Alloysius Chibuike Ogodo*, Joy Otabor, Chrinius Hammuel and Chinedu Christian Iheanacho

• access_time13 April, 2024

  subjectCategory: Biological Sciences

• Acha (Digitaria exilis) is a cereal crop that is highly nutritious and contains carbohydrates, dietary fiber, minerals, and amino acids.It also contains antinutritional factors such as oxalate, phytate, tannin, and saponin, which can reduce the bioavailability of nutrients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) fermentation on the proximate and mineral composition of acha flour. Acha was processed into flour and then subjected to spontaneous fermentation and fermentation using a combination of Streptococcus infantarius FDAARGOS_1019 and Limosilac tobacillus fermentum SCB0035) previously isolated from cow milk. Exactly 250g of the flour was mixed with 500mL of distilled water followed by the addition of 0.02% sodium metabisulphate to inhibit the growth of microflora and other contaminating microorganisms. The same set-up was used for the spontaneous fermentation, except the addition of starter organisms and sodium metabisulphite. The proximate and mineral contents of the flours were determined using the association of official analytical chemistry (AOAC) and atomic absorbance spectroscopy (AAS) methods respectively. The result shows a significant (p < 0.05) increase in the moisture, ash, lipid and protein contents of the fermented flour when compared to the unfermented flour with the higher values occurring in the samples fermented with the LAB consortium. The carbohydrate and fiber content decreased significantly (p < 0.05) after fermentation. The result of the mineral contents of both unfermented and fermented acha flours demonstrated that magnesium, copper, iron, zinc, sodium, phosphorus, and calcium levels significantly increased (p≤ 0.05) through LAB fermentation, while potassium levels remained unchanged. This observation shows that LAB fermentation has the potential to enhance nutritional quality of acha flour more than spontaneous fermentation and can be applied in microbial food fortification.
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