PRODUCTION AND EVALUATION OF PROTEIN QUALITY OF BREAD FROM WHEAT / COWPEA FLOUR BLENDS.

The protein quality of bread samples produced from wheat and cowpea flour blends was investigated. The wheat flour (WF) was composite with cowpea flour (CF) at the levels of 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% and used for bread production. The samples of bread produced were later sliced, dried and milled systematically into bread flours. The resulting bread flours were individually formulated into test diets whereas the casein based diet was similarly formulated and used as control. After formulation, the protein quality of the test diets and the control were evaluated using the protein efficiency ratio index with thirty-five weanling albino rats. The rats which were six weeks old and weighing between 42.3 and 44.1 grammas were divided into five groups of seven rats each and housed in individual metabolic cages; fed diets and tap water adlibitum for a period of 21 days. From the results, the corrected protein efficiency ratio (PER) of casein based diet was 2 .5 and those of the test diets formulated from bread were 2.18, 2.23, 2.30 and 2.32 respectively. However, the values of the correct protein efficiency ratio of the bread formulated diets were generally lower than that of the casein based diet irrespective of the level of fortification of the bread samples with cowpea flour