Food technologies and developing countries: a processing method for making edible the highly toxic cassava roots

In addition to be a possible solution to the food crisis becoming a productive model to follow, the development of a process and/or a technique of food production in a developing country could create advantages from an industrial point of view due to the use of alternative raw materials, which have a potentially high competitiveness. In developing countries, agriculture is able to offer a variety of products making up the daily diet and provide products with potential that could make up for many nutritional deficiencies to which resident populations are subject. Food technology applications on cereals, tubers, roots, fruits, and by-products from related processes are reported at aiming to obtain finished and semi-finished foods and/or basic ingredients meeting the food safety criteria. In detail, this study aims to generate a processing method for the white bitter roots collected in a rural area of Burundi with a cyanogenic glycoside content >400 mg cyanide equivalent/kg dry weight. A standardised procedure consisting of peeling, grating, and oven drying at 60°C, with or without fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, was successfully tested.