Development of malted cereal and legume based supplementary biscuits to combat malnutrition in young children

In this study, supplementary biscuits were developed using combination of malted wheat, finger millet, green gram, carrot powder and flaxseed powder and analyzed for sensory and nutritional evaluation. The effect of biscuits supplementation on nutritional status of sixty malnourished children (3–5 years) was examined. The children were divided into control and experimental groups and the experimental group was supplemented with five biscuits (60±5g), six days a week for 4 months. The malted flours based biscuits were found sensorily acceptable and contains 15.31 g protein, 469.72 Kcal energy, 3.89 g lysine, 1.96 g methionine per 100g. Significant increase (p<0.01) in nutrient intake and anthropometric measurements was observed in experimental group after supplementation period. Also, the prevalence of severely malnourished (> -3 SD) children (13.33%) reduced to zero after supplementation of malted flours based biscuits.