Reducing hydrocyanic acid content, nutritional and sensory quality evaluation of edible bamboo shoot based food products

Abstract

Bamboo shoots are emerging as a good food option owing to its high nutritional value. Therefore bamboo; an uncommon, underutilized and unexplored food was analyzed in the present study for its nutritive value, Hydrocyanic acid (HCN) content, sensory and nutritional quality of formulated food products. It was analyzed that fresh bamboo shoot contains 90.74% moisture, 2.39% protein, 0.33% fat, 1.11% total ash, 1.48% crude fiber, 3.95 % carbohydrate and 28 kcal/100g of energy. Though, HCN is present in considerable amount in fresh, raw bamboo shoots (944mg/kg in tip, 795mg/kg in mid portion and 551 mg/kg in basal portion); four different processing methods viz. boiling, steaming, soaking and dehydration at different temperatures and time; were studied to reduce the HCN content. Further, two products were formulated viz.”Bamboo shoot pakora” and “bamboo shoot vegetable” for the sensory evaluation and it was found that bamboo shoot pakora was not only more acceptable than bamboo shoot vegetable but also had an edge over bamboo shoot vegetable in terms of all sensory characteristics. “Bamboo shoot pakora” was found to contain more protein, energy and carbohydrate as compared to “bamboo shoot vegetable” on the basis of nutritional analysis.