Development of Functional Food Ingredients from Underutilized Okara

In Singapore, at least 30 tonnes of okara are generated daily and discarded as food waste or recycled as an animal feed.  Despite its richness in nutrients, the reuse of okara as human food is limited due to high amount of indigestible fibre and low palatability.  The team has developed a cost-effective enzymatic and fermentaion techniques to transform okara as a functional ingredient for applying into food innovations.

Our optimized, cost-effective treatment method preserves the nutrients in okara, at the same time converting the indigestible okara fibre into soluble and digestible fibre.  The functional ingredients will help the industry in product innovation and optimization, food supply sustainability as well as food waste reduction.

Okara contains the following beneficial nutrients:

• 50% insoluble fibre
• 20% proteins
• 10% unsaturated fats
• Isoflavones
• Vitamins and minerals

The functional ingredients developed from okara can be incorporated into food products to improve and increase the nutritional quality including the soluble fibre content.  These inculdes the growing market for vegan products.  

One potential application included formulation of soy cheese. With its solubilized fibre and richness in other nutrients, some potential application include soy cheese, energy bars, crackers, breads and noodles.

Provide a cost-effective plant-based functional food ingredients in line with an increasing trend in the plant-based food products consumption, from both Singapore and global market.
Provide functional food ingredients when the increasing awareness and demand for healthier food products.