CHEMICAL AND NUTRITIONAL EVALUATION OF FORTIFIED BISCUITS WITH DRIED Spirulina ALGAE

The cyanobacterium Spirulina, a multicellular and filamentous blue green microalgae, is used in many countries of world including Egypt as human safe food. This research aims to study the nutritional values of dried Spirulina algae and prepare healthy and high nutritive values biscuits blends fortified with Spirulina algae. This study revealed that Spirulina algae contained high level of protein 67.0±5.2% as dry weight and interesting amounts of bioactive compounds with antioxidative activity such as phycocyanin (1254±23mg /100g) and β-carotene (85±5 mg/100g). Spirulina algae was rich in minerals such as Na (859 mg/100g), K (1399 mg/100g), Ca (689 mg/100g), P (960 mg/100g), Mg (400 mg/100g) and Fe (122 mg/100g) as average. Results indicated that biscuit blends fortified with dried Spirulina algae as 0.5, 1, 2 and 3, % lead to improve the organoleptic, chemical and nutritional properties for it. Biscuit blends were organoleptically accepted for panel test as soon as demonstrated high nutritional values, bioactive, protein and mineral content when compared with unfortified biscuit samples (control).