Evaluation Of The Suitability And Acceptability Of A Newly Designed Infant Flour For Infant Feeding In The District Of Bopa In South Of Benin

Infant feeding practices do not always fit with quantity and quality requirements, leading to low expression of growth potential. In Benin, 43.1% of children less than 6 months old are exclusively breastfed with 68% of children aged 6-8 months receiving complementary food. The study aimed to produce infant flour from raw food ingredients available in Bopa district and to test its acceptability by 6-12 months old children. In a first step of the study, formulation and determination of nutritional characteristics of the infant flour occurred. A second step concerned acceptability tests of gruel made from formulated infant flour. The study sample was composed of sixty five mothers and their children. Children's acceptability test took place in the morning for three consecutive days. The gruel was consumed ad libitum. Mothers' acceptability test consisted of appreciation of organoleptic characteristics of the gruel and the infant flour processing.The infant flour was made of maize (65 %), bean (20 %) and peanut (15 %) and was manually processed. Chemical analyses showed that it contains 4.3% of moisture, 69.3% of carbohydrates, 15.1% of proteins, 10.7% of lipids, less than 5% of crude fibres and 1.9% of ash. Its energy density (433.9 kcal/100g) was significantly greater than Codex Alimentarius standards (p