Healthy food design and early childhood nutrition: Nutritional and food safety assessment of fermented and malted multi-grains instant weaning porridge fortified with defatted pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo) seed flour

Abstract

Poor-quality diets are one of the most significant barriers to children's survival, growth, development, and learning today. In the context of this experiment, weaning porridge from complementary flour blends of locally available foodstuffs (millet, sorghum, green beans, and pumpkin seeds) was formulated for nutritional, functional, microbiological, and sensory acceptability. The results outlined that all the developed weaning porridge complied with the energy and nutrient density (zinc, iron, and protein) criteria. Energy (2.06-2.08 Kcal/g), protein (4.09-5.44% g/100 Kcal), iron (3.96-4.59 mg/100 Kcal), and calcium (0.39-1.37 mg/100 Kcal) were the nutrient density values identified. The functional features revealed an excellent reconstitution index (5.25-4.53) with a significant difference (P<0.05), a swelling index ranging from 1.03% to 0.57%, and a viscosity ranging from 195.5 cp to 204.5 cp. This study provides valuable insight that complementary foods made from locally available foods are potential solutions for mitigating childhood malnutrition and providing adequate complementation to breastfeeding in resource-poor and technologically underdeveloped countries by providing the needed energy and nutrient densities for immunity, well-being, growth, and development of young children and infants without fortification.