Development of precooked balanced protein food suitable for weaned infants.

Dietary and nutrition surveys conducted in different parts of India have shown that
the diets consumed by weaned infants and young children belonging to low income groups
of the population are grossly deficient in proteins, certain vitamins and minerals'. Due
to the scarcity and high cost of milk and other protective foods, the children of the poorer
classes after weaning are generally fed on cooked cereals or cereal gruels which have low ,
protein contents and are deficient in certain essential vitamins and minerals. The incidence
of protein malnutrition (kwashiorkor) and other deficiency diseases is quite high among
the children of the poor classes'.
With a view to overcoming the shortage in the supply of milk and other protective
foods in many technically under developed countries, considerable attention has been paid
to the possibility of using protein rich foods of vegetable origin such as oilseeds and oilseed
meals and pulses in the feeding of weaned infants and young children'. Investigations
carried out by Chick and Slack4 and later by Dean' have shown that a highly nutritious
food can be prepared by blending barley malt extract with soya bean flour. Dean' reported
that about half the milk in the diet of infants up to one year of age could be replaced by a
barley malt—soya mixture and even to a greater extent in the diets of older children without
affecting their growth and general health. Later investigations have shown the possibility
of preparing several compositions based on cereals, oilseed meals and pulses, suitable for
feeding weaned infants'' 7. Subrahmanyan et al6 have shown that two ounces of a balanced
malt food (a blend of sorghum malt, low-fat groundnut flour, Bengal gram flour and skim
milk powder) or Indian MPF (a blend of groundnut flour 60 parts, Bengal gram flour 20
parts and skim milk powder 20 parts fortified with vitamins and minerals) in the diet form
effective supplements to the, diets of weaned infants aged 9-20 months. Scrimshaw et al developed a vegetable mixture known as INCAP mixture 9B (blend of corn, 29 parts,
sorghum, 29 parts, cottonseed meal, 38 parts, dry Torula yeast, 3 parts, calcium carbonate, 1
part and vitamin A, 10,000 I.U.) which was found to be very effective in the treatment of
kwashiorkor in children. The present paper gives details of the process and project costs for
the preparation of a low cost precooked protein food suitable for feeding weaned infants.