Germination Effect on Nutrient Density of Sorghum-Based Weaning Food : Development of sorghum-based nutritious weaning foods using traditional food preparation techniques (germination and blending)

Adequate nutrition is essential for adequate growth and cognitive development of infants. Breast milk is a sole and sufficient source of nutrition during the first six months of infant life. Towards the middle of the first year, breast milk becomes insufficient to support growing infants. Therefore, nutritious weaning foods need to be introduced. In Ethiopia, Commercially made weaning foods are not available especially in the rural part of the country and if available, not affordable by the majority of the poor. Weaning foods prepared traditionally have high viscosity when reconstituted and antinutritional factors which limits the total food intake by infants and bioavailability of micronutrients, respectively. Therefore, there is a need for low-cost weaning foods which can be prepared at community kitchens from locally available raw materials using simple technologies and equipment. This book which is based on a research study gives an insight on how to prepare low cost weaning foods using germination and blending. This book will be especially useful to researchers, nutrition professionals, health workers and administrators especially in the public health nutrition sectors.