Production of Ready-to Serve Gluten Free Vegetables Based Infant Food

Abstract

The main goal of this study was to develop aready-to-serve gluten free vegetables based infant food product with high nutritional value, high physico-chemical, microbial and organoleptic characteristics in order to contribute in solving the problem of children malnutrition in Sudan. The results obtained in this study indicated that the developed vegetables based infant food product was found with high levels of available carbohydrates (68.32%), total sugars (12.75%) and protein (6.7%), but, with low levels of fiber (1.74%) and fat (1.02%), on wet basis. Also, the developed product was found to provide an adequate energy value (315.94 k.cal/100g) for infants and appreciable amounts of calcium (213.89 mg), potassium (140.79 mg), sodium (70.98 mg), phosphorus (49.89 mg), magnesium (28.02 mg) and vitamin-C (19.79 mg) per 100 gram food, on wet basis. On the other hand, the total soluble solids (T.S.S %), hydrogen ions concentration (pH) and viscosity of the end product were found to be 22.93%, 6.47 and 788.63 centipoise, respectively. Moreover, the results of the microbial analysis revealed that, the product which was produced in this study as infant food was found safe according to the Gulf and Codex international standards for infants food. Finally, the product was highly accepted by the panelists (mothers) with respect to its colour, taste, odour, flavour, consistency and overall quality.