Weaning Food Essay

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Introduction
Weaning is a transition period from the age of 6-24 months in which infant’s meal is changed from breast feeding to the family food consequently it is considered a critical period in infant’s life and if not well managed, might lead to malnutrition and other health disorders (Nicklaus 2011). In developing countries, children usually suffer from malnutrition while being weaned, partly due to insufficient or inappropriate intake of safe and nutritious weaning foods. In addition, breast milk also, might be inadequate to meet the nutritional requirements of the growing infant after the first three months of life; hence, the need for supplementation in terms of weaning foods with high digestibility, high protein content and high energy …show more content…

2013). High quality commercial weaning foods in most developing countries are costly; therefore, development of weaning foods from locally available cereals and legumes has been suggested by the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to overcome the malnutrition among children of low income populations …show more content…

Food extrusion is a high-temperature short-time process “HTST” which utilizes a combination of temperature, pressure, and shear force to convert the moistened starchy and proteinaceous raw materials into highly expanded, low-density products with unique physicochemical properties. Advantages of extrusion process include improving digestibility by gelatinization of starch, denaturation of proteins and inactivation of anti-nutritional factors such as trypsin inhibitors. In addition, the high temperature applied during extrusion cooking ensures hygienic quality. The degradation of food nutrients through extrusion process was minimized due to the short time of heating treatment (Singh et al. 2014; Mouquet et al.

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