TITLE:
Development of High Protein and Vitamin A Flakes from Sweet Potato Roots and Leaves
AUTHORS:
Nicanor Obiero Odongo, George Ooko Abong’, Michael Wandayi Okoth, Edward G. Karuri
KEYWORDS:
Sweet Potato Roots, Protein Content, β-Carotene, Flakes
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.2 No.7,
July
14,
2015
ABSTRACT: Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas)
is one of the most important, versatile and unexploited crops in Kenya. The
crop is well adapted to smallholder farming systems, inexpensive to produce,
relatively drought tolerant and gives high yields even with minimum inputs.
Although widely produced in Kenya, sweet potato remains primarily a subsistence
crop. Lack of organized marketing, limited consumer interest and low value
addition activities are some of the factors that have contributed to low
commercialization of the crop. The overall objective of the current study was
to investigate the suitability of incorporating sweet potato leaves into the
roots to produce nutritious sweet potato flakes with high vitamin A and protein
content. Sweet potato roots were cured to increase the endogenous amylase
enzyme and then washed and pre-cooked to enable starch hydrolysis to increase
sweetness of the flakes and then heated to boiling to enable mashing. Dried
sweet potato leaves powder was then added to the mash sweet potato roots at
varying percentages and then dried using single drum drier. Addition of sweet
potato leaves was found to significantly (p