- Bread: Don Seeks Law For 10% Cassava Flour Inclusion
A lecturer at the Department of Food Science and Technology, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Dr. Abdul-Rasak Adebowale, has advocated a law to back up the policy of 10 per cent cassava flour inclusion in bread and to make it an industrial crop.
The don said this in Osogbo on Thursday in an interview with our correspondent on the sidelines of the sensitisation of the National Association of Master Bakers of Nigeria to the need to include 10 per cent cassava flour in bread.
Adebowale said Nigeria was wasting huge amount of money on wheat importation, saying the inclusion of cassava in bread would reduce the cost of ingredients needed to bake bread and make the prices of the product cheaper.
The food scientist stated that there was no health implication in consuming bread with cassava, stressing that the taste and the look of the loaves also would not change with 10 per cent of cassava flour inclusion in bread.
The lecturer said Nigeria spent about N300bn annually on wheat importation and expressed worry that some Nigerians did not want to accept cassava to be included in bread.
He said the inclusion of cassava flour in bread would create employment opportunities for the youth because there would be more jobs in factories where it would be processed, adding that local farmers would be encouraged to produce more without being afraid of glut.
Some of the bakers, who used recipe of 90 per cent wheat flour plus 10 per cent cassava flour to bake bread during the programme, said there was no difference between the product and bread made with 100 per cent wheat flour.
The bakers as well as members of the public that ate the product said the taste and the texture of the bread remained unchanged.
