Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2019) 8(2): 2058-2064 2058 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2019.802.238 Energy Rich Composite Millet and Soybean based Malted Weaning Mix: A Complementary Food in Tribal Areas of Adilabad District, India A. Poshadri, Y. Praveen Kumar*, G. Shiva Charan, M. Raghuveer, M. Sunil Kumar and A. Rama Devi Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University, Adilabad-504002, India *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction Adilabad is one of the districts inhabited by highest number of tribal people in India with more than 75% rural population and among them 35% of people are tribes. Majority of the farmers are marginal and small accounting to 67.8% of total land holdings in the district. In total gross cropped area of the district, pulses, soybean and cotton occupy 18%, 12% and 77% area respectively (Directorate of Economic and Statistics, 2016-17). Soybean, Sorghum and wheat in rabi and other Millets, known as ragi and bajra are the main crops grown in tribal areas of Adilabad district of India. Millets have high nutritional value and resilient nature as compared to major cereals such as wheat and rice, which offer livelihood security for tribal farmers in rainfed regions of Telangana state of India. Currently International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 8 Number 02 (2019) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com Prevalence of malnutrition among infants, young children and nursing mothers is common in tribal areas of Adilabad district of India, although district endowed with higher production of Soybean, Sorghum, wheat and millets that could be harnessed through processing to produce energy dense nutritious foods. Germination and milling of germinated grains into malt is a simple process that is widely used for making complementary nutritious weaning foods from locally grown cereals and pulses. The nutrient contents of energy rich complementary weaning foods (17.1±0.1%, 18.7±0.3 and 18.5±0.6 protein, and 367, 373 and 371, kcal/100 g for Sample-A, Sample-B and Sample- C, respectively fall in the category of protein-rich supplementary foods for children and mothers. The mean scores of sensory evaluation showed that all the energy rich complementary weaning food samples prepared from locally grown foods were within the acceptable range, while the energy rich complementary weaning food sample-B (Sorghum: Wheat: Ragi: Soybean: Green Gram in the ratio of 35:20:10:20:15) significantly had nutritionally superior quality with the acceptable sensory attributes. Further study also shows that the tribal families can prepare energy rich weaning mixes from their agriculture produce by simple malting and milling process. Keywords Germination, Malting, Weaning foods, Nutritional analysis, Sensory evaluation Accepted: 15 January 2019 Available Online: 10 February 2019 Article Info