Nutritional Profile and Sensory Evaluation of Synthesized Food Spice (Lippia multiflora, Scent leaves (Ocimum gratissimum) and African black pepper (Piper nigrum)

Abstract

Spice being the product of dried fruit, seed root, bark, or vegetative substances, are primarily used for flavoring, coloring, and preserving foods. This study investigated some physico-chemical composition and sensory acceptability of food spice produced from Lippia multiflora leaves, scent leaves (O. gratissimum) and black pepper (Piper nigrum) seeds. The proximate composition revealed that the spice had a moisture content of 9.3%; protein content of 11.18%; ash content of 3.3%; crude fibre content of 3.4%; fat content of 15.33% and carbohydrate content of 57.5%.

The spice had considerable amounts of phosphorus (135.3 ppm), potassium (319.2 ppm), calcium (64.3 ppm) and magnesium (157.2 ppm), while lead and Iron were low and copper was absent.

The phytate, oxalate and tannin values for the food spice were 0.71 mg/100g, 1.2 mg/100g and 0.51 mg/100 g respectively.

The pH, titratable acidity, solubility, water absorption capacity, bulk density and swelling power were 6.19, 1.15%, 6.48%, 3.17 mL/g, 0.74 g/mL and 14.96 g/g respectively. The spice compared favourably with available established commercial food spice in terms of taste, flavour and overall acceptability.

These results indicate that the spice had good physicochemical attributes and contains appreciable amount of food nutrients which can find suitable application in nutrition and food processing.