SENSORY CHARACTERISTICS AND NUTRIENT COMPOSITION OF CHURAN PREPARED BY USING SEED POWDER OF DATE FRUIT (PHOENIX DACTYLIFERA)

The present study was conducted to evaluate the suitability of date seed powder for preparation of churan and to studysensory characteristics and nutrient composition. The powder of seeds obtained from four varieties of date fruit, namely Hillawi, Khadrawi, Medjool and Shamran were used for preparation ofchuran.Three types of churan were prepared: Type-I churan was prepared by using 5% seed powder, Type-II by 10% seed powder and Type-III by using 15% seed powder. It was observed that churan prepared from seed powder of all the varieties were acceptable in terms of all the sensory characteristics, however the scores were higher in Type-I churan as compared to Type-IIand Type-III churan.Thefindings of the study showed that churan prepared from seed powder of khadrawi variety was highly acceptable. The nutrient composition revealed that there was a non-significant (P?0.05) difference in the crude protein and fat content of churan prepared using seed powder of all the varieties of date fruit.Crude fiber content was highest in churan of Khadrawi variety (9.75%) followed by churan of Hillawi variety (9.27%), churan of Shamran variety (8.71%), churan of Medjool variety (8.23%) and control churan (7.04%). There was non-significant (P?0.05) difference observed in the ash content of the churan prepared using seed powder of different varieties of date fruit.