Agriculture and Food Sciences Research

The nutritional, antioxidants and physicochemical properties of rice flour is being improved by the addition of carrot, date palm and defatted soybean flours. The effect of the addition of defatted soy bean (5 - 15%), carrot (5 - 15%) and date palm (10 - 20%) flours on the chemical compositions; antioxidants and functional properties; and pasting characteristics of rice-based composite flour were investigated. While defatted soy beans (15%) resulted in the highest protein content (17.86%), blend with highest carrot flour inclusion had the highest ash (1.88%) and crude fiber (1.93%) contents. The sample with highest carrot inclusion (15%) had the best antioxidant and functional properties followed by the sample with soy bean incorporation from 10 to 15%. The same sample with 15% carrot inclusion had the second best pasting characteristics, next to that of 100% rice flour sample. It was noted that the samples consisting date palm (80% rice and 20% date palm flours; 80% rice, 5% soybean, 5% carrot and 10% date palm flours) had the least chemical composition together with the least functional and antioxidant properties. However, the sample with date palm incorporation had the third best pasting properties while 100% rice flour had the best pasting properties. Overall, carrot flour incorporation resulted in rice based composite flour with the best fibre and minerals contents; functional and antioxidants properties closely followed by sample with 10-15% soybean incorporation.