Protein Quality of Extruded Ready-to-Eat Baby Foods from Orange-Fleshed Sweet Potato, Amaranth Seeds, and Soybean Flour Blends

Abstract

Purpose: Protein quality refers to the total protein content, essential amino acid content, and digestibility of a protein. Source, bioavailability, food matrix, and processing conditions all have an impact on protein quality. Protein quality can be lost during food processing. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of extrusion cooking and blend proportions on the protein quality of extruded ready-to-eat baby foods.
 Methodology: Different blends of orange-fleshed sweet potato, amaranth seeds, and soybean flour were used and analyzed for protein quality including in vitro protein digestibility (IVPD) of extruded ready-to-eat baby foods. In addition, nutrient damage due to heat or processing temperature was evaluated by analyzing available lysine in the end products to ensure the quality of extruded ready-to-eat baby foods. Extrusion cooking was carried out at a temperature of 90oC, screw speed of 400 rpm, and feed moisture content of 35%.
 Findings: The results showed that IVPD ranged from 54.05 to 91.87%. The available lysine as a parameter to evaluate the nutritional damage due to thermal processing ranged from (1.69 to 2.79%). This research predicts the potential availability of highly digestible protein as well as the assurance of lysine availability once extrudates are consumed. Achieving high lysine retention during extrusion cooking depends on a number of factors, including low temperature, high screw speed, high feed moisture content, and high shear forces that lead to a short residence time.
 Recommendation: It is important to conduct more research on how extrusion cooking affects the molecular and physical interactions between starches, proteins, lipids, and phenolic compounds.

Optimization of a formula to develop iron-dense novel composite complementary flour with a reduced phytate/minerals molar ratio from dabi teff-field pea-based blends using a D-optimal mixture design

“…Minerals are vital nutrients for life. They are essential for healthy brain, bone, and body development and are also growth regulators in children ( 1 ). In the present study, the iron content of dabi teff was determined to be 86.5 mg/100 g, which was much higher than that of commonly recommended animal source foods for iron, such as liver (17.9 mg/100 g edible portion) and red beef meat (3.79 mg/100 g) ( 40 ).…”

“…Iron is a vital nutrient necessary for building and maintaining healthy red blood cells and for making hemoglobin ( 1 ). When compared to the FAO/WHO ( 25 ) guidelines for the nutrient content of formulated complementary foods, the mean value of the new formulations had a significantly higher ( p < 0.05) mean iron content (1.76 fold), where the recommended value is at 16 mg/100 g, whereas none of the formulations met the recommendations for calcium and zinc at 500 mg/day and 3.2 mg/100 g, respectively, which may call for searching for other calcium- and zinc-rich food sources.…”

“…Furthermore, contrary to the present findings, Mezgebo et al ( 42 ) reported a higher zinc content, which ranged from 4.05 to 5.58 mg/100 g for complementary porridge formulation from red teff, malted soybean flour, and papaya fruit powder. Magnesium is a cofactor that aids in protein synthesis in the human body, and its deficiency in children leads to stunted growth ( 1 ). In the current study, we observed a high mean magnesium content of the newly developed complementary flour at 120.57 mg/100 g. The literature supports that cereals, legumes, and oilseeds contain a good amount of magnesium, and the presence of these components in the current formulation was responsible for the higher magnesium content.…”

“…Micronutrient malnutrition is a serious, life-threatening public health problem in both developed and developing countries ( 1 ). Its deleterious effect is more significant in children under 5 years, where more than 50% of the children worldwide experience one or more key micronutrient deficiencies, and it often co-exists with infectious diseases ( 2 ).…”

Formulation and characterisation of phytonutrients‐rich traditional dehydrated snack prepared from skinned baby potatoes

“…Mineral profiling of various papad formulations was done using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). Modified method of Nkesiga (2022) was considered to measure the oil absorption capacity of papad formulations. Glycoalkaloids were estimated by the HPLC method as mentioned by Azizi et al (2020).…”