Quality Attributes of Heat Treated Cocoyam (Colocasia esculenta) Flour

Abstract

Cocoyam (Colocasia esculenta), a staple food and a food thickner has a small starch grains and improved digestibility. In view of adding value to cocoyam, this study investigated the effect of different processing methods on the quality of cocoyam flour. In this study, cocoyam samples were given different heat treatments and milled into flour. The moisture content of the flour samples ranged between 7.85% - 18.75%. Protein content was between 3.48% - 12.60%. Loose bulk density ranged between 0.77g/cm³ – 0.83g/cm³ initially and 0.45g/cm³ – 0.56g/cm³ finally. Starch content ranged from 16.06% - 52.84%. The control sample that has no heat treatment has the highest value of overall acceptability.

Keywords : Cocoyam, digestibility, heat treatment and value addition