ABSTRACT

The research was carried out to find out the effect of processing on the nutrient composition of moringa leaves and evaluate the sensory properties of the produced from the different samples.one (1) kg of Moringa leaves was harvested from stem by hand, sorted. They was divided into five parts of 200g each for  two techniques of drying drying used which are  oven and sun drying and. The first 2 portions were not blanched for drying, each part was washed under a running tap and poured into a basket to drip excess water. One part was oven dried at 60C for 6hrs, the other sample was sun dried by spreading two trays on a table under the sun consecutively for 6 days. The second 2 portions were blanched. For the blanching process, the leave was washed and drained, steam blanched at 95°C for 5 minutes, 10 minutes and 15 minutes in a steam cooker before oven drying at 60oC for 6hrs and sundrying for 6 consecutive days. The last portion was analysed fresh. The samples were analysed for their proximate value using AOAC (2015) methods, while vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals were using, Onwuka (2018) methods. The samples were coded as FML which is the fresh moringa leave, BOML which is the blanched oven dried moringa leaves, UOML which is the unblanched oven dried moringa leaves, BSML which is the blanched sun dried moringa leaves and USML which is the unblanched sun dried moringa leaves. The result of the proximate composition showed that the moisture content of the FML (75.69%) was higher than other samples with a significant difference (P<0.05) and was least in sample UOML (5.39%). Protein contents was highest in sample UOML (22.05%) and was least in sample FML (10.54%). The fat contents was highest in sample USML (2.85%) and least in sample FML (0.73%) with a significant difference (P<0.05). Crude fibre was highest in sample UOML (11.17%) and least in sample FML (8.85%). Ash was highest in sample UOML (9.21%) and least in sample FML (2.45%) and carbohydrate contents was highest in sample BSML (56.55%) and least in sample FML (1.73%). The result of the mineral and vitamin content revealed that calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and zinc was highest in sample UOML (702.41/100mg, 95.91/100mg,155.63/100mg and 0.16/100mg) respectively. Vitamin E was highest in sample UOML while vitamin K was highest in sample BSDML (P<0.05). Oxalate, saponin, tannin and flavonoid was highest in sample FML (7.83, 1.30, 0.90 and 1.86/100mg) respectively with a significant difference (P<0.05). The result of the sensory properties showed that there was no significant difference (P<0.05) in the color, taste, flavor and general acceptability of all the samples.