THESE UNIQUE El Hassane Kéhien-Piho TOU - Nutridev

Annexe-6
18 th International Congress of Nutrition, 19 - 23 September 2005, ICC, Durban, South Africa.
POSTER PATHWAY 8: Indigenous foods, novel foods, functional foods and safe foods
Nutritional and microbial characteristics of ben-saalga, a millet-based fermented gruel
from Burkina Faso used as complementary food
E. H. Tou 1, 2* , C. Mouquet-Rivier 2 , A. S. Traoré 1 , S. Trèche 2 , JP. Guyot 2
1 Université de Ouagadougou/UFR-SVT/ CRSBAN, Burkina Faso
2 UR106 « Nutrition, Alimentation, Sociétés », Institut de Recherche pour le Développement
(IRD), BP 64501, 34394 Montpellier, France
*corresponding author: elassane@yahoo.fr
Abstract
Ben-saalga is a millet-based fermented gruel frequently used as complementary food in
Burkina Faso. The objective of this study is to describe the traditional processing methods,
nutritional and microbial compositions which are necessary for investigating ways to improve
both the nutritional and sanitary quality of the foodstuff. In this work, the traditional
processing of pearl millet into ben-saalga and fermentation kinetics were investigated in 24
and 5 traditional production units, respectively. Processing steps include: washing (optional),
soaking of the grains (first fermentation step), grinding and sieving of the wet flour, settling
(second fermentation step), and cooking. The soaking step was mainly characterized by
alcoholic fermentation whereas lactic acid fermentation occurred during the settling step. The
paste produced at the end of settling had a low pH value (4.0 ± 0.4) and its micro biota was
dominated by lactic acid bacteria (LAB) with an Amylolytic LAB: LAB ratio of 12%.
Sucrose disappeared in the grains during soaking but was not detected in the soaking water,
whereas glucose, fructose and maltose appeared transiently. Glucose and fructose were the
main substrates observed for lactic acid fermentation during the settling step. At the end of the
processing, 75% and 83% decrease was observed in phytate (IP6) and raffinose, respectively.
The sour gruel ben-saalga resulting from cooking the sour paste had inadequate nutritional
characteristics with respect to infants’ and young children’s requirements; it was characterized
by fluid consistency (Bostwick flow: 137 mm/30s), low protein (8.2 ± 0.9 g/100g DM) and fat
content (4.7 ± 0.8 g/100g DM) and low energy density (about 30 kcal/100g of gruel).
Therefore, further investigations are needed to improve the nutritional quality of ben-saalga
to cover nutritional needs of young children and infant of Burkina Faso.
Key-words: lactic acid fermentation, pearl millet, complementary food, phytate, α-
galactoside, amylolytic lactic acid bacteria