Development of synbiotic weaning food supplemented with spirulina grown under precise/mild stress conditions

Abstract

For alleviating child malnutrition, functional food from natural resources such as microalgae predominantly cyanobacteria came into existence as consumers today are more health conscious. No work of technological or scientific significance has been reported on standardized method for development of pearl millet weaning food supplemented with Spirulina maxima. Therefore, feasibility trials were done on the basis of sensory attributes analysis. Spirulina powder grown in optimized laboratory conditions was screened for its phytochemical constituents. The standardized product consisted of one part of pearl millet grounded for 5 min cooked with eight parts of water, 5% salt and 0.8% of cumin powder. Cooked weaning food mixed with 1% curd culture, 1.5% Spirulina powder and incubated for 12 h (fermentation). Standardized product consisting of this formulation scored 8.13, 7.93, 7.88, 7.94, 7.30, 8.14 for colour and appearance, flavour, consistency, mouthfeel, acidity and overall acceptability, respectively on 9 points hedonic scale.

Keywords

• spirulina
• weaning food
• sensory attributes
• fermentation
• hedonic scale