Physico-chemical and Microbial Quality of Sorghum–based Complementary Food Enriched with Soybean (<i>Glycine max</i>) and Sesame (<i>Sesamum indicum</i>)

Abstract

Nigeria is well endowed with adequate food supplies, however, more than one third of the children under the age of five are malnourished and of all deaths of children fewer than five years of age are directly or indirectly attributable to malnutrition. In this study, ogi, a Nigerian fermented weaning food, was prepared from sorghum seeds using the traditional process. The fresh ogi was dried and milled to obtain sorghum flour. Four complementary foods, containing 50-80% sorghum ogi flour, were prepared from blends of sorghum ogi flour, soybean flour and sesame meal. The complementary foods contained 46.9–66.0% carbohydrates, 16.0–24.6% protein, 14.13–21.75% fat and 1.35–1.93% ash. These values were significantly (P < 0.05) higher than values obtained for ogi. In general, the nutrient content of all the complementary foods were within the range prescribed by FAO/WHO pattern for processed weaning foods. The loose bulk densities of complementary flours ranged from 0.37
to 0.43g/ml and packed bulk densities from 0.70–0.75 g/ml, while ogi flours were 0.42 and 0.70 g/ml, respectively. Sorghum ogi had highest reconstitution index (104.5) while complementary foods ranged between 92.30 and 100.30. The total plate counts ranged from 2.0x103 - 2.4x104 cfu/g; coliforms, mould and yeast were absent in some of the products.
However, all the weaning foods required cooking before feeding to children. This approach can be made use of in Community Nutrition and in Emergency Feeding Programmes.