Assessment on Viability of Ampalaya as Alternative Ingredient in Making Empanada Crust

Abstract

Food is important to everyone, especially for growing children. Nutrition is the process by which a person takes in and assimilates the right amount of nutrients to keep the body healthy and strong. With proper nutrition, a person will have protein and carbohydrates that are needed to fuel his/her active lifestyle. Empanada with ampalaya mixture is a type of pastry food made of ampalaya combined with pork. It can decrease cardiovascular risk and also has dietary fiber. It will help metabolize homocysteine, which is an amino acid that would otherwise accumulate toxic levels. It is acceptable to the students because the taste is good and has a crunchy crust. The researchers chose the experimental method, survey method, and simple random sampling technique for this study. A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions (or other types of prompts) to gather the information of respondents. The investigation was conducted on Bestlink College of the Philippines in December 2019. The questionnaire served as the instrument for collecting the data. Out of 50 students and 10 teachers, 57.4% and 62.6% agreed that our product is delicious in terms of taste, respectively. Meanwhile, in terms of the aroma of our product, 56.4% of the students and 56.4% of the teachers agreed. In terms of the nutritional value, 72.4% of the students strongly agreed that our product is rich in vitamins, while 94% of the teachers very strongly agreed. In terms of competitiveness, 73.4% of students and 89% of teachers strongly agreed that our product can compete in the market. Lastly, in terms of presentation, 65.6% of the students and 66.8% of the teachers agreed that our product has a pleasing appearance. The difference between the students and teachers was significant. In conclusion, the product is budget-friendly mostly to students, which makes it marketable. Some of the respondents said that our product is good and smells great, thereby indicating that the aroma almost influenced its taste. The respondents said that we need to improve the taste slightly. Some of the respondents said that our product has an aftertaste, and some said that the ampalaya did not mix with the product well.