Antidiabetic Instant Spice Noodles Brings IPB Students to Be the Champion of Bioaction 2018

Students of Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) won another competition in national level. This time, three students successfully became the 1st Winner of National Bioaction (Biology Annual Competition) Scientific Paper Competition (LKTI) 2018. This event was held in UIN Sunan Gunung Djati, Bandung, on Saturday (20/10).

The students, Niswana Wafi Alfarda, Vika Tresnadiana Herlina, and Fadhilah Nur'Azizah, are from the Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Agricultural Technology (Fateta) IPB.

Wafi and friends became champion through the paper titled “Jawarasa: Commercial Instant Spice Noodle from Millet and Sorghum Based on Local Wisdom as Functional Food in Preventing Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus”.

The product is an instant spice noodle from local ingredients; millet and sorghum, as an antidiabetic functional food.

As known, Indonesia is one of the countries that are rich with its flora biodiversity. However, Indonesian is still very dependent on rice and flour as its primary source of carbohydrate.

In the aspect of health, dependence on people's consumption in one food source will have an impact on unbalanced dietary intake. This can cause an increase in non-communicable diseases such as diabetes.

"Millet and sorghum are grain plants that have a nutrient composition like rice but high in protein with a low glycemic index. This plant also contains various phytochemical components such as polyphenols, lignans, phytosterols, phytoestrogens, and phytocyanins which function as antioxidants, immune modulators, and detoxifying agents. "If consumed, it can protect the body against degenerative diseases related to age, such as diabetes," Wafi said.

Seeing the potentials, the three of them create innovation through Jawarasa product. Noodle product was chosen because Indonesian consumption of instant noodle was very high, which reached 75 packs/capita/year. This product was made using cooking forming extruder technology and packaged hermetically.

Wafi and her friends were very grateful for successfully winning the competition. “Alhamdulillah, we are very grateful to Allah. We did not expect to become the champion. We hope that this innovation could be applied, commercialized, and used by society. Besides of that, hopefully, further research could be conducted so this innovation would be more optimum in the future,” she said. (CN)