Fermenting Traditional Burundi Foods: Nutritional Benefits - Essay Sample

Introduction

In Burundi, various traditional foods are fermented at the households. They include products of milk such as urubu and amavuta. There are also banana and cereal beverages such as Urwarwa and impeke. Cassava based fermented food products include inyange, ikivunde, and Ubswage. There is no enough literature on the fermentation of foods by the Burundian people, and therefore the essay will look at the ways through which Burundi traditional foods are fermented and their nutritional value to the Burundian people (Saranraj, Behera, and Ray, 2019, 560)

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The most common and preferable raw materials in the fermentation process include cereals, legumes, root tubers, fruit, milk, fish and meat. The indigenous fermented products, in general, are simple in the processing stage because they are primarily based on various ingredients and depend on the simple methods of processing. The microorganisms involved in the fermentation process are basically retrieved from the raw materials and during the fermentation process. The yeast is one of the major materials used in the fermentation process in Burundi (Aloys, and Angeline, 2009, 590)

The traditional fermentation in Burundi is a very lengthy process but takes shape in various phases; they include the use of animal or plant ingredients which are combined with bacteria or fungi which are sourced right from the environment. It is a process that takes into accounts various ingr4dients or materials that are nixed and left for some time for the production of better results. Fermented products are an essential part of the Burundian diet. Fermented foods play an important role in the social-economic well-being of the Burundians. The main aim of fermentation in African families is the conversation of sugars into usable food products. The traditional fermentation serves several functions such as enhancement of diet through the development of aroma, flavour and texture in the food substrates. Also, fermentation is used for the enhancement of the quality of protein foods, the important amino acids and the essential fatty acids in foods (Flibert, Abel, and Aly, 2016, 87)

The main nutritional benefits of fermentation are for the production of anti-nutrients. Fermentation also serves as a food preservative because the process of fermentation utilizes all food energy and also creates conditions that are do not favour the spoilage of microorganisms. Fermentation also makes traditional foods more edible because they change chemical compounds or by predigesting the foods for consumption. For instance, traditional foods like cassava are converted to edible fruits through fermentation. Coffee beans in Burundi are also hulled by use of wet fermentation process unlike in the dry process.

References

Aloys, N. and Angeline, N., 2009. Traditional fermented foods and beverages in Burundi. Food Research International, 42(5-6), pp.588-594.

Flibert, G., Abel, T. and Aly, S., 2016. African cassava Traditional Fermented Food: The Microorganism's Contribution to their Nutritional and Safety Values-A Review. International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences, 5(10), pp.664-87.

Saranraj, P., Behera, S.S. and Ray, R.C., 2019. Traditional Foods from Tropical Root and Tuber Crops: Innovations and Challenges. In Innovations in Traditional Foods (pp. 159-191). Woodhead Publishing.