Studies on the proximate composition, functional properties and effect of pH and salt concentrations on some functional properties of <i>Ackee</i> apple aril flours

Abstract

The present study produced full fat and defatted flours from matured ackee apple arils and evaluated the proximate composition and the effect of pH and salt concentrations on some of the functional properties of the full fat flour and the defatted flour. Matured ackee apple arils were oven-dried at 60 ^oC and milled to obtain dried arils whole flours. The flour was divided into two portions: The first portion was subjected to cold acetone extraction at room temperature (28 ± 2 ^oC). The residual solvent in the sample was evaporated at room temperature to obtain the dried defatted flour (ADF). The second portion was taken as full fat flour (AWF). Proximate composition, functional properties and effect of pH and salt concentration on some functional properties were evaluated. The results of the proximate composition showed that the protein content of ADF was 36.43% while that of AWF was 20.13%. The bulk density, water absorption and oil absorption capacities, foaming properties and emulsifying properties of ADF were also observed to be higher than that of AWF. The solubility profile of the flours showed that ADF was more soluble than AWF and both samples were least soluble at pH 4 and the highest solubility was observed at pH 10. Increase in salt concentrations of the sample solutions was observed to increase some of the functional properties of the sample at each of the pH values considered. The study concluded that ackee apple flours could find applications as functional ingredient in food.

Keywords: Ackee apple, Proximate composition, Functional properties, Protein solubility