Evaluation of nutritional quality of complementary foods formulated from blends of Nigerian yellow maize, soybean, and crayfish

In order to develop adequate complementary foods (CFs) to improve infant and young child feeding, the inclusion of animal source foods (ASFs) into plant-based foods (PBFs) is paramount. Unfortunately, the incorporation of ASFs into PBFs to formulate adequate CFs was infrequent in the developing countries, especially Nigeria. Yet, few CFs that were formulated by this strategy lacked adequate studies. The current study investigated the nutritional quality of a CF formulated from the combination of yellow maize, soybean, and crayfish flours. Treated dried yellow maize, soybean, and crayfish were used to formulate maize flour (MF, 100:0% w/w), maize + soybean flour (MSF, 72:28% w/w) and maize + soybean + crayfish (MSCF, 80:10:10% w/w). Individual food ingredients, MF, MSF, and fortified wheat milk flour (FWMF) were evaluated for nutrients composition, using food compositional analysis method. Food ingredients, and MF, MSF, FWMF were modified into dried, rectangular-shaped diets for a fourteen-day feeding trial on eight groups of healthy male Sprague Dawley rats. Each group comprising four rats was fed, with ad libitum feeding and drinking, on one of the diets; maize (MD), soybean, crayfish, maize + soybean (MSD), maize + soybean + crayfish (MSCD), fortified wheat milk (FWMD), protein-free, and standardized laboratory chow. During the last four days of the trial, daily body weight, amount of feed intake was recorded, and total faeces were collected from each diet-fed group to evaluate for the biological quality of the CFs. On the 14th day of the trial, blood was drawn and organs harvested from rats of each group to assess the physiological changes in the serum and blood compositions, and in the relative organ weight. Optimal CF was identified by nutrient profiling technique. Statistical analysis was conducted with multiple analyses of variance and Tukey’s honestly significant difference test (P≤0.05). Analyses’ outcomes revealed a significantly higher (P ≤ 0.05) protein energy percent (17.59 PE%) and ash content (2.72%) in MSCF than other CFs, and higher contents of iron (3.43 mg/100 g), zinc (1.40 mg/100 g) and calcium (141.47 mg/100 g) in MSCF than MF and MSF. Due to crayfish supplementation, sulphur amino acids content in MSCF was about 132% higher than MSF’s, astaxanthin was detected only in MSCF whilst absented in other CFs. The phytate and total tannin contents in MSCF were insignificantly lower (P ≤ 0.05) compared with other CFs. The body weight gain (23.75 g) in MSCD-fed was significantly higher (P ≤ 0.05) than other diet-fed groups, whilst the amount of feed intake (79.50 g) was nominally higher in MSCD relative to other groups. There were nominal higher values of protein efficiency ratio (2.59), feed efficiency ratio (0.30), net protein ratio (3.37), and true digestibility (91.50%) in MSCD compared with other diet-fed groups. The value of protein digestibility corrected amino acid score (70%) in MSCD was significantly higher than those of MD and MSD but lower than FWMD's. There were no signs of illness, infection, and organ damage observed among the rats. MSCF was discovered to have possessed optimal nutritional quality compared with other CFs. The current study demonstrated that crayfish could be utilized in a dietary modification to produce an adequate CF that potentiates improve growth performance and positive health outcomes in animals. Conclusively, MSCF may serve as a better alternative to MF, MSF and FWMF, which upon consumption may help to achieve a sustainable healthy growth and development in children in Nigeria and other poor-resource communities of the world.

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