The Use of Spirulina platensis in formulation of functional lowcalorie sauce fortified with iron and zinc

Microalgae are a potentially great source of natural compounds, which could be used as a functional ingredient. The addition of microalgal biomass to food formulations is an interesting innovation for production of nutritionally supplemented food materials with biologically active compounds, besides its coloring potential. Due to the growing consumption of sauces in human life and the necessity of food enrichment as an effective tool for fulfill nutritional deficiencies; a fortified functional sauce was prepared. In this study, Spirulina algae sauce was prepared with three levels of algae powder (0.3, 0.5 and 0.7 %), and fortified with iron and zinc and analyzed during three time intervals. During the given periods (The 1st, 30th and 60th days of production), chemical, rheological and microbial analysis and sensory evaluation were carried out. The results showed a significant difference in pH (p<0.05). The acidity and static viscosity of some samples containing iron and zinc had a significant difference. Viscosity decreased during the time in each treatment, the lowest dynamic viscosity was for the control sample and the highest one for samples containing highest algae level. Microbial contamination of the samples was very low and was within the standards range. Sensory evaluation of the colors of the samples containing 0.5% algae level were preferable and did not significantly differ. Practically, in terms of odor, taste, texture and overall acceptability, there were not any significant differences. Consequently, this study showed that functional low-calorie fortified sauce can be produced with iron and zinc, using microalgae. In this product, the physicochemical properties were improved compared to the conventional blank sauce, and from the microbial aspects, a safe product can be produced.