EFFECT OF DRYING METHODS ON CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF MORINGA LEAVES POWDER

Mansour, Salah Y.; Abd El-Moity, Seham F.; El-Shourbagy, Gehan A.; Siliha, H. A.

doi:10.21608/zjar.2016.65573

EFFECT OF DRYING METHODS ON CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF MORINGA LEAVES POWDER

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Pl. Prod. Dept., Des. Res. Cent., Egypt

² Food Sci. Dept., Fac. Agric. Zagazig Univ., Egypt

10.21608/zjar.2016.65573

Abstract

Moringa leaves contain large amount of several important nutrients which are essential to the human body. The present investigation efforts have been made to prepare powder from (Moringa oleifera L.) leaves by different drying methods, including shadow drying, and oven drying at different temperatures (50°C, 60°C and 70°C). Results indicated that shadow dried sample was better than oven dried samples due its high nutrients content. Moisture, protein, fat, fiber, ash and total carbohydrate contents of moringa powder were found in the range of 4.80 -6.77%, 21.52 to 22.90%, 7.94 -9.11%, 9.36-11.21%, 7.71-8.13% and 53.09- 60.12%, respectively. Sixteen amino acids were identified in moringa leaves powder. Lysin, leucine and phenylalanine were the most abundant essential amino acids in all studied samples. Moringa leaves powder contained 17 fatty acids. The highest saturated fatty acid was palmitic acid (C_16:0) of dried moringa leaves dried at 50^oC (10.77g/ 100g fat) while the major unsaturated fatty acid was α-Linolenic (C_18:3) of dried moringa leaves dried at 60^oC (52.46 g/100g fat). Vitamins A, E and C were present in different concentrations, where the highest values were found in fresh moringa leaves followed by leaves dried in shadow while those of lower values were found in oven dried sample. Results also illustrated that the moringa leaves powder is rich source of natural antioxidants. The highest content of the identificated sugars in moringa leaves powder (shadow drying) was stachyose (1009.75 mg/100g). Glucuronic acid was found in moderate concentration (876.59 mg/100g). Sucrose and raffinose were also detected (608.68 mg/100g, 607.89 mg/100g), respectively in moringa leaves powder. The study revealed that dried leaf powder of moringa can serve as an excellent source of nutrientional value and it was concluded that shadow drying method was the best method for drying moringa leaves.

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