Effects of Dehulling on the Vitamins, Minerals and Sensory Properties of Toasted African Breadfruit (Treculia africana) Seeds

Toasted dehulled African breadfruit seeds are popular snack in the south eastern part of Nigeria. Consumption of toasted dehulled seeds may result in hidden hunger due to some nutrient losses during toasting. Raw breadfruit seeds bought from the markets were sorted and divided into two batches. One batch was parboiled at 100°C for 15 minutes, manually dehulled, winnowed to remove the hulls and toasted in a frying pan at 45°C for 30 m with constant stirring to obtain crispy light brown seeds. The other batch was toasted without dehulling at same temperature-time regime and allowed to cool to room temperature before manual dehulling. Nutrient content of dehulled and undehulled toasted seeds were evaluated with standard analytical methods for nutrient losses and sensory properties to know the effects on acceptability. This study was carried out in Umuahia, Abia State capital of Abia State Nigeria between March and June, 2018. Results showed that un-dehulled toasted breadfruit (UTB) sample had significant (P=.05) higher vitamin A (1.62 mg/100 g), B1 (0.03 mg/100 g), B2 (0.02 mg/100 g), B3 (0.85 mg/100 g), vitamins C (2.61 mg/100/g), E (0.43 mg/100 g) than dehulled toasted breadfruit (DTB) sample with 1.47 mg/100 g, 0.02 mg/100 g, 0.01 mg/100/g, 0.76 mg/100 g, 2.44 mg/100 g and 0.37 mg/100 g respectively for vitamins A, B1, B2, B3 C and E. The UTB had significantly (P=.05) higher calcium (48.23), phosphorous (55.35), sodium (22.72), zinc (0.93) than DTB with respective values of 43.66, 52.67, 20.09 and 0.04 all in mg/100 g The DTB sample had significant (P=.05) higher potassium (336.29) magnesium (35.97) and iron (1.68) than UTB with respective values of 295.86, 32.85 and 1.53 all in mg/100 g. The UTB had significant (p< 0.05) higher general acceptability (7.51) than DTB (7.36). The DTB had higher loss in all the vitamins and in some mineral than DTB with better acceptability.