Mineral and anti-nutritional properties of pearl millet and pumpkin leaf flour as affected by fermentation

This study was aimed at determining the mineral and anti-nutritional properties of naturally fermented millet and pumpkin leaf flour blends. The millet grains were allowed to ferment spontaneously for 24 hrs and 48 hrs and were processed into flour. Dried pumpkin leaves were blended into flour and substituted using D-optimal mixture design, which resulted in ten experimental runs. The mineral content and the anti-nutritional properties of the flour blend formulation were analysed. Duncan’s multiple range test was used to evaluate the mean at p < 0.05 with SPSS version 21.0. Significant differences were observed in the mineral and anti-nutritional composition of the fermented millet and pumpkin leaf flour blends at 24 hrs and 48 hrs of fermentation time respectively. Calcium, potassium, and iron content increased significantly (p < 0.05) with increasing the amount of pumpkin leaf flour in the flour blends. The values for tannins and total phenolic composition ranged from 0.089 to 0.162% and from 0.075 to 0.120% for 24 hrs and from 0.080 to 0.141% and from 0.060 to 0.120% for 48 hrs of fermentation time respectively. Results showed that fermentation technique could be used to enrich the nutritional and bioactive potential of millet.