Abstract:
The milk and the Nigeria cheese (wara) produced from tigernutwere stored in the refrigerator and samples for microbial, proximate and mineral composition analyses were collected at day one, seven and fourteen. Bacterial load of tigernut milk during storage increased from 1.5 × 101 to 1.8 × 101cfu/ml while the bacterial load of cheese ranged from 9.7 cfu/g to 1.2 × 101cfu/g. There was no significant increase (p≤0.05) in the bacterial load of the cheese during storage. The bacterial isolates from freshly preparedtigernut milk were tentatively identified as Lactobacillus casei, Streptococcus lactisand L. plantarum. The bacteria isolated from the cheese produced using different coagulants areL. plantarum, Bacillus badius, B. larvae, B. alvei, Aeromonashydrophili, B. cereus, L. acidophilus, Bacillus subtilis, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. From the results of mineral analysis, tigernut milk had the highest potassium value followed by sodium while cadmium was the lowest. Cheese produced from Calotropisproceraleaf extract at day one had the highest value of potassium, while lead and cadmium were the least. Statistically there were no significant differences (p≤0.05) between Ca, Fe, Zn, Pb, Cu and Cd present in the cheese. Magnesium was the highest in the cheese produced with C. procera leaf extract at day seven as well as day fourteen. Potassium was highest in the cheese produced from lemon fruit juice at day one while magnesium had the highest value at day seven and fourteen. Cheese produced from Carica papayaleaf was high in potassium at day one and magnesium at day seven and fourteen respectively. Milk had the highest value of moisture followed by crude fat and protein content while ash was the lowest. Cheese produced from C. procera, lemon fruit juice and Carica papaya leaf extract were high in moisture at day one, seven and fourteen. The sensory scores revealed various significant differences in all the parameters evaluated on tigernut milk and cheese. For the cheese, highest taste and texture value was recorded for all the cheese produced while commercial cheese had the lowest taste and texture. This study revealed that tigernut milk and cheese produced
from it are highly rich in protein and minerals and possess low microbial load. Tigernut milk may therefore serve as a good alternative to cow milk for the production of cheese
