Ntwenya, Julius2025-09-222025-09-222009https://www.suaire.sua.ac.tz/handle/123456789/6996Degree of Master of Science in Human NutritionThe provision of nutrient-dense complementary foods is essential to ensure an infant's nutrient requirements are met. Yet often, relative to recommendations, traditional complementary foods have low levels of nutrients, suggesting a need, for improvement to ensure dietary adequacy. In this study, nutrient composition of locally available dishes used as complementary foods for children aged 6-24 months was determined so as to provide suitable recommendations that will ensure sustainable improvement of the overall nutritional adequacy of complementary foods and well being of children in Tanzania. Data were collected from 100 interviewed caregivers using structured questionnaires and through laboratory analysis of 100 different complementary foods. Standard AOAC methods were used to determine nutrient composition. The findings show that, maize porridge (71%), composite flour porridge (55%) and mashed polatoes/mashed bananas (41%) are the main complementary foods prepared for young children in the study area. The proximate composition data showed that maize porridge provided energy of 282.59±59.54 Kcal/100g, composite flour porridge provided 319.13±61.31 Kcal/100g and mashed potato provided 243.50±53.56 Kcal/lOOg dry matter. The micronutrient composition data showed that the phosphorous, copper, iron and zinc content in mg/100g dry matter were 183.09±74.52, 0.37±0.12, 5.14±2.24, and 0.51±0.22 g for composite Hour porridge, and 164.00±l06.25, 0.32±0.13, 4.15±1.68 and 0.42±0.17 for mashed potato/mashed banana; whereas 59.33±42.21, 0.28±0.19, 2.65±1.56 and 0.27±0.16 were contained in maize flour porridge. A comparison on what the foods could provide and what is the recommended daily dietary requirements show that the amount of food consumed are inadequate to meet daily body needs. This is due to bulkness of the complementary foods. Furthermore, the nutrient composition data suggest that ensuring a nutritionally adequate complementary feeding diet based on traditional foods alone is difficult. It could therefore be inferred that mothers need a guidance to improve traditional foods through combinations with other foods available to them locally.enNutrient compositionComplementary foods-childrenTemeke districtThesis