WEANING FOOD FROM SWEET POTATO

Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is one of agricultural products that are often used for weaning food. Among several type, purple sweet potato has some advantages such as anthocyanins content which having role as natural dye and antioxidant. Purple sweet potato can be processed to be instant weaning food for fulfill consumer demand to instant product. Different drying method for making instant food is supposed affecting the color and the anthocyanins content. Hence, this research aims to investigate the effect of freeze-drying and cabinet drying method to produce instant product to the color and anthocyanins contents of instant weaning food made of purple sweet potato enriched with kidney bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.). The result shows that the instant weaning food dried by freeze dryer and cabinet dryer have similar chromatic color, which is reddish purple. However, the level of difference between the products is intermediate. Statistical analysis explains that the different drying methods result anthocyanins contents, which are not significantly different. This research was presented on International Conference on Natural Dyes, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Sebelas Maret University May 29, 2013.