Effect of Fermentation on Nutrient and Anti-nutrient Composition of Rice (Orisa sativa) and Mucuna (Mucuna pruriens) Blend Flours

In recent years there has been a shift in the focus of biotechnological progress to find new approaches in food fermentation and develop multifunctional microorganisms to improve the nutritional and health benefit of food. In the present study, rice-mucuna blends of different formulation, (100:0, 100:0, 90:10, 80:20, 70:30, 60:40, and 50:50) respectively, were subjected to solid state fermentation for 72 hours using pure strain of lactobacillus plantarum and investigated the effect of fermentation on the рH, titratable acidity, and the proximate and antinutrient content of the blend. We observed that the рH decreased with fermentation period while increase in the titratable acidity was noted after fermentation. The percentage protein, fat, and moisture content increased with fermentation period while carbohydrate and crude fiber decreased after fermentation. The anti-nutrient composition showed a decreased in the value with fermentation. Crude fiber recorded the lowest percentage of all the proximate content in the samples, the value ranged from 3.00±0.00 to 2.65±0.00 while carbohydrate recorded the highest value which ranged from 45.29±0.01 to 43.74±0.14. We hypothesized from our findings that prolong fermentation of rice-mucuna blends for 72 hours can increase the nutritional composition and reduce the anti-nutritional composition of the sample. However, the result obtained from this study revealed that using a pure strain of lactobacillus coupled with fermentation can enhance the nutritional benefits of rice-mucuna blends when fermented. (