Preparation of Ready-to-Eat Weaning Food

Sneha, Sehwag (2010) Preparation of Ready-to-Eat Weaning Food. [Student Project Report]

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Abstract

This Dissertation / Report is the outcome of investigation carried out by the creator(s) / author(s) at the department/division of Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore mentioned below in this page.

Item Type:	Student Project Report
Additional Information:	Weaning period is an important stage in child’s life. Appropriate importance should be given to nutrient intake of child in this period otherwise it may lead to malnutrition which in turn results in several diseases. In the present scenario, nuclear families are common and most of the mothers are professionally engaged. Due to this, the time and nutritional care given to a child is minimizing. Hence, there is a need to develop weaning foods which should be either ready-to-eat or ready-to-use type. However, it is mandatory that, these weaning foods should be nutritionally well balanced. According to the standard norms a weaning food should contain 14% protein, 55% carbohydrates and 7.5% fats. There are a number of ready-to-eat weaning foods marketed in India. The prominent brands are Cerelac, Nestum and Farex and in addition to these there are several other brands which are manufactured by small scale entrepreneurs which are not much in demand by consumer. Most of these products are either roller-dried or extrusion cooked. The main ingredients used are wheat, rice, corn/maize, fruit juice concentrates mainly including those of apples, orange to increase the flavour and palatability of product. However, these branded products are slightly bulky in nature and are not economically cheap. The products supplied by small scale entrepreneurs are not prepared according to the standards norms and they lack several nutrients even though they appear to be cheaper in price in comparison to well known brands. Hence, there is a need to develop a ready-to-eat weaning food, which is nutritionally balanced and also affordable by the lower economic strata of the society. In addition to this, the weaning food, should be prepared by using other coarse cereals such as millets may provide sufficient micronutrients as millets contain good amount of micronutrients. Moreover, incorporation of malted millet flour in to the weaning foods may reduce the bulkiness of the product compared to those which are prepared using the major cereals. So, preparation of ready-to-eat malted weaning food can serve this purpose of cost effective and nutritionally balanced weaning food. In our investigation we have prepared malted weaning food with ragi and green gram as main ingredients with the addition of small quantity of processed amaranths flour to provide good quality protein. Exhaustive research work has been carried out in CFTRI in the preparation of ready-to-cook weaning food (Malleshi et al, 1981) and it was well documented that the combination of ragi and green gram scores well for the preparation of weaning food in terms of nutrition. However, because of the increased globalization and change in the life style most of the mothers prefer ready-to-eat weaning foods to save their time and energy. Hence, there is a need to prepare ready-to-eat weaning foods especially using the inherent nutritional benefits of ragi. There are many methods of processing for preparation of weaning foods like extrusion cooking, roller drying, spray drying, apart from the traditional methods. Malting is also one of the most practiced traditional methods for the preparation of weaning foods. Malting provides nutritional advantages to the weaning food. This process helps to overcome the anti-nutritional factors present in cereal and legume used for preparation of weaning food. So, with all the advantages of ingredients and malting process along with their cost effectiveness, the preparation of ready-to-eat weaning food by using malted grains will be able to serve society with nutritionally balanced and economic products. Hence, studies are conducted to process the ingredients by malting followed by preparation of ready-to-eat weaning foods by spray drying, vacuum shelf drying and roller drying and to evaluate the product characteristics.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	weaning foods; ready-to-eat; ragi; green gram; extrusion cooking; roller drying; spray drying
Subjects:	600 Technology > 08 Food technology > 18 Processed foods 600 Technology > 01 Medical sciences > 03 Child nutrition
Divisions:	Grain Science and Technology
Depositing User:	Food Sci. & Technol. Information Services
Date Deposited:	24 Jan 2011 09:34
Last Modified:	24 Jan 2011 09:34
URI:	http://ir.cftri.res.in/id/eprint/9866

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