Development and Evaluation of Groundnut Probiotic Beverage

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.), popularly known as the "King of Oilseeds", is one of the most commercially important oilseeds and cash crops of India and is widely cultivated in Gujarat. Groundnut milk and groundnut milk products have nutritional benefits because of their extreme richness in protein, minerals and essential fatty acids such as linoleic and oleic acids which are considered to be highly valuable in human nutrition. Looking at the above importance of groundnut milk, it was proposed to take up the present study entitled, "Development and Evaluation of Groundnut Probiotic Beverage with Medicinal Flower Extract". For the preparation of groundnut milk, groundnut kernels were soaked in water at ratio of 1:6 (groundnut (g): water (ml)) for 13 hours then de-skinned, blanched, blended in a mixture and resultant slurry was filtered using double layered cheesecloth to obtain groundnut milk. From the present study it can be said that nutritionally rich and organoleptically acceptable groundnut probiotic beverage can be prepared by keeping groundnut milk curd: water ratio (70:30) and adding 20 ml medicinal flower extract with 80g petals.