Carrot Powder and Jaggery Supplemented Germinated Oat, Teff Based Complementary Infant Food: Formulation, Optimization, and Characterizations

The complementary food value has increased over the last decades and is expected to continue rising. The study focused on developing and evaluating a nutritious composite complementary Infant food alternative with lower antinutrients than the commercial one. The current study was undertaken by formulating (using Minitab software, v.19.1, USA) germinated Oats and Teff supplemented with Carrot powder and Jaggery. The proximate composition of formulated complementary Infant food was analyzed, and the reported values ranged from 7.13 ± 0.03 to 13.31 ± 0.01 g (moisture), 2.76 ± 0.03 to 3.35 ± 0.02 g (ash), 7.83 ± 0.02 to 15.97 ± 0.03 g (protein), 2.68 ± 0.02 to 4.27 ± 0.02 g (fat), 2.67 ± 0.02 to 12.11 ± 0.02 g (fiber), 54.87 ± 0.02 to 69.34 ± 0.03 g (carbohydrates), and energy: 301.62 ± 0.02 to 360.47 ± 0.03 kcal/100 g. The studied results reported a better food composition: 59.5 g of Oat-Teff (1:1 mixture), 30.5 g of Carrot powder, and 10 g of Jaggery supported with a maximum desirability of 0.9736. The sensory attributes (using a seven-point hedonic scale) of formulated best-optimized complementary food compositions were 6.24 ± 0.49 (taste), 6.39 ± 0.13 (flavor), 6.51 ± 0.04 (color), 5.84 ± 0.14 (texture), 6.47 ± 1.24 (appearance), 5.87 ± 0.73 (mouthfeel), and 6.55 ± 0.58 (overall acceptability). Thus, the studied results conclude that the formulated optimized composite food is promising, unique, and value-added to the coarse cereals (Oat and Teff), Carrot, and Jaggery under the complementary composite food category of Infant food.