Management of agro-industrial waste is an important area of study for researchers with multifarious objectives.Conversion of such wastes into useful food products has emerged as a bountiful industry e.g. mango seed kernel. It contains appreciable quantities of edible oil thus holds various food applications due to presence of higher amount of oleic and stearic acid. In the present research, the lipid fraction from mango kernel were extracted and explored for their potential to replace (varying from 5 to 25%) normal shortenings in cereal baked products. In the first phase, Keywords: food security, alternative food resources, mango kernel, lipid fraction, biscuit shortenings
IntroductionIn the developing economies, the problem of food security is one of the burning issues. Although, Pakistan is regarded as agricultural economy but still there are some sectors where self sufficiency can't be claimed. Amongst, edible oil production is one example as country is spending ~2.45 billions dollars on importing palm, sunflower, canola, and soybean oil to meet its domestic requirements (GOP, 2011-12). The problems of food security can be addressed using multilateral approaches. Since, a substantial segment of the population in Pakistan has been living below the poverty line. Their purchasing power for basic eatable commodities has been diminishing day by day. Therefore, the situation calls for the utilization of some alternative cheap sources which could be furnished into low-price and economical food grade edible oil. In this regard, agro-industrial waste products generated at farm or processing areas are of considerable importance as Little efforts have been made to utilize mango seed kernel for the preparation of value added food products in Pakistan so far.Internationally price of mango kernel lipid fraction is 28 dollars for 4 ounce packet. Although, the mango-seed kernel contains around 10 _ 12% oil contents (Hug et al., 1985) but no planned study has been documented so far focusing upon the utilization and management of mango waste for the production of edible oil in Pakistan. The current study aims to explore the possibilities to exploit mango waste (Kernel seed) for obtaining oil for its utilization in various forms in food. The extraction of edible oil from mango-seed kernel needs to be revolutionized as some older techniques like hydraulic and screw press are not suitable for this commodity. Therefore, solvent extraction system using hexane was used for the purpose. The extracted oil was evaluated for its physical and chemical quality along with assessing its suitability to replace normal biscuit shortenings. Initially, mango kernels were collected and analyzed for nutritional composition. Later, the lipid fraction was extracted and used to replace normal biscuits shortening and its suitability in cereal products was assessed.The results from this study will result in commercialization and stakeholders can utilize the present research for industrialization. et al. (1990).
Materials and MethodsFor the purpose 0...