The nutritive quality of maize-soybean (70:30) tempe flour

Plant Foods for Human Nutrition (Formerly Qualitas Plantarum)

Volume 47 no 5 June 1995

J. Tchango Tchango

Abstract

The nutritive quality of maize-soybean (70:30) tempe flour manufactured by fermentation withRhizopus oligosporus: Rhizopus orysae (1:1) was determined using weanling rats. Mould fermentation of maize-soybean mixture did not significantly affect its proximate composition. It increased the content of reducing sugars, total acids and aminonitrogen by about 43, 195 and 482 percent, respectively, and decreased phytate content by 46 percent. In vitro iron absorption for maize flour and maize-soybean tempe flour was 2.46 and 5.51 percent, respectively. Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER) and Net Protein Ratio (NPR) for maize-soybean tempe flour and skim-milk diets were 2.71 and 2.96, respectively, for PER, and 3.31 and 3.51, respectively, for NPR. In vivo protein digestibility of the two products was 95.0 and 98.0 percent, respectively.

Key words Maize-soybean tempe flour - Minerals bioavailability - Mould fermentation - Phytate - Protein quality - Proximate composition