Prospects for Industrial Utilization of Tacca (Tacca involucrata) in Nigeria

Abstract

Tacca involucrata (L.) Kuntze is a species of flowering plant. It is commonly known as Polynesian arrow-root (English).  In Nigeria, the plant is more widely spread in the middle , south west and in the south eastern states. The need to develop non tree forest products that have food and industrial use potentials has become imperative in parts of Africa. This is due to the fact that millions of people in many developing countries do not have enough food to meet their daily requirements. This has led to assiduous research on the development of some non-timber forest plant species to ascertain their food and industrial potentials.  The phytochemical analysis of tacca, reported the presence of reducing sugars, tannins, flavonoids, steroids, glycosides and hydrogen cyanide at 195.65 ± 0.5, 3.44 ± 0.2, 1.29 ± 0.5, 0.83 ± 0.4, 1.36 ± 1.0 and 0.00985 ± 0.3 (mg/100g), respectively. The study on proximate analysis of the marc showed it to contain moisture, ash, fats, fibre, crude protein and carbohydrate in the range of 10.83% ± 0.3%, 1.93% ± 0.6%, 1.06% ± 0.5%, 4.42% ± 0.4%, 6.12% ± 0.6% and 86.07% ± 0.3%, respectively. The proximate analysis also showed it to be a good candidate for nutrition with 76% carbohydrate, 6% protein, 4% fibre, 2% ash and about 1% fats.  Various studies on tacca have shown it to contain about 30% starch.  Most of the studies indicated that the starch had low lipid content (0.09%).  They also reported amylose content of 36% and gelatinization temperature of 52–65 °C for the starch. The biscuit produced from wheat–tacca flour composite at varying compositions of tacca flour ranging from 5 to 20% incorporations levels (TEB5%, TEB10%, TEB15 and TEB20%) showed that all the samples substituted with modified tacca flour had better haematological properties, in vitro antioxidative properties and lipid peroxidative properties compared to the 100% wheat biscuit. Specifically, the sample TEB20% (20% tacca flour incorporation) had the best nutritional qualities. Toxicological studies showed that samples with tacca flour incorporation are better than 100% wheat flour biscuit and basal diet. This indicated that tacca flour could successfully supplement wheat flour in the production of nutritionally rich and toxicologically safe biscuit with over 70% overall sensory acceptability. Likewise, the incorporation of tacca flour in spaghetti production may reduce the risks of obesity, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.  In addition being gluten free, tacca may replace wheat in certain food applications to reduce the incidence of celiac disease (CD) or other allergic reactions to gluten. These developments indicated that tacca can assist in alleviating hunger and the cost of importation of various raw materials, most especially, starch in Nigeria.

Keywords: Tacca involucrata, starch, gelatinisation, swelling power, biscuit and pasta.

DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/14-13-02

Publication date: December 31^st 2023