Shimelis Admassu (Prof.)Derese Wodajo2023-12-142023-12-142023-06http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/973Traditional foods are significant in using local resources and are generally more available to rural communities. Kemesha is a traditional food of the Arsi Zones in Ethiopia, made by mixing common wheat flour (Triticum aestivum) and water, followed by sheeting, rolling, cutting, and sun-drying. However, the process is labor-intensive, extremely sluggish, and produces uneven quality and unhygienic products. The study aimed to standardize, optimize and characterize Kemesha while enhancing its nutritional and functional qualities to increase its appeal. Initially, documenting the existing Kemesha-making process, then standardizing Kemesha based on the sensory acceptability test and quality characterization. The compositional analysis showed that standardized Kemesha contains 9.22, 2.13, 8.90, 1.25, 2.41, and 76.08 g/100 g moisture, fat, protein, crude fibre, and ash content, respectively. Findings on textural properties also revealed that the firmness, springiness, cohesiveness, adhesiveness, and chewiness were 904.94 g, 0.28, 0.45 24.94 g*s, and 114.40 g, respectively. Standardized Kemesha has a low cooking loss (7.25%) and a high water absorption percentage (180.62%). Wheat-based food is high in carbohydrates but low in other vital nutrients, including protein, fibre, and bioactive ingredients, which frequently cause nutrient imbalances among consumers. However, there has been a noticeable rise recently in the desire for a balanced diet that contains all the essential components, has fewer calories, and offers health benefits as a functional food. So, the study’s goal was also to use characterized haricot bean and pumpkin flour as raw materials to increase the nutritional value and functionality of standardized Kemesha, thereby increasing its acceptability. It is crucial to conduct a thorough analysis to preserve the bioactive components and other nutritional values of the crops while minimizing their anti-nutritional values to produce the value-added food product Kemesha from dry beans and pumpkin flour. Before processing first, we assessed the impact of bean variety on the geometric characteristics and mass-volume-area attributes of four improved haricot bean varieties. The moisture content, 1000 seed weight, and true density varied significantly (p < 0.05) in the range of 9 to 11.28%, 199.9 to 529.93 g, and 1127.52 to 1212.40 kg.m-3; also, the dimensional properties of the improved haricot bean were significant (p < 0.05) among the varieties indicating that these would require some variation in the processing equipment design. Then, the impacts of soaking (for 24 hours), germination (for 96 hours), autoclaving (at 121°C for 30 minutes), and germination followed by autoclaving processing methods were assessed on the physicochemical properties of haricot bean flours. The beans flour composition varied significantly from 8.05 to 9.72%, 23.11 to 27.96 %, 1.33 to 2.87 %, 3.82 to 5.97 %, 3.45 to 5.52%, and 51.79 to 57.14%, respectively for moisture, crude protein, crude fat, crude fibre, ash, and carbohydrate contents. Germinated flour demonstrated a notable degree of DPPH scavenging activity (EC50) and a range of total flavonoids and phenols (2.79 to 3.69 mg QE/g and 0.72 to 1.04 mg GAE/g, respectively). The germination process decreases flour’s thermal and pasting properties, which could enhance its better utilization in the food industry due to the loosening structure caused by increased amylase activity. Additionally, sprouted flour has the potential to be employed in a number of culinary products as a functional ingredient and nutritional supplement. During pumpkin processing, pre-drying methods are essential to prevent the effect of high temperatures involved in conventional air drying, which degrade the color, nutritional value, and bioactive component of pumpkin flour and boost drying effectiveness. In these experiments, the pre-drying methods comprised ultrasonication for 10, 20, or 30 minutes, microwave blanching for 6 minutes at 300 W, and combined ultrasound followed by microwave blanching. The proportions in terms of moisture, ash, crude fat, crude protein, crude fibre, and carbs in the pumpkin flours were 7.57 to 8.23 %, 5.73 to 6.57 %, 1.17 to 1.85 %, 8.72 to 11.32 %, 10.92 to 13.11 %, and 61.47 to 64.23 %, respectively. In comparison to other pre-drying treatments, 20UM was the optimum method in terms of reducing drying time (32.78 %), preserving a color change (9.06), total phenol (6.31-229.99 mgGAE/g), total flavonoid (1.97-135.22 mgQE/g), total carotenoid (131.50-9.84 g/g), and DPPH activities during processing. In order to expand the potential applications of pumpkin flour in functional food products, the fibre and bioactive components of the flour were enhanced through particle size reduction. After pre-drying treatment, the pumpkin flour ground to a particle size of < 75 μm exhibited the highest concentrations of total phenol, flavonoids, and carotenoids (6.52±0.59 mg GAE/g, 1.92±0.85 mg CE/g, and 139.79±0.96 μg/g). However, the moisture content and color brightness showed a decline after pretreatment and improved when the particle size was reduced.The maximum pasting viscosities were found in the pretreated fine-milled flour (20UM1), whereas the lowest viscosities were found in the untreated coarse-milled flour (CON3). Generally, 20UM1 flour has outstanding composition, thermal, functional, and structural features compared to other flours, making it a superb component to increase the important ingredients in various food formulations. The production of Kemesha, which included common wheat flour, haricot beans, pumpkin flour, and carboxymethyl cellulose, was optimized in this study using a D-optimal approach to determine the most significant factors. The outcomes of numerical optimization and model validation showed that the combination of 63.00 g of common wheat flour, 19.01g of germinated haricot bean flour, 14.51 g of ultrasonically fine-milled pumpkin flour, and 3.48 g of carboxymethyl cellulose per 100 g of flour composition with 0.596 desirability’s was viable for the preparation of kemesha. The total phenolic, flavonoid, and carotenoid content of the optimized functional Kemesha was 7.47, 3.67, and 149.20 times greater than that of the control Kemesha. The increase in these phytochemicals signifies that this Kemesha may offer the user the natural health benefits of pumpkin and germinated haricot beans. The study found that the addition of CMC, finely ground ultrasonicated pumpkin flour, and germinated haricot bean flour has improved the nutritional value, texture, cooking properties, and sensory characteristics of Kemesha. Furthermore, the optimized Kemesha exhibited improved cooking loss (4.95%) and water absorption (220.68%) compared to the standardized control Kemesha.en-USBioactive component, Functional food, Germination, Haricot bean, Pre-drying treatment, Pumpkin, Optimization, Traditional foodThesis