Children find muffins made with pumpkin seeds to be “tasty”

Partially replacing wheat flour with pumpkin seed flour in muffins resulted in higher scores in children in terms of taste and other quality indices. The article, published in CyTA – Journal of Food, tested the muffins for fatty acid composition, peroxide value, anisidine value, and the conjugated diene and triene contents from proteins extracted from the muffins and linked it with storage time.

• The peroxide and anisidine values of the flour increased with the addition of the pumpkin seed flour. In addition, the amount of conjugated diene in flour is higher than conjugated triene in muffins.
• When the amount of pumpkin flour increased, the nutritional value of the muffins improved as well.
• Researchers suggested that adding 33 percent of pumpkin seed flour into muffins, then storing them for two weeks without any special conditions for packaging is the ideal measurement.
• Of the children who tasted the muffins, over 71 percent said that muffins with pumpkin seed flour were “tasty” to “very tasty.”

Based on the results, researchers concluded that adding pumpkin seed formulation in muffins can be a novel product for nutrition.

Find the full text of the study at this link.

Journal Reference:

Bia?ek M, Rutkowska J, Adamska A, Bajdalow E. PARTIAL REPLACEMENT OF WHEAT FLOUR WITH PUMPKIN SEED FLOUR IN MUFFINS OFFERED TO CHILDREN. CyTA – Journal of Food. 7 December 2015;14(3):391–398. DOI: 10.1080/19476337.2015.1114529