Banana peels aren’t at all times destined for the trash or compost anymore. They’re making their manner onto individuals’s plates, changing pork in “pulled peel” sandwiches and getting fried up into “bacon.” And now, researchers reporting in ACS Meals Science & Know-how present that incorporating banana peel flour into sugar cookie batter makes the treats extra healthful. In style assessments, cookies enriched with some banana peel flour have been extra satisfying than these baked with wheat flour alone.
Curiosity in plant-based diets and decreasing meals waste is rising, and folks need artistic methods to make use of each a part of their greens and fruits. Banana peels are one such waste that cooks and residential cooks have been experimenting with, however these skins are extraordinarily fibrous, making them disagreeable to eat uncooked. Lately, scientists discovered that they’ll grind the peels right into a flour that is wealthy in fiber, magnesium, potassium and antioxidant compounds. And when small quantities of wheat flour in breads and truffles have been changed with the brand new flour, the baked items have been extra nutritious and had acceptable flavors. Nevertheless, related experiments have not been broadly achieved with cookies. So, Faizan Ahmad and colleagues wished to substitute a number of the wheat flour in sugar cookies with banana peel flour, assessing the cookies’ dietary high quality, shelf-stability and client acceptance.
To make banana peel flour, the researchers peeled ripe, undamaged bananas after which blanched, dried and floor the skins right into a nice powder. They combined collectively completely different quantities of the powder with butter, skimmed milk powder, powdered sugar, vegetable oil and wheat flour, creating 5 batches of sugar cookies, and baked them.
Rising the quantity of the banana peel flour from 0 to fifteen% within the batches produced browner and more durable merchandise, which could possibly be a results of the elevated fiber content material from the peels. As well as, cookies with banana peel flour have been extra healthful, having much less fats and protein, greater quantities of phenols and higher antioxidant actions than the standard ones. A skilled panel decided that cookies with the smallest substitution of banana peel flour (7.5%) had the most effective texture and highest general acceptability in comparison with the opposite batches. This batch additionally stored effectively for 3 months at room temperature — it tasted the identical because the wheat-only variations after the prolonged storage interval. As a result of cookies may be enriched with some banana peel flour with out impacting their client acceptance, the researchers say this addition might make these baked items extra nutritious.
The authors acknowledge funding from the Division of Put up-Harvest Engineering and Know-how, School of Agricultural Sciences, Aligarh Muslim College.
