PRODUCTION AND QUALITY EVALUATION OF MAIZE MILLET BASED COMPLEMENTARY FOOD FORTIFIED WITH FLUTED PUMPKIN SEEDS

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

 

 

 

Plate 6:   5% Millet+90% Yellow Maize + 5% Fluted Pumpkin Seeds             39

Plate 7:   90% Millet +5% Yellow Maize +5% Fluted Pumpkin Seeds          39

Plate 8:   90% Millet +10% Fluted Pumpkin Seeds                39

Plate 9:   90% Yellow Maize +10% Fluted Pumpkin Seeds      39 

The importance of nutrition as a foundation for healthy development is often underestimated. Poor nutrition leads to ill-health and ill-health contributes to further deterioration in nutritional status. These effects are most dramatically observed in infants and young children, who bear the brunt of the onset of malnutrition and suffer the highest risk of disability and death associated with it. According to the World Health Organization (2001), about 50−70% of the burden of diarrhoeal diseases, measles, malaria and lower respiratory infections was attributable to malnutrition.

The children who die represent only a small part of the total health burden due to nutritional deficiencies. Maternal malnutrition, inappropriate breastfeeding and complementary feeding represent major risks to the health and development of those children who survive. Deficiencies in the diet of vitamin A, iodine, iron and zinc are still widespread and are a common cause of excess morbidity and mortality. Over 50 million children under age five are wasted, and in low-income countries, one in every three children suffers from stunted growth. Indeed, many children never reach this age. The effects of poor nutrition and stunting continue throughout life, contributing to poor school performance, reduced productivity, and impaired intellectual and social development (WHO, 2001). 

Inappropriate feeding practices are a major cause of the onset of malnutrition in young children. Children who are not breastfed appropriately have repeated infections, grow less well, and are almost six times more likely to die by the age of one month than children who receive at least some breast milk. From six months onwards, when breast milk alone is no longer sufficient to meet all nutritional requirements, infants enter a particularly vulnerable period of complementary feeding during which they make a gradual transition to eating family foods. The incidence of malnutrition rises sharply during the period from 6 to 18 months of age in most countries, and the deficits acquired at this age are difficult to compensate for later in childhood. 

UNICEF (2018) defines complimentary food as "any non-breast milk foods or nutritive liquids that are readily consumed and digested by young child and provide additional nutrition at the developmental stage of the infants.  These complementary formulas are usually imported and/or obtained within the country, however, their retail price are high due to importation cost and the economic situation. Hence, the average Nigerian nursing mother finds it overly expensive to purchase them (Sule, 2014). In recent times, legumes have been incorporated into traditional cereal formulation by food developers as an effort to reduce the problem of malnutrition and as nutrient diversification strategy among vulnerable groups (Usman, 2012). Cereals can be supplemented with legumes which are rich in essential amino-acids especially the sulphur-containing ones (Kanu et al., 2007).  Nutritional quality of legumes can be enhanced through processing (Uppal and Brains, 2012). Processing technologies aid in transforming raw grains into useful products with maximum nutritional value to ensure nutrient security of population for developing countries. Such techniques include malting and fermentation. Malting is simple, easily adaptable, and inexpensive and a complex metabolic process during which the lipids, carbohydrates and storage proteins within the seed are broken down in order to provide energy and amino acids necessary for the plant development (Akintola, 2014). The metabolic changes that take place in the malt influence and improve the bioavailability, palatability, and digestibility of certain essential nutrients (Gernah et al., 2011). Several enzymes become active; vitamins are increased, whereas there are reduction in phytates and tannins.  Malting of legumes increases protein and carbohydrate digestibility, enhances some of their vitamin contents, reduces the antinutritional factors and improves their overall nutritional quality (Malleshi and Klopfenstein, 2006). Reduction of bulkiness and increasing shelf-life of cereal and legume based food formulations (Colmenares De Ruiz and Bressani, 2000) are among the advantages conferred by malting (Gernah et al., 2011). It has also been shown to decrease anti nutritional factors and increase crude fiber content (El-Adawy et al., 2003).

Fermentation process provides a means by which the protein content of high starch substrates can be increased (Wood, 2012) for the benefit of consumers needing higher protein intakes -a very significant improvement in nutrition to the consumer. Fermentation not only enriches the substrate with protein, the microorganisms also selectively enrich the substrate with lysine, the first essential limiting amino acid in cereals (Solomon, 2005). 

Fluted pumpkin (Telfairia occidentalis) is a tropical vine grown in West Africa as a leaf vegetable and for its edible seeds (Fagbemi et al., 2007). T. occidentalis is a member of the family cucurbitaceae. Fluted pumpkin seeds are an excellent source of protein and oil thus is beneficial to human health. Both leaves and seeds are an excellent source of protein, fat, carbohydrates, iron, dietary fibre, zinc, copper, iron and calcium. It is locally called ugu among the Igbos, Ubong among the Efik speaking people in the southern Nigeria. Fluted pumpkin is solely propagated by seed (Eziaba, 2000). During fruit maturation, those fruits selected for seed or planting are left to ripen fully on the plant while those for food are harvested while still tender. Fluted pumpkin (Telfairia occidentalis) is playing an important role in human nutrition. Fagbemi (2004) reported that the leaves and edible shoots together contain 85% moisture, and the dry portion of what is usually consumed contains 11% crude protein, 25% carbohydrate, 3% oils, 11% ash and as much as 700mg/kg of iron. This high level of iron seems to provide a basis for the folklore that Telfairia leaf extract is administered as a blood tonic to convalescent persons (Akoroda, 2000).

Maize (Zea mays) is a cereal grain which has become a staple food in many parts of the world with total production of maize surpassing that of wheat or rice (Prasanna et al., 2001). Yellow maize, in addition to being dietary source of energy, lipids, protein, minerals and vitamins, is a source of carotenoids (Bhupender et al., 2012). 

 It also contains vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, vitamin B1 (thiamine), vitamin B2 (niacin), vitamin B3 (riboflavin), vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid), vitamin B6 (pyridoxine), folic acid, selenium, N-p-coumaryl tryptamine, and N-ferrulyl tryptamine. Potassium is a major nutrient present which has a good significance because an average human diet is deficient in it (Kumar and Jhariya, 2013). 

Roasted maize kernels are also used as coffee substitute (Breadley, 2002). Maize germ contains about 45–50% of oil that is used in cooking, salads and is obtained from wet milling process (Orthoefer, et al., 2003). 

In developing countries like Nigeria, traditional weaning food from plant staples often fail to meet the nutritional needs of infants, which leads to malnourishment. Some staple crops are either rich in carbohydrates, proteins and vitamins etc when taken in isolation, which would not supply all the required nutrients for a child's growth and development. This therefore causes nutrient deficiency in infants which invariably affects their growth and wellbeing, leading to a greater risk of bone fracture and stunted growth in children. To proffer solution for this problem, it is therefore imperative to find a way to incorporate different staple crops in producing weaning foods having the combination of vital nutrient requirement per intake in the right proportion. Thus, the motivation for this study.

Complimentary feeding is an excellent approach to improve the feeding capability and to provide nutrients at the developmental stage of young child. Processing of malted millet and yellow maize with added fluted pumpkin seeds will help to combat protein energy malnutrition in infants. 

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the quality properties of complementary foods made from flour blends, malted millet and yellow maize fortified with fluted pumpkin seed flour.

The specific objectives were to: