ABSTRACT

Protein energy malnutrition is a major health problem in communities leading to excessive rates of morbidity and stunted growth. The main objective ofthis study was to determine the chemical and organoleptic evaluation of complementary food formulated from maize groundnut and crayfish. The complementary food was formulated using different, proportions 70:10:20 (sample 512), 65:15:20 (sample 513), 50:20:30 (sample 514), of maize, groundnut and crayfish respectively, as well custard was used as control. Chemical analysis was done using standard analytical methods and 7 point hedonic scale was used to judge the organoleptic parameters. Twenty nursing mothers were used to assess the organoleptic properties of the complementary food. The result obtained from chemical analysis and sensory evaluation was subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and significant difference was accepted at (P<0.05), using SPSS 21st edition. Results revealed that there was variation in the nutrient composition of the sample. In proximate analysis result showed that sample 514 (50:20:30) of the formulated complementary food had the highest scores of, 12.46%, 1.4%, 8.24%, 10.43% and 1.65% of protein, fibre, lipid, ash, carbohydrate and energy value respectively except in moisture content where it has the lowest moisture content of64.83% ofall the samples. Sample 515 (control) had the lowest scores of 5.28%, 1.05%, 1.24%, 1.82%, and 16.58%and 100.13% of protein, fibre, lipid ash, carbohydrate and energy value respectively except in moisture content ofwhere it has the highest moisture content of 73.87%. In mineral analysis, sample 514 had the highest mineral content of 53.25%, 47.63%, 31.63%, 26.55%, 3.81%, and 1.31% of sodium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium iron and zinc, except in calcium, content where it has the score 10.22% and sample 515 had the highest score of 16.53% of calcium content when compared to other samples. Thus, there was a significant difference (P< 0.05). In vitamin analysis. There was a significant difference (P<0.05) between sample 512 (70:10:20) and 513 (65:15:20), 514 and 515 except in vitamin Bl content ofsample 512 and sample 513 which ranged from 0.37% to 0.33% respectively. In antinutrient analysis there was a significant difference between sample 512, 513, 514 and 515 except in phytate analysis where there was no significant difference P>0.05 between sample 513, 514 and 515. Sample 512 was significantly higher in colour than the other samples. There was a significant difference P<0.05 in the taste ofthe samples. In general, there was significant difference P<0.05 among the samples in texture, aroma and general acceptability. Based on this study, the formulation of complementary food using maize, groundnut and crayfish have shown to be good both in terms of nutrient composition and organoleptic evaluation. Therefore, this will play a wonderful role in combating protein energy malnutrition in the communities that are suffering from it.