Introduction

Indonesia is one of many countries that suffers from nutrient deficiency among its people. Although Indonesia’s ranking in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) has been improving year by year, many still suffer from nutrient deficiency such as under nutrition. This issue has led to serious problems such as stunting among the growth of individuals. The main reason towards this issue is the unfortunate reality that many low class Indonesians struggle to obtain their daily nutritional needs due to economic hardships. To help address this issue, this poster introduces a possible solution towards the issue by the development of a healthy instant rice reinforced with sufficient nutrition needs while maintaining to also be affordable and sustainable as well.

About the Product

Rice is one of the most important commodities among many Indonesian people because it is the main source of energy in most foods found in Indonesia. Since rice is already popular among many Indonesians, it is feasible that a rice product can be developed to help propose a solution towards the nutrient deficiency issue. Rice in itself is generally cheap in Indonesia and already contain important nutrients such as fibre, vitamin B, iron, protein, and manganese. This introduces the creation of an instant rice product made out of rice, chicken broth, and watermelon rind pickles to provide less fortunate Indonesians with sufficient daily nutritional intake. This can be a cost effective solution towards the issue as reheating the instant rice is simple and it does not cost much to produce the instant rice due to the ingredients used.

In this particular product, an interesting addition made was the watermelon rind pickles. Normally, watermelon rind are thrown away which makes it a byproduct. During the initial development of the instant rice, there were discussions made regarding what other components should be included in the instant rice that can increase nutritional content but made out of food byproduct at the same time to reduce food waste and cost. After careful brainstorming, it was realized that watermelon rind can be made to become pickles and can accompany the instant rice well as it has many nutritional benefits. For instance, watermelon rind are known to be good sources of fibres and phenolic compounds and are also good in antioxidant activity which can help better protect cells.

Production of Watermelon Rind Pickles

The watermelon rind was converted to become dried pickles to be combined with the instant rice. The watermelon rind was used as it is a good source of nutrients such as fibres and antioxidants. This is done through the following steps:

1.  Rub and cut the watermelon rind using salt to remove excess water.

2. Create a sugar-vinegar solution.

3. Soak the rubbed and cut watermelon rind in the 50% sugar-vinegar solution.

4. Place it in the fridge for 3 days.

5. Dry watermelon rind in cabinet dryer for 19 hours (50C).

6. Watermelon rind pickles is done.

Production of Chicken Broth Powder

1. Cut out the skin and fat part of the chicken meat. Then cut the chicken meat to cubical pieces.

2. Blend all of the chicken meat and spices.

3. Cook the blended mixture in low heat.

4. Dry chicken broth mixture in oven for 25 minutes (160C).

5. Blend chicken broth powder.

6. Redry the blended chicken broth powder.

7. Chicken broth powder is done.

Production of Instant Rice

The final product is an instant rice cooked with a combination of ingredients that can easily be reheated. The product fits better with the taste buds of Indonesians as it tastes like Nasi Hainan Risotto. 

Experimental Method

After the development of the instant rice was complete, the next step was to experiment the nutritional content capabilities of different types of rice. By testing the capabilities of different types of rice, the data obtained will show which type of rice has the best results in terms of being capable of retaining the most nutrients once cooked and dried. This is important as it can help as a determining factor when deciding which rice to use when considering overall rice performance and price as the goal is to create the most nutritional instant rice product as possible while maintaining cost as low as possible so that it can be mass produced and distributed to Indonesian citizens who are less fortunate. 

The method used for this experimentation is using a normal experimental procedure carried out in a lab environment using appropriate tools and machines to help with the analysis of the nutritional content of the rice. There are two factorial type of IR rice types that were tested shown in the images on the right. Both rice types have undergone the exact same cooking process, conditions, and ingredients used to cook the instant rice. A proximate analysis is done for each rice type. Kjeldahl method used for measuring crude protein content; Soxhlet method used for measuring crude fat; Oven drying method used for measuring moisture content.

