PhD research: Development of a new fermented food product from the underutilized Zamnè: nutritional and health properties

Date
October 2018 to September 2023
Countries
Keywords
Zamnè
Senegalia
Acacia
nutraceutical
food security
hard-to-cook phenomenon
anti-nutritional factors
functional properties
Institutions
University Joseph Ki-Zerbo (Burkina Faso)
University of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)
Research fields
Agriculture and Food Sciences

Native edible-seeded Senegalia species (formerly Acacia sp.) in impoverished and drylands in sub-Saharan Africa have been long neglected as potential sources of foods for human. Only two species (S. macrostachya and S. senegal) have been long way incorporated in human diets and nowadays rising as secular foods in Burkina Faso and India (Zamnè and Kumatiya or Pachkuta, respectively), while few have been eaten sporadically during severe food shortages and even sometimes not recognized in mainstream literature. Notwithstanding, they all evoke enormous potential as perennial, sustainable, climate-resilient, and highly nutritious wild legume crops. They are safe and rich in potential bioactive compounds, such iron, vitamins, free amino-acids, unusual fatty acids, peptides, oligosaccharides, phenolics, and saponins, and can be the grounds for the discovery of novel biomolecules. Moreover they are prospected for the development of nutraceuticals for diabetes, dyslipidemia or obesity associated diseases, chronic gastrointestinal inflammations, and cancers cares. Meanwhile, they remain scarcely studied. This PhD aim to substantiate their nutritional properties and development value-added fermented food products from Zamnè as proof of concept-healthy edible-seeded Senegalia sp.