Sweetpotato- and cereal-based infant foods: protein quality assessment, and effect on body composition using sprague dawley rats as a model.

Francis Kweku Amagloh,Jane Coad,Marie-Eve Lemercier,Patrick C H Morel,Anne Broomfield,Tracy Chiridza

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0120121

Abstract

The Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS) of sweetpotato-based complementary foods (OFSP ComFa and CFSP ComFa) and cereal-based infant products (Weanimix and Cerelac) was assessed using 3 wk-old male Sprague Dawley rats weighing between 53–67 g as a model for human infants. Also, the effect of consumption of the infant formulations on lean mass, bone mass content and fat mass was evaluated by Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DEXA) using 6 wk-old Sprague Dawley rats (initial weight, 206-229 g). The ComFa products and Weanimix are household-level formulations, and Cerelac is a commercial infant cereal. The true protein digestibility score for Cerelac was 96.27%, and about 1.8% (P<0.0001) higher than that for OFSP ComFa, CFSP ComFa and Weanimix. However, OFSP ComFa had the highest un-truncated PDCAAS by a difference of 4.1%, than CFSP ComFa, and about 20% difference compared with both the Weanimix and Cerelac. All the products investigated had PDCAAS greater than 70%, the minimum protein quality requirement for complementary foods. Among the rats assigned to the four formulations, their bone mass and fat mass composition were not significantly different (P=0.08 and P=0.85, respectively). However, the rats on CFSP ComFa had higher lean mass than those on Cerelac (321.67 vs. 297.19 g; P=0.03). The findings from the PDCAAS and the DEXA-measured body composition studies indicate that complementary foods could be formulated from readily available agricultural resources at the household-level to support growth as would a nutritionally adequate industrial-manufactured infant cereal. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the findings of our studies are based on an animal model.

Highlights

The quality of complementary foods is among the major drivers if infants and young children nutriture is to be improved
Household-level complementary foods formulated from orange- and cream-fleshed sweetpotato denoted as orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) ComFa and CFSP ComFa respectively [6], and a maize-soyabeangroundnut blended food (Weanimix) [14,15] were evaluated for protein quality (Expt 1) and effect on growth (Expt 2) in 3 wk-old weanling and 6 wk-old Sprague Dawley rats, respectively
The sweetpotato-based infant food products, OFSP ComFa and CFSP ComFa, had limiting essential amino acid scores above 1.0, while the cereal-based complementary foods (Weanimix and Cerelac) had scores of about 0.9

Summary

Introduction

The quality of complementary foods is among the major drivers if infants and young children nutriture is to be improved. In low- and middle-income countries because of the perennial problem of poverty, most families cannot afford nutritionally-adequate proprietary cereal-based complementary food. Until micronutrient-enriched foods are made available through an efficient food distribution channel and government subsidies, dietary diversification remains an important strategy for improving the nutritional status such as vitamin A of infants in low- and middleincome countries. In this vein, household-level complementary food products were previously formulated from a cream-fleshed sweetpotato (CFSP) [5], and recently from an orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) [6] as a dietary source of vitamin A for infants in low- and middle-income countries. There is only one study [7], in addition to our previous study [5], in which amino acid score was used to estimate the protein quality of sweetpotato-based complementary foods

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