EFFECT OF FERMENTATION ON THE FATTY ACID CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF CASSAVA TUBER MEAL

The effect of fermentation on the fatty acids (FA) content and composition of cassava tuber meal has been investigated. The major FA of the cassava tuber meal (CTM) lipid were oleic and palmitic acids. Other FA found in decreasing order were linoleic, linolenic, palmitoleic, stearic, myristic, pentadecanoic, heptadecanoic and nonadecanoic acids. Fermentation of the CTM resulted in substantial increases in the absolute quantities of the individual FA detected except linolenic acid. However fermentation did not alter the pattern of composition of the FA, but it caused increases in the composition of saturated FA and decreases in certain unsaturated ones. Stearic acid increased in composition by about 92.6% and pentadecanoic by about 50%. A reduction of about 72% of the linolenic acid and 24.2% of the palmitoleic acid composition were obtained in the fermented CTM lipid.