Physicochemical and nutritional characteristics assessement of two different traditional foods prepared with senescent plantain

This study investigated the physico-chemical and nutritional properties of two foods widely consumed by population. Thus, the products were purchased from the markets of 10 municipalities of Abidjan city, and several analyses such as moisture, ash, dry matter, fat, protein, vitamin C, total sugars, carbohydrate, starch, energy value, pH and titrable acidity, using common scientific methods of food characteristics determination were performed. The results showed that the product from the baked preparation has more nutrients in fat, protein, vitamin C, sugars, carbohydrates and starch than the boiled one. Consequently, the energy value of baked product was higher (69.52 ± 0.03 kcal/100 g of fresh material (FM)) than the boiled product (64.30 ± 0.03 kcal/100 g FM). The higher content in moisture (67.68 ± 0.55%) of boiled product was not favourable for this conservation. In addition, the mineral contents of boiled and baked products were not significantly different (P>0.05). In view to their mineral composition, the two products may be important sources of potassium (353.37 ± 3.25 and 358.34 ± 2.68 mg/100 g FM), phosphorus (36.560 ± 0.959 and 37.047 ± 0.595 mg/100 g FM) and magnesium (34.12 ± 1.88 and 36.93 ± 1.10 mg/100 g FM). Others minerals such as calcium (6.65 ± 0.34 and 6.30 ± 0.49 mg/100 g FM), iron (0.56 ± 0.10 and 0.69 ± 0.03 mg/100 g FM), sodium (salt) (2.793 ± 0.281 and 2.677 ± 0.177 mg/100 g FM), copper (0.077 ± 0.004 and 0.073 ± 0.003 mg/100 g FM), zinc (0.19 ± 0.05 and 0.23 ± 0.02 mg/100g FM) and manganese (0.31 ± 0.04 and 0.38 ± 0.04 mg/100 g FM) were not too affected or eliminated by the processes.   Key words: Plantain, baked and boiled food, traditional food consumption, food habit, physico-chemical and nutritional qualities.