Nutritional quality, sensory quality and consumer acceptability of sorghum and bread wheat biscuits fortified with defatted soy flour

Biscuits were produced by compositing sorghum or bread wheat flours with defatted soy flour. Compared to the 100% cereal biscuits, sorghum-soy and bread wheat-soy 1:1 ratio composite biscuits had at least double the protein content and the lysine content increased by 500–700%. For the sorghum-soy biscuits, in vitro protein digestibility increased by 170%. Two such biscuits of 28 g each could provide 50% of the recommended daily protein intake for 3- to 10- year-olds. Descriptive sensory evaluation revealed that sorghum-soy composite biscuits had crispy and dry texture characteristics associated with biscuits. Sensory evaluation by school children showed that the composite biscuits were rated as acceptable as the cereal only biscuits, and this was maintained over 4 days of evaluation. Hence, sorghum- and bread wheat-soy biscuits have considerable potential as protein-rich supplementary foods to prevent Protein Energy Malnutrition in children.