Improving energy content of gruels (Mageu) for child weaning in Namibia

Abstract

Abstract by author:

In Namibia "weaning", the process of replacing breast milk with other foods, is a major problem in the northern rural areas of the country. Most mothers can't afford the commercially available weaning food products, thus limiting their young ones to the traditionally made gruels which are low in energy content and have high viscosity which is often undesirable for child weaning. Therefore this project attempted to improve the energy content of the traditionally made gruels from Pearl Millet by malting. Flours of both malted and unmalted Pearl Millet were milled under the same conditions and its particle size distribution, proximate composition, energy content, water absorption and sensory evaluation was determined. Several striking aspects were evident from the results obtained. It appeared that malting for 48 hours had no significant P (0. 005) effect on percentage ash, fat, fibre and energy content as well as the particle size distribution and some parameters of the sensory evaluation. However the small difference that was observed in moisture content, water absorption, protein content etc indicated that the desirable results could still be obtained if the malting process was improved