ABSTRACT
El objetive of this study was to determine the nutrional quality of the pasta described above. The work was unique in the following aspects: 1) the drying process was a nonconcentional method, consisting of a high-temperature short-time (HTST) process; 1) the nutritional quality of the wheat pasta was improved by the cowpea supplementation. Cowpea was especially chosen due to it being a staple food in the diet of the people in Northeast Brazil. Benefits attrributed to the diet of the people in Northeast Brazil. Benefits attrributed to the HTST drying process include a reduction in bacterial counts, shorter processing time and less energy consumption. In addition, there are reports in the literature of improved pasta firmness, color intensity, and cooking characteristics, when non Tricum durum materials plus drying are used. The pasta produced in this work was made using 100 por ciento soft wheat flour (SP), and soft wheat flour (SF) mixed supplemented with 10,20 and 30 por ciento dehulled cowpea meal (CM); refered to as 10,20 and 30 por ciento SP, respectively. The methods utilized in this proyect includes: AACC methods for proximate analysis and trypsin inhibitor activity determination, atomic absorption spectrophotometry for mineral determination, a dyebinding procedure for measuring availablelysine, HPLC for amino acid quantification, FAO/WHO amino acid scoring patterms for chemical scores and AOAC for protein digestibility. The protein content of the pastas supplemented with CM ranged from 11.3 to 14.2 per cento, white the 100 por ciento SF pasta (SP) contained 10.9 per cento. CM supplementation resulted in 52 to 113 per cento more total lysine, and 26 to 82 per cento more available lysine in the CM pasta compared to the SP. Chemical scores dor SP were 45 and 59 por ciento for preschool and school-age children, respectively. Adding 30 por ciento CM to SP impproved the above chemical scores to 89 and 100+, respectively. However, te addition of CM compromised the in vitro protein digestibility of SP from 4 to 6 per cento. The addition fo 30 per cento CM provided the SP with greater calcium (Ca), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu): 44,49, 91 and 402 per cento respectively. Cooking the CM pasta resulted in a 50 to 90 per cent retention of mineral content, with the greatest loss being for Cu. In the cooked 30 per cent CM pasta, the contents of Fe, Zn and Cu, respectively, 50,67 amd 243 per cent greater thair content in the cooked SP