Effect of herbal and vegetable extract on mineral, heavy metal content and sensory evaluation of formulated protein supplement.

Calories-dense products encourage weight gain through healthy ingredients. With addition of healthy fats, whey protein and carbohydrate, the blends will help to increase the muscle mass. The incorporation of herbal in protein supplement is expected to benefit the new developed product, with regard to the presence of active ingredients and phytochemicals agent that promote health such as antioxidant, anti-cancer and anti-aging. Sensory evaluation on herbal like Eurycoma longifolia is essential, due to the herbal contribute to the bitter taste of the formulation. The additional of vegetables may interrupt the solubility of the formulation due to its non-soluble characteristic. In this studies comparison between herbal and non-herbal (commercial products) protein supplement due to its after taste, bitterness, sweetness and appearance were carried out. The sensory evaluation of the protein supplement was carried out via 9-point hedonic scale. Mineral content of the samples was also analysed. The score of hedonic scale showed that the sweetness and bitterness of the herbal protein supplement is significantly different compared to the commercial products. All samples showed differences in the mineral contents, but mineral ferum was present in the highest concentration in protein supplement incorporated with herbal and vegetables. The highly concerned toxic metals such as cadmium (Cd), arsenic (Ar), plumbum (Pb) and mercury (Hg) level were below of the standard limit (0.3ppm, 5ppm, 10ppm and 0.5 ppm respectively). Hence, the obtained results might be useful to define the new formulations of these highly consumed protein supplement with health benefits for athletes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]