摘要：Kunu is a refreshing non-alcoholic beverage which is usually produced from fermented cereal grains, consumed by
children and adults and sometimes used as a weaning food in Nigeria. The current global trend in exploiting
underutilized species for producing indigenous foods necessitated this study which exploited standard methods to assess
the proximate composition, physicochemical properties, anti-nutrient constituents, and sensory qualities (10 semitrained
panelists) of Amaranth-Kunu developed from grain amaranth (Amaranthus hybridus), an underutilized pseudocereal,
which was fermented for 24, 48 and 72 h at 30 - 30.5o
C, in comparison with kunu from Sorghum. The
percentage proximate composition results: moisture content (10.24 – 91.87), Crude protein (1.42 – 16.86), Crude fibre
(0.11 – 2.50), Crude fat (0.85 – 5.77), Total ash (0.05 – 2.90) and Carbohydrate (2.84 – 61.77) were significantly
different (p<0.05).There was no significant difference (p<0.05) in the temperature which ranged from 30 – 30.5o
C but
the pH (4.49 – 5.79) decreased significantly while Total titratable acidity (2.30 – 6.40) and total solids (4.90 – 8.90)
increased significantly (p<0.05) as fermentation period increased. The Oxalate (0.1108 – 0.3151), Phytate (3.4900 –
17.4000), and Saponin (0.4900 – 4.8100), contents decreased significantly (p<0.05) with increased fermentation time
while Tannin was not detected in all. Sensory evaluation results showed that Amaranth-kunu was significantly more
acceptable (p<0.05) than sorghum kunu. Amaranth-Kunufermented for 48 h had the best mean sensory scores (1.0 -
1.2) which depicted ‘like extremely’ and was mostly acceptable by the panellists.Amaranth-kunu developed from grain
amaranth possessed potentials for commercialization to combat malnutrition and used for food security in Africa.
