Comparison of the acceptability of traditional Cameroon sauces made with addition of oil seeds to improve nutritional value

Nutrition in West Africa as a whole and in Cameroon in particular is not an issue of human survival. Rather, it is one of supplementing traditional foods to increase nutrition in the predominantly carbohydrate diet. Oilseeds such as winged bean, groundnut, melon seed (egusi), and soybean can add substantial protein and calorie content to the diet. For this study, those oilseeds were ground into a paste and added to cassava leaves, huckleberry leaves, or bitter leaves and cooked into a sauce. Each sauce was cooked in the traditional manner with help of women from the tribal groups having the respective sauces as specialties. For the acceptability tests, 28 male and female volunteers representing different tribes and educational levels tasted each of the sauces served with boiled green plantains. Sauces made with bitter leaves appeared to be most acceptable if they were prepared with winged bean or egusi. Sauces made with huckleberry leaves had the highest scores when winged bean or soybean were used individually, when no oilseed was used, or when a blend of winged bean with egusi was used. Cassava leaf sauces had the highest scores when winged bean or soybean was used as the only oilseed.

Key words:

• Acceptability
• winged bean
• soybean
• egusi
• groundnut
• Cameroon
• sauces
• nutritive content