International Journal of Food Science and Nutrition

Authors
Akinjayeju O, Adekoya MT

Abstract
This study investigated some nutritional properties of flour blends from wheat, whole millet and soya cake. Optimization of flour blends was done using Central Composite Design (CCD) of response surface methodology (RSM) (Design Expert version 6.0.8) to determine proportions of soya cake and whole millet flours, using soya cake flour (10–20%) and whole millet flour (5–10%) as variables. Proportion of wheat flour (%) in each blend was obtained by difference. Blends generated from the design were evaluated for protein and crude fibre and three blends with highest protein and fibre contents were selected for further studies. Samples were evaluated for phytate and mineral contents, mineral-mineral and phytate-mineral molar ratios, amino acid profiles and predicted protein quality indices. Bread was also produced from the flour samples and evaluated for protein quality and consumer acceptability. Protein and fibre contents of blends increased as percentages of soya cake and whole millet flours increased. Sample WMS₃ {(70.00(wheat flour):20.00(soya cake flour):10.00(whole millet flour)} had highest values for phytate (42.33mg/100g) and all phytate-mineral molar ratios (6.09 for zinc, 0.018 for calcium and 0.783 for iron), but values for these parameters were within acceptable limits for all flours samples. Sample WMS₁ {(70.43(wheat flour):22.07(soya cake flour):7.50(whole millet flour)} had highest total amino acid for both flour (93.15g/100g of protein) and bread (95.24g/g of protein) samples respectively, as well as for most protein quality indices expect protein efficiency ratio (3.68 for flour sample). Bread sample WMS₃ (70.00(wheat flour):20.00(soya cake):10.00(whole millet flour) had highest consumer acceptability mean scores for all sensory parameters even though all three samples received acceptable scores for all parameters.