Effect of Decreasing Saponin Levels to Nutrition of Extracted Moringa Leaf Powder

Moringa oleifera leaves have been used as food material because it has high nutritional value. Many research have been conducted on moringa leaves extract as functional food and the additional material of nutrient for some food products (biscuit, bread, jelly drink), which it looked that adding moringa leaves extract above 5% decrease the consumer acceptance level toward the product because of the strongest unpleasant aroma and bitter taste, which is caused by saponins content in moringa leaves extract is still high enough.This study aimed to obtain the optimal temperature and time of blanching process to reduce saponin level, and the appropriate solvents to extract nutrients from Moringa oleifera leaves so that Moringa leaves flour is obtained with no bitter taste (low saponin) and nutritious (water, protein, optimal vitamin C and vitamin A) as fortification ingredients for various food products. The results showed that the blanching treatment at 75 ° C for 5 minutes (T1W1) combined with 70% ethanol (P1) solvent was able to produce Moringa leaves flour with the lowest saponin content of 0.790%, but with nutrients that still met the requirements, namely water 6.508%, protein 28.705%, Vitamin C 90.77 mg 100 g-1 and Vitamin A 3590 µg 100 g-1.