The Impact of Sweet Potato Flour Supplementation on Functional and Sensorial Properties of Yoghurt

Sweet potatoes have become a research focus in recent years, due to their par-ticular nutritional and functional qualities. Considering yoghurt is one of the most popular dairy products, sweet potato supplementation will play a significant impact on the produced yoghurt texture it will also add attractive orange colour to the final product. The article focused on the replacement of the stabilizers used in the manufacture of yoghurt with sweet potato flour dehydrated in a lab (SPFL) due to its functional features and a less expensive alternative and the improvement of yoghurt colour due to the presence of anthocyanin pigment. In order to reach these goals, experimental yoghurt was fortified with 0, 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 g SPFL/100g cow milk (%) and stored at 4˚C for 14 days. The obtained data were then compared with commercial yoghurt samples (CS1, CS2, CS3, and CS4). Sensory evaluation revealed that the 2% SPFL, CS1, and CS3 obtained higher scores than the other treatments. The fat content of the yoghurts was identical whereas, the other physicochemical parameters and water holding capacity (WHC %) levels varied. SPFL supplementation had a significant impact on the rheological properties of yoghurt production, allowing sweet potato flour to replace the industrial stabiliser. Scanning Electron Micrograph (SEM) of yoghurt enriched with SPFL revealed denser and smaller gaps, as well as the presence of sweet potato globules embedded in and attached to the gel matrix. The results obtained in the present research imply that sweet potatoes can be used to produce a kind of cohesive and gummy yoghurt that can be used instead of industrial stabilizers.