Production and characterization of honey sweetened yoghurt

Abstract

Yoghurt is a popular semi-solid sourish milk product that has been a major part of people’s diet around the world with its first traces found between 10,000 – 5,000 BC in the Neolithic period and believed to have been accidentally discovered as a result of milk being stored by primitive methods in warm climates at temperatures of around 40-500C. Yoghurt is produced by the fermentation of milk with a bacterial culture that allows the milk to congeal, giving it a thick, creamy texture with a slightly acidic flavor. Yoghurt is usually sweetened with sucrose. However, in this study, yoghurt was sweetened with honey instead of sucrose. The study involved the production and characterization of honey sweetened yoghurt by analyzing different parameters which included proximate composition, susceptibility to syneresis, water holding capacity, titratable acidity, pH and sensory evaluation. This was done in comparison with a control that was prepared using sucrose. The Yoghurt made with honey had a higher moisture (28.67%), ash (0.75%) and carbohydrate content (47.34%), a higher water holding capacity (41.3%) and syneresis (56.65%) and lower titratable acidity and pH values as compared to the yoghurt made with sucrose. The low pH and acidity values of the honey sweetened yoghurt enabled it to remain appreciable for consumption over a longer period of time (>2 weeks) as compared with the sucrose sweetened yoghurt that lost its taste preference after two weeks of production. Thus, confirming the hypothesis that yoghurt sweetened with honey has a longer shelf life as compared to sucrose sweetened yoghurt.