This study revealed that tigernut flour impacted on the physicochemical and greatly influenced the overall liking of the product. The optimum formulation for an acceptable drum dried product was determined to be rice flour – 46.6 %, tigernut flour – 39.1 % and soybean flour – 14.3 %. Results of the optimized sensory values showed a good fit with the predicted sensory scores, as the highest deviation between predicted and observed scores for samples selected within and outside of the optimal region was 0.05. After three months of storage at room temperature, only a marginal increase in FFA and microbial population was recorded, indicating good stability of the optimized product. This study presents another avenue for tigernut utilization as it shows its usefulness in the production of a nutritious convenience food, which may contribute to the ensuring food security.

This study demonstrated that extrusion cooking can be used to develop acceptable and nutritious instant composite flours from locally available foods. It further revealed that ingredient complementation can be strategically applied in the development of extruded foods to boost sensory acceptability. Barrel temperature and feed moisture content do have varying effects on nutritional quality of extruded foods thus necessitating process optimization for products. Increasing barrel temperature and feed moisture content leads to a decrease in polyphenol, phytic acid contents, and iron extractability, but increases zinc extractability. Increasing feed moisture content favors retention of vitamin A. Optimal processing conditions for amaranth-based porridge flours developed in this study were 14% feed moisture content and a barrel temperature of 169°C.

The consumption of spoiled food leads to:Select an answerAEnhancement food tasteBFood poisoningCEnhancement food textureDIncrease in nutritional value of food

The data from a 20-week field trial showed that repeated exposure to the porridges prepared from FBFs could effectively increase children's acceptability of the products. However, porridge from CSB+ tended to have lower acceptability from children at the end of the study, probably due to the lack of strong sensory characteristics like sweetness. In addition, based on this study, it is recommended to measure food acceptability directly from children, the target consumers, at a minimum directly after eating, in order to obtain results that are more conclusive. Within the same range of consistency value, porridges from all novel extruded FBFs appeared to provide more energy and nutrient density than CSB+ porridge. Additionally, porridges prepared from all novel FBFs required less cooking time than CSB+ and no ingredients needed to be added compared to CSB+ where sugar and milk were common additions.These results indicated that novel extruded FBFs have potential to be used as supplementary food with higher or comparable acceptability and nutrition to currently used CSB+. The simple cooking for the novel FBFs make them valuable to caregivers with limited time and access to energy sources and nutrient-rich ingredients.

Nixtamalized quality protein maize and extruded chickpea flours, because of their nutritional and physicochemical properties, could be used as basic ingredients for preparing an infant food with high protein quality and digestibility, and sensory acceptability. The optimum combination of NMF and ECF was 26.7% and 73.3%, respectively. The optimized mixture had appropriate levels of proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and minerals; it satisfactorily covers the essential amino acids requirements for children 10–12 years old. Infant food prepared with the optimized mixture could be used to support the growth of infants in developing countries.

The science of food and the ways in which the body uses the foods you eatSelect the correct termNutritionCultureNutrientsCarbohydrates