Effect of carrot powder incorporation on the quality of pasta

Carrot powder at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30% was incorporated into wheat flour to produce pasta. The quality of the resulting wheat-carrot pasta was evaluated. There was significant (p<0.05) decrease in moisture (8.95 to 8.76%), crude protein (12.82 to 10.84%) and carbohydrate (75.59 to 74.13%) contents of the wheat-based pasta. Conversely, crude fat (1.38 to 1.49%), crude fiber (0.82 to 2.43%) and ash (0.44 to 2.35%) contents increased. Increment in vitamins B1 (0.41 to 0.44mg/100g), B3 (3.35 to 3.80mg/100g), B6 (0.38 to 0.54mg/100g), C (0.54 to 3.14mg/100g), E (0.68 to 1.54mg/100g), K (1.81 to 29.28 µg/100g) and beta carotene (1.03 to 6.13mg/100g) content was observed with carrot incorporation in a concentration dependent manner. Calcium, iron, potassium and sodium contents increased significantly (p<0.05) from 33.47 to 84.03mg/100g, 3.55 to 3.70mg/100g, 359.30 to 960.70mg/100g and 2.00 to 64.37mg/100g respectively. Apparent and bulk densities of the pasta significantly (p<0.05) increased (0.76 to 0.86gml-1 and 1.56 to 1.69gml-1 respectively) with increase in carrot powder. Pasta with 10% carrot powder was most generally most accepted. The study has shown that acceptable and micronutrient enriched pasta can be produced from wheat flour incorporated with carrot powder up to 30%.