Comparative Study on the Microbiological and Nutritional Qualities of Fermented Parkia Biglobosa Produced Locally and in the Laboratory

Fermentation makes the food condiment Parkiabiglobosa “Iru” to be more nutritious, digestible and safer with better flavour. Fermented Parkiabiglobosa‘Iru’ is known to have high protein content, thus serving a dual purpose of flavouring as well as source of protein supplement. There is only little information available on comparative evaluation of the nutritional quality of the locally produced “Iru” condiment with the one produced in the laboratory. Hence, this present study focusses on the evaluation of proximate and anti-nutrient composition of fermented Parkia biglobosa produced locally and in the laboratory. Result from the microbial examination revealed the bacterial load for the locally produced Parkiabiglobosa‘Iru’ ranged between 75.00 x103cfu/g and 264.66x103cfu/g while that of laboratory produced sample ranged between 5.33x103cfu/g and 84.33x103cfu/g. Lactic acid bacteria load was higher after de-hulling in the locally produced samples with a value of 84.33x103cfu/g and reduced significantly to 6.33 x103cfu/g after 72hrs of fermentation. Fungal load of the laboratory produced Parkiabiglobosa ‘Iru’ reduced significantly (P<0.05) as fermentation progresses. More so, the proximate analysis revealed that Ash content also increased significantly (P<0.05) as fermentation progresses. The protein content also increased after 72hrs of fermentation in both local and laboratory produced ‘Iru’ samples. Carbohydrate content also reduced significantly from 34.35 to 14.47% and 32.82 to 20.80% for the locally produced and laboratory produced fermented Parkiabiglobosa respectively. Conclusively, this work had shown that contamination of fermented Parkiabiglobosa‘iru” might have originatedParkiabiglobosa might have originated from foot pressing during de-hulling, contaminated water, poor personal hygiene of food handlers and dirty environmental conditions during processing. Therefore, training about environmental sanitation is essential and highly recommended.