Research Article
Gibson Lucky Arueya and Juliet
Abstract
Many elderly often contend with inappropriate and poorly digested food resulting in nutritional and health challenges. Development and use of a ready-to-cook nutrient dense diet to mitigate this, remains largely unexplored, hence this study.African breadfruit (Treculia africana) seeds were malted and processed with selected vegetable-inputs amongst others..Compositional analysis, phytochemical and sundry assays were conducted.The malted product contained protein (19.61%), fat (11.56%) and ash (5.82%). Calcium and iron contents were 416.2mg/100g and 3.95 mg/100g respectively. Total phenols were 5.63mg/g while flavonoids was 1.59mg/g. Water absorption capacity and viscosity were 2.54ml/g and 2.3RVU respectively. Although higher, these values were not significantly different from those of the unmalted (P< 0.05). The malted variant was the more preferred. Rats fed it gained more weight (20-29%) than control (13%). Sub-acute toxicity tests showed that the food was not deleterious. An appropriate Geriatric diet has been developed and found to be acceptable.