Physio-Chemical Properties and Cyanide Content of Garri Produced from Biofortified Cassava Cultivars Using Different Fermentation Methods

Cassava is a staple food for over half a billion people in the developing world. Biofortified garri is described as yellow granular flour with a sour taste made from fermented, gelatinised fresh biofortified cassava roots. It can be consumed as snacks, a light meal when soaked in cold water and eaten with peanut, smoked fish, coconut or banana. Garri can also be consumed as a meal (when made into stiff dough-popularly referred to as eba and eaten with choice African soups). These make it the most popular diet amongst the rich and the poor, with acceptability cutting across the various socio-economic and multi-ethnic groups in Africa. It is produced by grating fresh roots into a mash, fermenting, de-watering, granulating, sifting, and roasting into gelatinised particles In this study, physio-chemical properties and the cyanide content of garri produced from biofortified cassava root cultivars were determined. The cultivars used were UMUCASS 45, UMUCASS 53 and UMUCASS 54. Fresh roots of these cultivars were harvested and processed into garri using three fermentation methods (Traditional, Backslopped, and Starter Culture). The ranges of pH of the garri samples were 4.01 to 4.28, 4.11 to 4.48, 3.92 to 4.16 and 4.03 to 4.50, while ranges of titratable acidity of the garri samples were 0.66 to 1.43, 0.66 to 1.37,0.63 to 1.85 and 0.88 to 0.99 for cultivars UMUCASS 45, UMUCASS 53, UMUCASS 54 and the control sample, respectively. The cyanide contents of the garri samples were in the ranges of 0.12 to 0.13, 0.10 to 0.14, 0.10 to 0.15 and 0.14 to 0.18 mg/100 g for cultivars UMUCASS 45, UMUCASS 53, UMUCASS 54 and the control sample, respectively. All the values obtained fell within the acceptable limits; this made the yellow garri of high-quality attributes.