Production of Highly Nutritious Enriched Infant Flours from a Traditional Ready-to-Eat Dish: the Plantain Dockounou

Abstract

This study aims to verify the nutritional potential of three enriched flours that could be used to fight child malnutrition. To do this, it relies on a traditional dish prepared from senescent plantain called dockounou. Indeed, dockounou is a ready-to-eat dish that is popular in Côte d'Ivoire, accessible to get, and beneficial to people of all socioeconomic backgrounds. It is, however, deficient in some macronutrients and difficult to conserve after cooking. The enrichment and conversion of this dish into available and accessible infant flours can allow many women with reduced financial conditions to have simple and effective food for their children from 6 to 59 months. Also, from senescente plantain, three types of dockounou incorporated with maize, soybeans and fish were made according to the optimized method of Kra et al. (2014). After drying in an oven, the dockounou were turned into flours, and their biochemical and functional properties were assessed. The results obtained showed that enriched dockounou flours had fat and protein contents ranging from 9.73 ± 0.11 % to 10.00 ± 00 % and from 11.30 ± 00 % to 14.13 ± 1.29 % respectively. The energy value of these flours varied from 375.06 ± 1.1 Kcal to 375.89 ± 0.51 Kcal. All these values are in line with FAO/WHO standards and are able to meet daily requirements of children under 10 years age. After statistical analyses, it emerged that Ms2 flour was the best maize enriched dockounou flours.