Published Paper Details:

There has been an increasing awareness regarding the ill effects of the junk foods in the society. Consumers prefer healthy and nutritious foods in place of junk foods these days. Calcium is required during all stages of the human life cycle. Millets are a rich source of calcium and is locally available and affordable to all economical segments of the society. Kulkuls, are popular ready to eat sweet snacks usually prepared during Christmas. The commercially available ready to eat snacks are not nutrient dense and does not serve any calcium requirements. An investigation was undertaken to develop a ready to eat value added fried snack Kulkul millet bites. Development and standardization trials of the Kulkuls (basic) and three variations of value added kulkul millet bites (V1, V2, V3 ) was carried out in the Food and Nutrition laboratory. In this study, sensory evaluation, proximate analysis and shelf life study of the Kulkul millet bites was taken up. The standardized products were subjected to sensory evaluation by 15 semi trained panelists using a 9-point hedonic rating scale. Sensory attributes included appearance, colour, texture, taste, odour and overall acceptability. Sensory evaluation results indicated Kulkul millet bites variation (V1) containing Ragi 50%, Egg - 20%, Butter - 15%, Sugar 8%,kalonji seeds -3%, fennel seeds - 2%, sesame seeds-2% was best accepted. The sensory attributes of value added Kulkul millet bites with reference to appearance, colour, texture and overall acceptability exhibited notable differences among the variations. However, taste and odour did not show statistically significant differences. Nutritional analysis of the best accepted variation (V1) showed to contain 7.48% moisture, 4.56 g protein, 31.13 g fat, 5.33 g total fiber,1.37 g ash, 50.13g carbohydrate, 456.02 kcal energy and 58.9 mg calcium per 100 g of value added kulkul millet bites, on cooked weight basis with a shelf life of 10 days at room temperature. This easy to prepare, tasty, nutrient dense Kulkul millet bites, developed in this investigation could replace the junk food snacks and can be used anytime of the year. It can also be used by people who are calcium deficient and gluten intolerant.