Development and quality evaluation of nixtamalized corn tortilla chips enriched with banana and orange peel powders

There is increasing demand of low-cost functional foods in the market. The FAO reports that globally, half of the fruits and vegetables produced worldwide are lost or wasted due to various reasons. The present study was focused on utilization of banana peel powder and orange peel powder which provide significant health benefits environmental sustainability development of products with no. of varieties. With these issues, the study was aimed to enrich the corn tortilla chips with varied concentration (15, 20, 25 percentage) of banana peel powder and orange peel powder for enhancing nutritional value and functional properties. All these samples were organoleptically evaluated and selected the samples with good textural and sensorial characteristics for further experiments (C1, B1 and O1) the selected samples (C1, B1 and O1) were then evaluated for their proximate composition, textural properties, antioxidant activity. Proximate analysis showed high protein content 1.52% for B1 sample (15%), 1.46% for O1 sample (15%) and high fibre content i.e., 1.20% for B1 sample (15%), 1.06% for O1 sample (15%) and antioxidant activity increased 65.2% for B1 sample (15%), 63.1% for O1 sample (15%) with an increased concentration of banana peel powder and orange peel powder. In terms of the composition and textural profile, the best possible results were achieved by samples that contain 15% banana peel powder and orange peel powder. The most popular and economical method of extending shelf life of corn tortilla chips is to produce a product that is highly alkaline (>pH9) by the addition of hydrated lime (CaCO3), through the process of nixtamalization. The selected samples were tested for their shelf life for a period of 30 days. The nixtamalized corn tortilla chips (C1, B1 & O1) have good stability at room temperature and shown 20 days shelf life with good sensorial and textural characteristics. In conclusion, it has been shown that the tortilla chips enriched with banana peel powder & orange peel powder can expand the variety of available regular tortilla, producing new functional products with nixtamalization of fruit peel waste to explore the health benefits and also to reduce the fruit waste for sustainable development. Key words: Banana peel powder, orange peel powder, Corn tortilla chips, Nixtamalization, Hydrated lime (CaCO₃), Proximate composition, Textural properties, Antioxidant activity, Organoleptic evaluation, Fiber, Protein, Shelf life.