Abstract

Preservation of head and feet involves the action taken to maintain products with the desired properties as much as possible. A laboratory procedure was used to evaluate the proximate, and sensory properties of preserved head and feet using five preservation methods (frying, Banda, animal fat, sun drying and freezing). The processing step for each preservation method was described for future reference. Preservation methods had significantly affected (P< 0.05) all proximate parameters measured. Moisture content was higher for stored samples by animal fat and freezing, with 26.67% and 25.33% respectively. Higher protein contents were recorded for stored samples by frying, sun drying and banda with 57.67%, 54.00% and 52.00% respectively. Result for sensory evaluation of stored head and feet meat shows that, the panelist sensory judgment established significant differences (P0.05) across the preservation methods. Merit analysis indicated that preservation of head and feet with animal fat performed better among all other methods and ranking 1st followed by frying that ranked 2nd, while freezing, sun drying and banda ranked 3rd, 4th, and 5th respectively. It was concluded that, samples preserved in animal fat performed better among the methods in optimizing proximate and sensory properties of head and feet. It was recommended that similar research should be conducted in other locations so that a comprehensive documentation of head and feet preservation methods can be done.