Formulation and Assessment of Nutritional Functional and Sensory Attributes of Complementary Foods from Maize-Carrot-Pigeon Pea Flour Blends

Nutritive, less bulk and low cost complementary flour blends were produced from maize, carrot and pigeon pea. Five different blends of flour were formulated from maize, carrot and pigeon pea in the ratio of 100:0:0 (A), 90:5:5 (B), 85:5:10 (C), 80:5:15 (D) and 75:5:20 (E) while commercial formula (sample F) served as control. The formulated complementary flour blends were analyzed for their functional properties, proximate, selected mineral and vitamin compositions while the reconstituted samples (gruel) were evaluated for sensory attributes. The functional properties of the complementary flour blends showed less bulk density (0.72-0.76 g/ml) below the commercial formula (1.26 g/ml), low water and oil absorption capacity as well as swelling index. The proximate composition showed significant (p<0.05) increase and ranged from 4.08-4.91% moisture, 6.15-9.48% crude protein, 1.33-1.48% ash, 1.98-2.71% crude fibre, 3.07-4.15% lipid, and 82.93-86.72% carbohydrate. Vitamins A and C were also increased significantly as the levels of substitution increased from 1.80-2.14 µ/100g and 3.21-4.42 µ/100g, respectively. The sensory scores showed that sample A was most preferred followed by sample B in terms of general acceptability.