Development of a Restructured Protein Based on Low Cost Legumes

The aim of this research was to elaborate a vegetable restructured protein with low cost leguminous plants, using cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.), pea (Pisum sativum L.) and lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.). Child malnutrition has it’s origins on the scarcity of economic resources, the lack of various foodstuffs in one region and also due to the government’s promotion and prevention policies that do not meet the full coverage of the most vulnerable regions. The raw and restructured materials were bromatologically characterized on three formulations: F1 (25% cowpea, 25% pea and 25% lentil), F2 (50% cowpea and 25% pea) and F3 (50% cowpea and 25% lentil). A sensory acceptance test was carried out with 50 potential tasters using a 9-point hedonic scale which evaluated attributes of appearance, color, aroma, texture and flavor. We used a randomized block design with three replicates, data were subjected to variance analysis and Tukey's test (p≤0.05). The lentil, pea and cowpea protein content was 30.94±0.30%, 28.96±0.16% and 26.21±0.40%, respectively. On the acceptance test with the hedonic scale, the tasters did not find significant differences (p≥0.05) between the attributes of color, appearance, aroma, texture and flavor. The Acceptability Index presented significant differences (p≤0.05) between formulations three and one and formulation two differed statistically (p≥0.05) from formulations one and three. The Only flavor had a significant difference (p≤0.05), in which formulation three was highlighted.