Home processed cereal-based complementary foods for infants and young children

This study is conducted to produce high quality weanmg food as complementary from local raw materials, intended for feeding infants and young children generally from the age of 6 months to 24 months. Three diets A, B, C consisting of extracted wheat flour (67%) treated with a- amylase and different ratios of partially defatted roasted sesame and other ingredients. All the diets were home baked by spreading on hot plate (approximately 150- 160C). Industrially readymade weaning food (Cerelac) was used as a reference diet. The diets A, B, C, and the reference diet were analyzed for chemical, physicochemical and microbial load. Protein content was found to range from 18.43 to 20.83% in the diets A, B and C. Significant (differences (P 0.05) were found between all the diets. The diets protein content was higher than that of the reference diet. The study revealed that the protein digestibility ranged from 87.86 to 95.51 for diets A, B and C and 94.12% for the reference. The essential amino acids content of the diets ranged as follow, Lysine 0.12 -0.48 g/l00g protein (reference 3.29), the leucine 2.42 -3.37 g/100g protein(reference 6.71); isoleucine 1.79 to 2.19 g/l00g(reference 4.79 ); therionine 0.49 to 1.16 g/l00g protein(reference 2.87); methionine 32 to 0.63g/100g protein(refernce 1.71 );valine 1.95 to 2.60g/100g protein (reference 4.57 ); phenylalanine 1.35 to 1.95 g/l00g protein (reference 3.88); arginine 1.55 to 3.28 g/100g protein (reference 2.61 ) and histidene 0. 5 to 1.02 g/l00g protein while that of the reference was 2.33 g/I00g protein.Total sugar content of diet A, B and C ranged from 6.55 to 8.53%, which were lower than that of the reference (15.28%).Protein efficiency ratio was found to be 1.05, 1.08, 1.14, and 1 .06 for diets A, B, C, and the reference respectively. In mineral content Calcium content of the diets was in the range of 12.46 to 68.11 mg/l00g and that of the reference was 337.3 mg/l00g. Iron content of the diets ranged from 5.14 to 14.05 mg/l00g, while the reference content of iron was l1.24. Zinc content of diet ranged from 2.30 to 4.84 mg/l00g and that of the reference was 5.76 mg/l00g. Viscosity of the hot paste of the diets ranged from 400 - 650 cp and it was 130 cp for the reference diet. Water retention capacity was found to range from 333.33 to 483.33 for the diets which were higher than that of the control (216.66).Bulk density of the diets ranged from 0.56 - 0.64 g/cm3, higher than that of the reference 0.44 g/cm3. All the diets were free from pathogenic bacteria and hence considered to be safe for consumption. Sensory evaluation of the studied diets showed that diet A acquired the highest score while the chemical evaluation revealed that diet C was the best followed by diet B. The addition of PDRS up to the level 30% in complementary foods manufacturing increase the protein content of the diets and hence the nutritional value ,that is sesame protein is rich in sulphur containing amino-acids such as methionine .Addition of a-amylase improve the functional properties of diets