The Potential of Bambara Groundnut for Use in Complementary Feeding

Complementary foods are important in ensuring adequate nutrition in infants and young children. Commercially available complementary foods are usually nutrient dense and sufficient to meet recommended nutrient requirements. However, these foods are usually unaffordable by resource-poor populations resulting in need for low-cost traditionally formulated foods. Bambara groundnut is a grain legume that has been employed in formulating traditional complementary foods in sub-Saharan Africa. It has been used singly or in combination with different food such as maize, locust bean and banana to produce different nutrient dense complementary foods. Bambara groundnut has been used as an adjunct in many food formulations to boost the nutritional profile especially protein quality, consumer acceptability depending on the amount of Bambara groundnut inclusion in the formulation and the form in which it is used. This chapter presents the use of Bambara grains in complementary feeding and outlined the nutritional, physical and functional characteristics of these formulated foods. Comparisons were made where applicable with commercially available complementary foods. Prospects for commercialisation of Bambara groundnut complementary foods were also discussed.