Aim: This study aims to evaluate the effect of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) fermentation on the nutritional and mineral composition of millet flour.
Methods: Millet was processed into flour, then fermented spontaneously and with Aerococcus viridans 4448 and Limosilactobacillus fermentum SCB0035 combined in a co-culture for 72 h. 250g of the flour was mixed with sterile distilled water in a ratio of 1:2w/v. Exactly 0.02% of sodium metabisulphite was added to the mixture to suppress the growth of contaminating organisms before the addition of the starter culture. The setup for spontaneous fermentation did not include sodium metabisulphite and starter organisms. The fermentation products were analyzed for proximate and mineral contents using the association of official analytical chemistry (AOAC) and atomic absorbance spectroscopy (AAS) methods respectively.
Result: The result shows that the bacteria load increased within the first 48 h with a slight decrease after 72 h in both spontaneous and LAB fermented flours. There was a decrease in the pH of millet flour during fermentation which ranged from 5.00±0.00 to 4.75±0.00 (spontaneous fermentation) and from 4.92±0.00 to 3.96±0.00 (LAB fermentation). The result for the proximate composition of the fermented and unfermented millet flours showed a significant (P
Key words: Fermentation, Lactic acid bacteria, mineral content, proximate, millet flour, bioavailability
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