Changing the Consistency of Animal Source and Micronutrient‐Rich Complementary Foods to Improve Acceptability and Consumption among Infants and Toddlers: Formative Research (FR) in Rural Peru

Abstract

In many parts of rural Peru and other developing countries where stunting and anemia are prevalent, caregivers culturally prefer non‐nutrient dense preparations such as soups as first complementary foods. Animal source foods (ASF) are frequently introduced towards the end of the first year. Through conducting in depth interviews (24), focus groups (6) and observations (4) with caregivers, we explored the potential acceptance of commercial infant food grinders (IFG) to facilitate giving available micronutrient‐rich family foods and ASFs to infants and young children from 6 months.Mothers considered the IFG transforms negative qualities attributed to ASF to positive: the grinding of the food made it “soft”, the ASF is transformed from “hard” to a consistency considered appropriate for eating and digesting for a 6 – 7 month old; the food is “tastier because it has meat in it and child will eat more”. Advantages for the mothers included its ease and facility to use and wash; it “saves time”, and that a baby will not choke on this food. These soft preparations can be used as a vehicle for multi‐micronutrient powders, recently being distributed by the MOH.The first phase of the FR is followed by household behavioral trials with 40 caregivers and their children 6 – 15 months to further explore the use of the IFG during a period of 2 ‐3 weeks, to learn of the types of foods used, frequency of use and changes in dietary intake, information to be used to design a community efficacy trial to explore potential dietary impact of the IFG at scale in this setting.Funding: Mathile Institute for the Advancement of Human Nutrition