Nutritional quality and microbial density of sweet potato flour fortified with soybean and crayfish flours

Nutritional quality and microbial density of sweet potato based complementary food fortified with soybean and crayfish flours was investigated. Three different samples were produced from mixing sweet potato, soybean and crayfish at different formulation. Sample I, II, III are sweet potato: soybean: crayfish at ratio 80 : 15 : 5, 70 : 20 : 10 and 60 : 25 : 15 respectively. The formulated flours were analysed for proximate composition and microbial density. The result of proximate composition showed that the value of moisture content ranged between 6.50–8.50 %, while ash content, crude protein crude fat, crude fibre, carbohydrate and energy value ranged from 5.50–9.50 %, 25.10–28.50 %, 4.20–6.20 %, 0.13–0.27 %, 47.73–56.27% and 363.42–370.48 Kcal/100 g respectively. Its observed that as the level of inclusion of soybean and crayfish to sweet potato flour increases, there was increase in protein and crude fibre content but decrease in carbohydrate content. Also, the total bacteria count, coliform count, yeast and mould count ranged from 28 to 50×10–4, 18–37 x 10–4 and 40–62×10–4 (c.f.u./g) respectively which are within the recommended limit value for microbial density in food. Therefore, sweet potato flour fortified with soybean and crayfish flour can be recommended as weaning food to reduce the incidence of malnutrition in infants.