Author : Garcia, Rosemarie G.

Summary : Coconut flour has been identified as a promising ingredient in the formulation of functional food products due to its high dietary fiber content but production has not been put to commercial operation. One of the reasons for the delay in commercial scale production was that the process parameters were not optimized. This study was conducted to evaluate the processing variables affecting the quality of flour produced from coconut meat residue, determine the optimum parameters for the production of flour using response surface methodology and to analyze the physico-chemical properties of the coconut flour produced using optimized parameters. Fifteen flour samples were processed following the Box-Behnken experimental design. ten quality parameters were used to determine the effects of three independent variables namely waiting time, blanching time and moisture content before expelling, on the quality of flour produced. The verification study showed that the difference predicted and experimental values were not significant for color (L-value), % flour and oil yield, moisture content, sensory evaluation of color, odor, texture and general acceptability. The model equations generated, can therefore be used to predict these parameters. The comparison of the optimized flour to the control showed that there was no significant difference on the protein, carbohydrates and energy content of the two flours. Although the fat content of the optimized flour was higher than the control flour, it is still within the requirements for low fat flour which is less than 15% fat content. The dietary fiber content of the optimized flour was slightly higher than the control flour due to the inclusion of the testa on the coconut meat residue and the larger particle size of the optimized flour. The results of this study will be useful for the scale-up production of flour made from coconut residue and eventual commercialization.