Abstract

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the nutritional and sensory attributes of garabia a traditional cereal-based snack of Nigeria manufactured from flour obtained from broken fractions of milled four popular rice varieties in Nigeria as a strategy for the improvement of rice postharvest system for improved income and livelihood. The mean moisture, protein, fat, ash and carbohydrate contents of rice-cowpea blend garabia were 2.25, 11.87, 34.83, 2.04, and 49.00%, respectively and ranged between 1.88 to 2.47% for moisture, 10.72 to 12.86% for protein with FARO 52 blend having the highest and NERICA-L34 recording the lowest value. Calcium was found to be the most abundant mineral in rice garabia. The calculated metabolizable energy values of the blended rice garabia showed that the products are concentrated energy sources and compares favorably snacks from other sources. Consumer overall acceptability (liking) rating was higher than 6 (like slightly) based on hedonic ratings based on 9-point hedonic scales indicating that the product are well-liked by the consumers. It can then be concluded that addition of cowpea to rice flour for the production of garabia significantly improves nutritive value of the products with little or no pronounced effect on consumer acceptability.

Keywords:

Cowpea, , garabia, , livelihood, , rice, , snack, , value-addition,

References

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

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The authors have no competing interests.