Production of cereal-based infant food from local materials

The main goal of this study was to produce cereal-based infant food from Sudanese staple food with high-energy and protein contents so as to be of great help in reducing the incidence of protein-calorie malnutrition among young children in Sudan. Therefor, two Sudanese sorghum cultivars namely feterita and dabar along with pigeon pea seed (Cajanus cajan) were investigated for their chemical composition and energy values during the harvrsting seasons 1999/00 and 2000/01. Out of the analysis, feterita as a basic staple food in Sudan and pigeon pea as a protein supplement were selected based on their crude protein and energy contents as a basic ingredients for production of sorghum-based infant food. Pigeon pea seeds were very rich in protein content (19.88% DM), while feterita and dabar were of high energy values; 406.79 and 408.15 , respectively. The decortication process was found to have a significant positive effects (P0.05) on the nutritional value of pigeon pea, feterita and dabar, especially with regard to their antinutritional factors such as tannin and phytic acid. Moreover, the protein content in pigeon pea increased from 19.88 to 21.61% DM, while that of feterita and dabar decreased by 4.84 and 8.88%, respectively. Also, the dehulling process slightly resulted in an increasement of about 0.43%, 0.83% and 7.38 in feterita, dabar and pigeon pea energy value, respectively. On the other hand, the amino acids analysis confirmed the great beneficial effects of pigeon pea supplementation on feterita sorghum nutritional value. Incroporation of pigeon pea flour into feterita sorghum flour at a ration of 35: 65 overcame lysine deficiency in feterita sorghum protein and increased the protein score from 37% in feterita native flour to 91% in feterita-pigeon pea composite flour. In contrast, the in-vitro protein digestibility of feterita native decreased from 82% to 76% in feterita-pigeon pea native composite flour. However, cooking and drum drying in the presence of 1% ascorbic acid were significantly (P0.05) found to improve the in-vitro protein digestibility of feterita composite flour. In fact, drum drying without pre-cooking increased the protein digestibility of the composite flour from 76% to 77%, while pre-cooking before drum drying of the composite flour increased the protein digestibility of the drum-dried product to about 80%. Drum drying after pre-cooking reduced lysine and methionine levels by 3.5% and 22.5%, respectively. In general, feterita-based infant food which was produced in this study from feterita-pigeon pea composite flour as a drum-dried product was found to provide adequate amounts of protein (15.15% DM) and energy (414.25 keal/100g DM) and capable to meet the international standards for infants protein quality as recommended by the FOA/WHO/UN (1985) and Dendy (1995). Moreover, the product was very easily digested (83.83%) compared to casein as a reference protein (89.84%). Comparing feterita-based infant food with commercial products such as Cerelac, Milupa and Robinson, feterita-based infant food appeared to provide more protein and energy than the commercial products