A Study on the Impact of Sweet Potato Flour Supplementation on Yoghurt Quality

Due to their unique nutritional and functional properties, sweet potatoes have become a research focus in recent years. Sweet potato supplementation will have a considerable impact on the produced yoghurt texture and will also offer an attractive orange colour to the yoghurt, which is one of the most popular dairy products. The paper focused on the replacement of the stabilizers used in the manufacture of yoghurt with sweet potato flour dehydrated in the lab (SPFL) due to its functional features and lower cost, as well as the improvement of yoghurt colour owing to the presence of anthocyanin pigment. To achieve these objectives, experimental yoghurt was fortified with 0, 0.5, 1, 2, and 4g SPFL/100g cow milk (%) and stored at 4°C for 14 days. The results were then compared with commercial yoghurt samples (CS1, CS2, CS3 and CS4). Sensory examination demonstrated that the 2% SPFL, CS1 and CS3 treatments outperformed the other treatments. The fat content of the yoghurts remained constant, but the yoghurts' other physicochemical characteristics and water holding capacity (WHC %) levels varied. The rheological characteristics of yoghurt production were significantly altered by SPFL supplementation, enabling sweet potato flour to take the place of the commercial stabilizer. Sweet potato globules were found embedded in and adhered to the gel matrix of yoghurt that had been enhanced with SPFL, as well as denser and smaller gaps. The findings of this study suggest that sweet potatoes can be utilised to make a cohesive and gummy yoghurt that can replace industrial stabilizers.