Nutritional evaluation and consumer preference of legume fortified maize-meal porridge

Maize-meal porridge is commonly consumed meal for the adults as breakfast food and for the children as complementary food. Food-to-food fortification was employed in order to improve the protein content of maize-meal porridge using soy flour and local groundnut paste. The study was aimed at evaluating the nutritional properties and consumer preference of the attributes of the unfortified porridge, legume-fortified porridge, and powdered milk-fortified porridge. The influence of consumers’ knowledge of the type of fortificant added to the porridge was also investigated. Soy-fortified porridges provide comparable ash, crude fibre and fat contents to powdered milk- fortified porridge but with higher protein than powdered milk-fortified porridge. Soy flour raised the protein and ash content of the porridge by 90% and 63% respectively, the groundnut paste raised the protein and ash content by 88% and 41% and the powdered milk by 87% and 65% respectively. The unfortified porridge was the least preferred while the milk-fortified porridge was the most preferred. There was no significant difference between preference for some of the attributes of the groundnut paste fortified-porridge and the soy flour-fortified. There was no significant difference between consumption intent for the soy flour and groundnut paste -fortified porridge. Soy-fortified porridges provide comparable ash, crude fibre and fat contents to powdered milk- fortified porridge but with higher protein than powdered milk-fortified porridge. Soy-flour has shown to be a good substitute for powdered milk as a protein-fortificant for porridge and soy-fortified porridge could be a possible means of alleviating Protein-energy malnutrition among low income populations.