Nutritional Evaluation of Complementary Food Formulations from Maize, Soybean and Peanut Fortified with <i>Moringa oleifera</i> Leaf Powder

Abstract

Nutritional evaluation of complementary food formulations from maize, soybean and pea nut fortified with M oringa o leifera leaf powder was carried out. Maize, soybean and peanut were blended in a ratio of 60:30:10 to produce a complementary food, which was then fortified. While the unfortified food product (sample A) served as control, the other three formulations were fortified with 5%, 10% and 15% Moringa leaf powder to give three samples (B, C and D respectively) of fortified food. Nutritional composition determination and feeding trials were then carried out, using two weeks old male albino rats to determine the performance of the food formulations. While the crude protein, crude fibre, and ash contents of the diets increased significantly ( p < 0.05) with fortification, with values ranging from 16.04% to 17.59%, 2.25% to 4.42% and 1.40% to 2.50 % respectively, crude fat and carbohydrate decreased significantly (p < 0.05), with concomitant decrease in energy, with values ranging from 23.48% to 20.80%, 49.32% to 47.63% and 472.76% to 448.08 kcal/100g respectively in samples A to D. PER values significantly (p < 0.05) improved up to 10% substitution, from 1.77 in unfortified (sample A) to 1.90 in 10% fortified (sample C), but declined at 15% substitution (sample D) to 1.69. Similarly, NPR values increased from 0.71 to 0.76 and 0.68. However, all the PER values including that of Nestle Cerelac (2.04) were lower than, though within the same range, with the value of 2.10 recommended by the Protein Advisory Group (PAG) for complementary foods. Sample C (10% Moringa flour blend) gave the best performance after rat feeding trials.