Great and good initiative.



 
 
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