EFFECTS OF PROCESSING ON FUNCTIONAL PROPERTIES OF SOME MELON (EGUSI): LAGENERIA SICERARIA AND CITRULLUS VULGARIS SEED FLOURS

Abstract

Functional properties are the intrinsic physico-chemical characteristics which may affect the behaviour of food system during processing and storage. Dried seeds of Lageneriasiceraria (African wine kettle) and Citrullus vulgaris were processed into boiled, roasted, germinated and fermented flour samples. Standard methods were used to determine the functional properties of the processed samples in order to determine the effects of these processing techniques on water absorption capacity (WAC) and oil absorption capacity (OAC), bulk density (BD) and foaming capacity (FC).WAC and OAC of raw Lageneria siceraria flour are 2.451±0.164 (g/g) and 6.417±0.369 (g/g) respectively. These values are higher than the WAC and OAC determined for raw Citrullus vulgaris. However, these values are generally reduced with processing for the two seed flour samples, except for the higher WAC value of germinated Citrullus vulgaris, OAC values of roasted and germinated Citrullus vulgaris as well as the higher WAC of fermented Lageneriasiceraria seed flours. Fermentation increased the FC of Lageneriasiceraria , while roasting, boiling and germination reduced the FC of Lageneriasiceraria. However, the foaming stability (FS) of the raw samples of the two seeds are higher than FS of the processed seed flour samples after 2 hours.