Preparation and Evaluation of Some Weaning Foods Made from Rice and Legumes

Abstract

Weaning is a gradual process of introducing solids foods to an infant’s diet, alongside breast milk from the age of sixmonths, since the breast feeding along cannot meet the infant nutritional requirement. in this study three composite foodswere prepared from rice and some legumes (roasted soybean, roasted peanut and roasted chickpeas) ratio 70:30. Theformulations were made to meet the greatest amino acid scores, the desired amount of energy and protein according to theFAO/WHO recommendation for infants. Concentrations of energy, protein, amino acid, phytates, trypsin inhibitor, tanninsand protein digestibility were determined by standard methods. The proximate chemical composition results indicated thatthe moisture (10.01% to 11.77%), as water was added during cooking, protein (7.90% to 10.70%), ash (0.99% to 4.52%)crude fiber (0.91% to 1.04%), energy (344.3 kcal/100g to 400.3kcal/100g), fats (0.88% to 11.82%) and carbohydrateswere (61.99% to 74.0%). the levels of protein in blends of weaning food were higher than the control. the results of antinutritionfactors ranges phytic acid (3.90 to 4.52mg/100g), trypsin inhibitor (0.39 to 0.47 tiu/mg) and tannins (17.12 to19.50 mg/100g). heat processing and cooking of the blends resulted in low levels of anti-nutrition and higher in vitroprotein digestibility ranged from(83.30 to 87.59 %) of the weaning food blends respectively. the result of the sensoryevaluation showd that the best blend was contained rice/peanut and rice/ chickpeas but rice/ soybean was low in theacceptability. this study recommends that mix cereals with legumes to achieve complementation of amino acids andconsequent improvement in protein quality.