Investigation of Physicochemical Characteristics of Pasta Enriched with Spirulina platensis Powder

  In this research Spirulina platensis blue-green microalgae with unique nutrient content and numerous nutritional and therapeutic effects in various food products enrichment has been employed. Information concerned to fortify wheat flour with powdered Spirulina platensis microalgae to produce pasta is very limited. In this study, the effect of spirulina powder addition to pasta and evaluating the physico-chemical characteristics have been investigated. The effect of Spirulina platensis microalgae powder at 0.0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1 (% W/W) concentrations on pasta have been studied and protein, fat, carbohydrate, total energy and iron were determined by standard procedures. physical examinations of the samples consisted of color and texture evaluations were Caused out by colorimetric and texture analyzer methods. The results showed that different levels of spirulina microalgae powder had significant effects on chemical parameters of pasta (P< 0.05). Also, interaction of different levels of microalgae powder on the pasta color index was significant(P< 0.05) while on texture index of pasta was not significant (P> 0.05). The addition of 0.25% of Spirulina platensis microalgae powder to pasta, has improved the nutritional value and physical characteristics of the product and a functional food has been formulated that will be available to the community