I spent years trying to persuade my aunt to use banana stems as mulch. Now I have met a Canadian farmer who tried it once with one small patch of bananas and you can see the difference in plants for yourselves. The second picture shows that plants that had banana stem mulch in winter, the third picture has plants that got pond weed much in spring.
© All Rights Reserved
*Corresponding author.
Email:
naziah@usm.my
International Food Research Journal 19(4): 1479-1485 (2012)
Journal homepage:
http://www.ifrj.upm.edu.my
Ho, L. H., *Noor Aziah, A. A. and Rajeev Bhat
Department of Food Technology,
School of Industrial Technology,
Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Minden, Penang, Malaysia
Mineral composition and pasting properties of banana pseudo-stem flour from
Musa acuminata
X
balbisiana
cv. Awak grown locally in Perak, Malaysia
Abstract
The banana pseudo-stem is not currently utilised in the food industry. The aim of this research
was to investigate the chemical and pasting profile of banana pseudo-stem flour (BPF). Wheat
flour were substituted with BPF (0, 5, 15 and 30%) and the pasting profile were determined.
Results from mineral analysis showed that the levels of sodium (Na), potassium (K), calcium
(Ca), magnesium (Mg) and phosphorus (P) were higher than those of iron (Fe), zinc (Zn)
and manganese (Mn). The BPF had a 0.04% total titratable acidity (TTA) and a total soluble
solid (TSS) of 1.30
o
Brix with pH 5.41. BPF contained 28.26% total starch, 12.81% resistant
starch and a total digestible starch value of 15.45%. An increased substitution level of BPF into
wheat flour significantly (p<0.05) decreased the pasting viscosity (PV), breakdown (BD), final
viscosity (FV), setback (SB) and pasting temperature (PT) of the mixtures.
