American Journal of Food Science and Technology, 2019, Vol. 7, No. 3, 99-103 Available online at http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajfst/7/3/5 Published by Science and Education Publishing DOI:10.12691/ajfst-7-3-5 Nutritional Composition of Plantain Flour of (Musa Paradisiaca): the Effect of Various Drying Methods in Rwanda Jean Pierre Ndayambaje 1,* , Leonce Dusengemungu 2 , Pascaline Bahati 2 1 School of Life Science and Engineering, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou 730050, China 2 School of Food Science and Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Xi’An 712100, China *Corresponding author: oreteq4@gmail.com Received February 11, 2019; Revised April 01, 2019; Accepted April 18, 2019 Abstract This research was conducted to determine the nutritional composition of plantain flour processed using three drying methods namely sun drying, oven drying, and microwave drying. A variety of Musa paradisiaca grown in Rwanda and locally named “inshakara” was peeled, sliced, dried and ground. Vitamin C, pro-vitamin A, and proteins of both fresh and flour samples were determined to examine possible losses of nutrients due to drying. Moisture content was also analyzed for the fresh sample only. The results found were 70.59%, 72.3% and 74.05% moisture loss due to sun, oven and microwave drying respectively. 6.45mg of vitamin C was determined in the fresh sample while 4.808mg, 4.156mg and 3.875mg of ascorbic acid were found in flour processed by sun drying, oven drying, and microwave drying respectively. The results obtained for ß-carotene determination were 5.674μg for the fresh sample, 5.546μg for microwave dried plantain flour, 3.215μg for sun-dried plantain flour and 2.17μg for oven dried plantain flour. Proteins resulted in 1.8712% fresh sample, 1.1786% sun dried plantain flour, 1.3266% oven dried plantain flour and 0.9851% microwave dried plantain flour. The losses of nutrients varied due to the drying system applied. Keywords: drying methods, moisture content, pro-vitamin a, proteins, Vitamin C Cite This Article: Jean Pierre Ndayambaje, Leonce Dusengemungu, and Pascaline Bahati, “Nutritional Composition of Plantain Flour of (Musa Paradisiaca): the Effect of Various Drying Methods in Rwanda.” American Journal of Food Science and Technology, vol. 7, no. 3 (2019): 99-103. doi: 10.12691/ajfst-7-3-5. 1. Introduction The processing of plantain into flour as a way of preserving them from spoilage has increased in recent years and information on the effect of drying methods on the nutritional properties of plantain flour in literature is limited especially in Rwanda [1]. Musa spp., comprising banana and plantain, are among the world's leading fruit crops. All bananas and plantains belong to the same genus, Musa, which contains 30-40 species [2]. The FAO and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), among other research centers, use the word “banana” to refer to Musa species that are sweeter and eaten raw and “plantain” to denote Musa species that are starchier and cooked before eating, while many researchers use “banana” to mean all Musa varieties, including plantains [3]. Our research work has followed the convention of the FAO and refer to plantains as Musa species that need cooking before eating [4]. Plantains (Musa paradisiaca) is one of the important staple food crops consumed in the tropics behind rice, wheat and maize and are obtained in about 120-130 tropical countries worldwide [5]. Bananas are grown in more than 120 countries in the 5 continents and over 10 million hectares [6]. In developing countries of Western, Eastern and Central Africa, plantains, Musa sp. are major food staples. About 70 million people in Africa are estimated to depend on Musa fruits for a large proportion of their daily carbohydrate intake [7]. The aggregated world production of bananas and plantains is over 76 million metric tons out of which over 12 million metric tons are harvested yearly in Africa [8,9,10]. This largest produce of banana and plantains only few of it undergo industrial processing mostly for improved preservation and value addition. Plantains and unripe banana are consumed cooked, whereas, mature dessert banana is eaten raw [11]. Banana plantain and cooking banana ( Musa spp) may be processed into many products such as biscuits or as an infant formula supplement at different stages of physiological maturity, unripe, ripe, overripe or in a number of ways such as frying, grilling, boiling and drying [12]. Production of plantain is seasonal whilst consumption is all year round and therefore there is the need to process them into forms with reduced moisture content [13]. Dehydration is one of the oldest methods of food preservation and converting plantain into flour could