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Fermented milk from Zimbabwe and rural southern Africa

Mutandabotamutandabota

Traditional mutandabota is cow's or goat's milk mixed with dry baobab fruit pulp; the milk starts at pH 6.7 and the finished food measured about pH 3.5. A probiotic version, yoba mutandabota, ferments boiled milk and 4 % pulp with Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus yoba for 24 hours before the rest of the pulp and 7 % sugar go in.

Fully documentedFermented milk24 h

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceAmounts are the probiotic recipe developed by Mpofu and colleagues, given as percentages of the milk volume. The abstracts read give no amounts for traditional mutandabota.
Raw cow's milkBoiled and cooled for the probiotic version; goat's milk is also used traditionally[mpofu2014jds][mpofu2014efn]
Dry baobab fruit pulp4 % (wt/vol) for the fermentation, 14 % (wt/vol) in the finished product[mpofu2014jds]
Sugar7 % (wt/vol)[mpofu2014jds]
Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus yoba starterProbiotic version only[mpofu2014jds]
Starterprobiotic version: Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus yoba

Total time across the recorded steps: 24 h

Start
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25 °C

What changes: The raw milk is boiled and left to cool to room temperature

Step 1 of 4
Boil the milk and cool it
Time
Not documented
Temperature
25 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
L. rhamnosus

Output: boiled, cooled milk.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Traditional mutandabota is cow's or goat's milk mixed with dry baobab fruit pulp; the milk starts at pH 6.7 and the finished food measured about pH 3.5. A probiotic version, yoba mutandabota, ferments boiled milk and 4 % pulp with Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus yoba for 24 hours before the rest of the pulp and 7 % sugar go in. Made in 4 steps over 24 h. The longest step, ferment, takes 24 h (Mpofu A 2014). Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus yoba (probiotic version), from about 5.8 to 8.8 log cfu/mL does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 hReported[mpofu2014jds][mpofu2016]Ferment
Temperature25 °CReported[mpofu2014jds]Boil the milk and cool it
AciditypH 3.5Measured[mpofu2014jds]Stir in the rest of the pulp and the sugar

What makes this one different

Traditional mutandabota is cow's or goat's milk mixed with dry baobab pulp, taking the milk from pH 6.7 to about 3.5. The yoba version first ferments boiled milk with a little pulp and a probiotic starter for 24 hours.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Traditional mutandabotaRaw cow's or goat's milk mixed with dry baobab pulp; final pH about 3.5.
  • Yoba mutandabotaBoiled milk fermented 24 h with L. rhamnosus yoba before the rest of the pulp and sugar are added.

Safety

In a lab challenge test, researchers made both versions from pasteurised milk and added five pathogens at about 5.5 log cfu/mL. L. monocytogenes, Salmonella and E. coli O157:H7 fell but were still found after 24 h in traditional mutandabota at pH 3.4, and the authors say eating it exposes people to food-borne infection. The test did not cover raw milk. In the yoba version, Salmonella grew for the first 9 h of fermentation and then fell, and none of the tested pathogens could be detected 3 h into the eating period, a fall of more than 3.5 log.

Hazards the sources name: Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp. and Escherichia coli O157:H7, added to traditional mutandabota in a lab challenge test, fell but survived 24 h; added Bacillus cereus and Campylobacter jejuni could not be detected after 3 h.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

History
The sources we found do not record its history.
  1. [mpofu2014efn] Mpofu A., Linnemann A.R., Nout M.J., Zwietering M.H., Smid E.J. 2014, Mutandabota, a food product from Zimbabwe, processing, composition, and socioeconomic aspects, Ecology of Food and Nutrition 53(1):24–41 (abstract)paper
  2. [mpofu2014jds] Mpofu A., Linnemann A.R., Sybesma W., Kort R., Nout M.J., Smid E.J. 2014, Development of a locally sustainable functional food based on mutandabota, a traditional food in southern Africa, Journal of Dairy Science 97(5):2591–2599 (abstract)paper
  3. [mpofu2016] Mpofu A., Linnemann A.R., Nout M.J., Zwietering M.H., Smid E.J., den Besten H.M. 2016, Inactivation of bacterial pathogens in yoba mutandabota, a dairy product fermented with the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus yoba, International Journal of Food Microbiology 217:42–48 (abstract)paper