Analysis

Protein Content

Based upon the data of the protein content of both rice types seen in Table 1. it is seen how the average protein content is higher for the intact IR rice type compared to the broken IR rice type for the trials used during this testing. More specifically, the data shows a 0.16% difference in protein content between the two rice types. The data suggest only a slightly better protein content result for the intact IR rice type as 0.16% is not a significant difference. This highlights how the broken IR rice type may be the better performer when it comes to protein content as the difference in average protein content compared to the intact IR rice type is statistically insignificant.

Fat Content

Based upon the data of the fat content of both rice types seen in Table 2. it is seen how the average fat content is higher for the intact IR rice type compared to the broken IR rice type for the trials used during this testing. More specifically, the data shows a 0.81% difference in fat content between the two rice types. The data suggest only a slightly worse fat content result for the intact IR rice type as 0.81% is not a significant difference. However, since the broken IR rice type has lower overall fat content compared to the intact IR rice type, this indicates that the broken IR rice type is the better performer as it is able to retain a lower amount of fat content. It is important that food do not contain a lot of fat in them as it can lead to health complications such as cholesterol and heart diseases.

Moisture Content

Based upon the data of the moisture content of both rice types seen in Table 3. it is seen how the average moisture content is higher for the intact IR rice type compared to the broken IR rice type for the trials used during this testing. More specifically, the data shows a 0.07% difference in moisture content between the two rice types. The data suggest only a slightly better moisture content result for the broken IR rice type as 0.07% is not a significant difference. However, since the broken IR rice type has lower moisture content, this indicates that the broken IR rice type is the better performer as it is able to retain a lower amount of moisture. It is important for dried foods such as the instant rice to have low moisture content to prolong shelf life.

Based upon the analysis of the nutritional content, it is seen that the broken IR rice type is better to use. This is because the average three nutritional content analyzed were overall better on the broken IR rice type. Although the broken IR rice may be slightly disadvantageous for the protein content, the difference was statistically insignificant considering the lower price per kilogram of the broken IR rice type. Despite this, there are still factors from the cooking process and nutritional content analysis that still need to be addressed to ensure that the data received is not affected much by these factors. A further evaluation regarding what ingredient of the instant rice have the most impact on nutritional content should also be explored as the small different in nutritional content results between the two rice types may indicate that the nutritional content may be affected from other ingredients of the instant rice during the cooking process. The standard deviation of the two rice types cannot be analyzed as there is not enough replications and hence to successfully produce the product, more replications and shelf life tests should be conducted moving forward to ensure the reproducibility of the instant rice and the shelf life of the instant rice as well.

Conclusion and Future Improvements

In conclusion, the results and analysis of the nutritional contents of both rice types have shown that the broken IR rice type is the overall better choice for the instant rice. This is because the performance of the broken IR rice is either close or beats the performance of the intact IR rice in nutritional contents and broken IR rice is also cheaper. This means that the broken IR rice provides a better price to performance for the instant rice which is good for keeping production costs low. The broken IR rice also overall have lower standard deviations compared to the intact IR rice indicating more consistency. Despite this, there are improvements that should be made for the testing procedure so that more reliable data can be obtained.

In general, the instant rice product was a success as it was successful in becoming an instant food product that can easily be reheated. The cost of the ingredients used to make the instant rice is also not as costly which means that the instant rice can likely be mass produced and distributed. But as this is still a product in the works, there are certainly future improvements that can be made to either increase nutritional contents or reduce costs. For instance, an improvement/extension that can be explored is to include a meat imitation made out of legumes to increase the nutritional contents. Due to the limited time given for this project, explorations such as these were not achievable yet but future extensions of this project will certainly enable more findings to be discovered and improvements to be made. The final hope of this instant rice product is that it can truly be mass produced in Indonesia and distributed among the less fortunate in efforts to reduce nutrient deficiency in Indonesia.