Development of biofortified beverage for hidden hunger

Abstract

Micronutrient deficiency referred to as Hidden hunger is a huge burden in terms of social, health and economic aspects. Cost effective strategies are in need of the hour for a developing country like India, where, calcium, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin B12, folate, iodine and iron deficiencies are prevalent to an alarming extent. Although fruit and vegetables are capable of sufficing this need, it is difficult for the Indian population to diversify the diet on a regular basis. Moreover, consumer preference has seen a paradigm shift towards healthy convenience foods in recent times. Therefore, in order to combat the micronutrient deficiencies, a fortified milk based beverage using fruits and vegetables as fortificants has been developed. The fortificants such as carrot, moringa, mushroom, dates and seaweed have been incorporated in skim milk in the form of juice in the levels (15, 5, 6, 2 and 1 per cent, respectively) optimized using conjoint analysis as statistical tool. The level of sugar (10 per cent), nature identical colorant (0.06 per cent) and flavorant (0.15 per cent) were added at optimized levels using sensory evaluation. The proximate study for the developed beverage was carried out and the colour intensity of the product was analyzed using Hunter colorimeter. The physico-chemical properties such as pH, titratable acidity, total soluble solids, total solids, viscosity; sensory attributes including colour and appearance, taste, flavour, overall acceptability and microbiological parameters such as total plate count, coliform, spores and yeast and mold counts of the fortified beverage were estimated at an interval of 30 days for a storage period upto 120 days at ambient temperature. No growth of micro-organisms was observed till 90th day and microbial growth found at the end of storage period (120th day). Also the micronutrients, vitamins (vitamin A and D) and minerals (iron and iodine) in the fortified beverage were quantified in the storage intervals and it was found that it has met the recommen