State of the Art for Development of Optimized Complementary Food in Ethiopia

Complementary food and feeding are the key areas to improve in Ethiopia, because the concept of improved feeding of infant and young children is not well understood by most families and there is no ingredient optimization method during infant food formulation. Therefore, this study is initiated to produce optimized complementary food from pre-gelatinized taro flour mixing with maize and soybean flour in order to develop low-cost and easily available complementary food. A statistical software package (Design- Expert ®, version 10.0, Stat-Ease, SaMeep104 Inc.) mixture design was used for the generation of test formulations and analysis of the results. In the blending of the components, the ingredients were constrained as taro 40- 50 %, maize 30- 40% and soya bean 20-30 %. For optimization protocol, both numerical and graphical optimization techniques were employed. The optimization criteria were applied for high crude protein, crude fat, total carbohydrate, β-carotene, Fe, Zn, Ca, energy, and low crude fiber, phytic acid and oxalic acid in the complementary food formulated. For the sensory analysis, ten duplicates of thick porridge were prepared from 14 formulations and each sample was served to each panelist.The result of this study shows that the proximate, mineral and anti-nutritional content differs significantly due to blending levels of the components. The overall optimization suggested that complementary food made with 50 % taro, 30 % maize and 20 % soybeans achieved the best formulation. The panelists agreed that the formulas could be provided for baby food.

Keywords: Complementary food, nutrient density, optimization and sensory.