VITAMIN A FORTIFIed PEANUT BUTTER - The Official Website of ...

Preparation of fortified peanut butter. Results shown in Table 2.3 indicate that the fortified
peanut butter had a vitamin A content that ranged from 3.73 - 3.92 µg RE/g peanut butter or an average of
3.85 µg RE/g peanut butter. The level of vitamin A in the final fortified product did not meet the
minimum target fortification level of 4.38 µg RE/g peanut butter as the % recovery was relatively
low. At this level, the vitamin A recovery ranged from 69.2 - 72.7% or an average of 71.4%. The
relatively low vitamin A recovery was attributed to factors such as presence of light during production
and oxidation of vitamin A when premix was subjected to further mixing during the preparation of
fortified peanut butter.
Table 2.3 Effect of 10 min mixing time on vitamin A recovery during laboratory preparation of
fortified peanut butter
Vitamin A Recovered
Sampling Point
Vitamin A Content
% Recovery
(during filling)
(µg RE/g)
1
Start 3.73 69.2
Middle 3.89 72.2
End 3.92 72.7
Average 3.85 71.4
Std. Deviation 0.10 1.89
% Variability 2.65 2.65
1 Expected level of vitamin A in the final fortified product was 5.39 µg RE/g peanut butter. This was computed
based on a premix with a vitamin A content of 263.70 µg RE/g peanut butter.
In terms of dispersion, it was found that the percentage variability of the three replicate samples
was 2.65%. The low percentage variability indicates uniform dispersion of the premix in the final
fortified product.
Considering the high vitamin A recoveries obtained in both production batches and the low
percentage variability of replicate samples in the 1 st trial, it was concluded that the 10 min mixing time
was adequate to fully disperse the vitamin A palmitate in the premix.
Experiment 2: Determination of the effect of light on vitamin A recovery in fortified peanut
butter.
Results presented in Table 2.4 showed that fortified peanut butter processed in the absence of
light had a higher percentage vitamin A recovery (84.4%) than that processed in the absence of light
(71.4%). As only one trial was conducted, it could not be ascertained whether the increase in vitamin A
recovery was due to the absence of light or to some other factors.
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