The potential use of chickpeas in development of infant follow-on formula

Nutrition Journal

Research

Shahal Abbo¹  Lovemore Nkhata Malunga²  Zipi Berkovich²  Ram Reifen²  Shimrit Dadon Bar-El²  Eli Zinal³ 

[1] Plant Genetics The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, P.O. Box 12, 76100, Rehovot, Israel;The School of Nutritional Sciences Plant Genetics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, P.O. Box 12, 76100, Rehovot, Israel;Tnuva Research and Development Center, Rehovot, Israel;

关键词: Chickpea;    Protein;    Weaning formulae;    Amino acid;    Infant follow-on formulae;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2891-13-8

 received in 2013-07-31, accepted in 2014-01-08,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundUndernutrition during childhood is a common disorder in the developing countries, however most research has focussed much on its treatment rather than its prevention.ObjectiveWe investigated the potential of using chickpeas in infant follow-on formula production against the requirements of WHO/FAO on complementary foods and EU regulations on follow-on formula.MethodsChickpeas were germinated for 72 hours followed by boiling, drying and dehulling in order to minimise associated anti-nutrition factors. Saccharifying enzymes were used to hydrolyse starch to maltose and the resulting flours were analysed for their protein content and amino acid profile.ResultsThe protein content (percentage) increased from 16.66 ± 0.35 and 20.24 ± 0.50 to 20.00 ± 0.15 and 21.98 ± 0.80 for the processed desi and kabuli cultivar compared to raw chickpeas, respectively (P < 0.05). There was insignificant change (P = 0.05) in amino acid profile following processing and the resulting flour was found to meet the amino acid requirements of WHO/FAO protein reference for 0–24 month’s children.ConclusionThe designed chickpea based infant follow-on formula meets the WHO/FAO requirements on complementary foods and also the EU regulations on follow-on formula with minimal addition of oils, minerals and vitamins. It uses chickpea as a common source of carbohydrate and protein hence making it more economical and affordable for the developing countries without compromising the nutrition quality.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Malunga et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.