Composite Flours and Breads: Potential of Local Crops in Developing Countries
Publisher Summary Many crops in developing countries, such as plantains, soybeans, tigernuts, and breadfruits, possess inherent nutritional values and therapeutic properties that could be exploited for enhancement of human nutrition and well-being. Such nutritional values could be transformed into human use by wheat-composite flour technology for bread production. Composite flours are mixtures of different vegetable flours–rich in starch, protein, and/or other nutrients–—with or without wheat flour. The ingredients used in composite flours depend on the availability of raw materials in the country concerned. The goal is to minimize cost of production compared to the cost of imported wheat because this would enable affordability of the final product by consumers. The presence of at least 70% wheat flour is required for good dough formation in wheat-composite flour for bread production. Irrespective of the low level of flour from crops that could be successfully adopted in composite flour/bread technology, it will accrue in great savings of the scarce resources of most developing countries, especially in Africa, where wheat cultivation does not thrive for climatic reasons.