Effect of different processing techniques on nutritional characteristics of oat (Avena sativa) grains and formulated weaning mixes.

One of the variety of oat, UPO 94 was processed by two simple processing techniques. One method is malting and other is roasting. Malted and roasted oat flour as well as weaning mixes prepared from these two processed flour were analyzed for their nutrient composition, alpha amylase activity and in-vitro protein digestibility. For making weaning mix, oat flour, wheat flour, green gram and skim milk powder were taken in a ratio of 30:30:25:15 respectively. Higher moisture, ash, crude fat, energy, amylase activity, and in-vitro protein digestibility were reported in malted oat flour and weaning mix prepared from malted flour. The minerals, calcium (180.0 mg/100 g) and iron (7.9 mg/100 g) were also higher in malted weaning mix as compared to roasted weaning mix. Both malted and roasted weaning gruels were evaluated for sensory quality characteristics and both were found acceptable by the panel members.