Healthy Food Design and Early Childhood Nutrition: Nutritional and Food Safety Assessment of Fermented and Malted Multi-grains Instant Weaning Porridge Fortified with Defatted Pumpkin (Cucurbita Pepo) Seed Flour

Children under two are at a higher risk of malnutrition, including stunting, wasting, micronutrient deficiencies, being overweight, and obesity, if they do not receive nutritious diets, supported nutrition services, and excellent feeding practices during this key period. Poor diets can result in consequences on children for the rest of their life. Poor-quality diets are one of the most significant barriers to children's survival, growth, development, and learning today. In the context of this experiment, weaning porridge from complementary flour blends of locally available foodstuffs (millet, sorghum, green beans, and pumpkin seeds) was formulated for nutritional, functional, microbiological, and sensory acceptability. The results outlined that all the developed weaning porridges complied with the energy and nutrient density (zinc, iron, and protein) criteria. Energy (2.06 -2.08 Kcal/g), Protein (4.09 - 5.44 g/100Kcal), Iron (3.96 - 4.59 mg/100Kcal), and Calcium 0.39 - 1.37 (mg/100Kcal) were the nutrient density values identified. The functional features revealed an excellent reconstitution index (5.25 - 4.53) with a significant difference (p