Nutritional evaluation of complementary food developed from plant and animal protein sources

The purpose of this paper is to nutritionally evaluate the potency of complementary food produced by mixing different sources of vegetable and animal protein together.

Maize (carbohydrate), peanut (groundnut) and crayfish (Euastacus spp) were the sole energy and protein sources, respectively. Diet 1 (Basal); diet 2 (groundnut‐fermented‐maize (ogi) 1:9); diet 3 (crayfish‐ground‐nut‐ogi, 1:1:9); diet 4 (crayfish‐ogi, 1:9); diet 5 control (Nutrend). The formulated complementary diets were fed to 30 albino rats. A commercial product (Nutrend) manufactured by nestle plc was obtained at a local supermarket, Ile‐Ife, Nigeria and was used as standard diet.

The result showed the growth rate (non‐protein diet) decreased from 37.962‐36.910; and the growth rate (protein diet) increased from 37.270‐54.544, 37.770‐82.662, 37.900‐78.570, and 37.636‐80.521 for diets 1 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively. Protein efficiency ratio (PER), for diets 1 2, 3, 4 and 5 were nil, 1.45, 3.30, 3.15, and 2.94, respectively. Net protein ratio (NPR), for diets 1 2, 3, 4 and 5 were nil, 0.85, 2.78, 2.59, and 2.45, respectively. The average nitrogen retained in various organs of experimental animals, such as liver, kidney and muscle of the diets 1 2, 3 4 and 5 were 35.52, 33.55, 33.58: 48.32, 48.40 48.68: 55.70, 53.20, 56.08: 52.30, 50.48, 54.65: and 56.76, 44.63, 56.80, respectively. The formulations compared to control were found superior in terms of growth rate, PER, NPR and ensure optimum nitrogen content in the liver, kidney and tissues.

The paper's findings show that the complementary food formulations which are not expensive, locally available, and affordable, could be produced from plant and animal sources and may be suitable to eradicate protein energy malnutrition (PEM).