Inventory and nutritional analysis of porridge used as a complementary food in children aged 6 to 24 months in the urban community of Niamey

Résumé

Like other developing countries, malnutrition among children is a major public health problem in Niger. It is the only country in West Africa where the figures for different forms of malnutrition have been fluctuating since 2005. This happens particularly from the age of 6 months, a period of complementary feeding. Supplementary food in Niger very often consists of porridge prepared from local cereal flours. The present work aims to conduct an inventory and nutritional analysis of porridge used as supplementary food among children aged 6 to 24 months in the urban community of Niamey. All five communes of Niamey were involved in the study. The 24-hour recall method was used to obtain the porridges consumed by the children. This is a cross-sectional, descriptive survey in five Integrated Health Centers (CSIs). A total of 196 women were surveyed and 15 types of porridge were listed. Of the 15 types of porridge listed, 6 were made from industrial flours of known composition. The 9 others, which are traditional local porridges, were reconstituted and aliquots were analyzed from a nutritional point of view in the laboratory. The contents of water, total ash, lipids, carbohydrates and proteins were determined. The results showed an average dry matter concentration of 16.20 ± 0.25%. The average contents of lipids; total ash and protein are respectively 2.84 ± 0.33 g/100g DM; 1.5 ± 0.30% g/100g DM and 11.77 ± 1.45 g/100g DM. The average carbohydrate content of the slurries, after calculation, is 83.86%. The average energy density is 66.34 kcal/100 g.