Department of Food Science and Technology, Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Lilongwe, Malawi.
School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Malawi College of Medicine, Blantyre, Malawi.
PLoS One. 2018 Jul 10;13(7):e0200418. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0200418. eCollection 2018.
Childhood growth stunting is a pervasive problem in Malawi and is in large part due to low quality complementary foods and chronic gut inflammation. Introducing legumes such as cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) into the complementary diet has the potential to improve childhood growth by improving diet quality through improvements in macro- and micronutrients and also by reducing gut inflammation. However, cowpea is relatively underutilized in complementary feeding in Malawi due to its strong taste, long processing time, and high energy requirements for processing. Effective utilization of cowpea in complementary feeding requires processing which may affect chemical composition as well as sensory quality. The present study evaluated the effect of processing on the retention of zinc, crude fibre, and flavonoid in roasted, boiled, and dehulled cowpea flours, and assessed the acceptability of maize porridge (70%) enriched with one of the three cowpea flours (30%). Roasting, dehulling, and boiling did not have any effect on zinc content. Crude fibre content increased after processing by all methods. Processing had no effect on measurable flavonoids. Roasted, boiled, and dehulled cowpea blended maize porridges were acceptable to children with mean quantities of leftover food of less than 3g from the given 100g. Caregivers also rated the blended flours to be highly acceptable to them as well, with maize porridge blended with dehulled cowpea flour the most acceptable to both children and caregivers. These results demonstrate that cowpea flour, processed by any of these three different methods, could serve as a useful addition to maize porridge for complementary feeding of children in sub-Saharan Africa.
儿童生长迟缓是马拉维普遍存在的问题，主要原因是辅食质量低和慢性肠道炎症。在补充饮食中引入豇豆（Vigna unguiculata）等豆类可以通过改善宏量和微量营养素来改善饮食质量，从而改善儿童的生长，还可以减少肠道炎症。然而，由于豇豆味道强烈、加工时间长、加工所需能量高，在马拉维补充喂养中相对未得到充分利用。要在补充喂养中有效利用豇豆，需要进行加工，这可能会影响其化学成分和感官质量。本研究评估了加工对烤豇豆、煮豇豆和脱壳豇豆粉中锌、粗纤维和类黄酮保留的影响，并评估了用三种豇豆粉中的一种（30%）强化的玉米粥（70%）的可接受性。烘烤、脱壳和煮沸都不会影响锌含量。所有方法加工后粗纤维含量增加。加工对可测量的类黄酮没有影响。烤豇豆、煮豇豆和脱壳豇豆混合玉米粥对儿童是可接受的，儿童留下的食物量平均少于给定的 100 克中的 3 克。看护人也认为混合面粉对他们非常可接受，其中用脱壳豇豆粉混合的玉米粥对儿童和看护人最受欢迎。这些结果表明，经过这三种不同方法加工的豇豆粉可以作为撒哈拉以南非洲地区儿童补充喂养玉米粥的有用添加物。
