In Africa, children between 6 months and 2 years get sick, because of poor nutrition. Feeding them with enriched porridge enables them to grow up strong with less problems.
Enriched maize is made from whole grain cereals supplemented with flour of cow pea, soya beans, peanuts and fruits. Before beginning to prepare enriched porridge, clean your kitchen and kitchen utensils and wash your hands with soap and water. Unlike ordinary porridge, do not remove the skin of the cereal grains. Gently pound the cereals in a motor to remove the pieces of cobs.
Cereal fermentation
After pounding, winnow and wash the seeds to remove small stones then soak them overnight to ferment the seeds. Fermenting makes the cereals easy to eat and digest and their nutrient content increases. The longer you ferment them the better; you can ferment them until they germinate. After fermenting, wash the seeds and dry them under a shade. Roast the cow pea or soya bean to reduce on their odour because this is unpleasant to the children.
Grind the cereal and cowpea/ soya beans. Incase they were dried enough, you can make flour that is enough for a week. To prepare the porridge, put the flour in cold water and dissolve it and in another bowl, put the juice of baobab juice or tamarind.
Put a clean pot on fire and pour enough water into it then cover to boil. After boiling, pour the dissolved flour into the boiling water beginning with cereal followed by cow pea/ soya beans, then pea nut powder and stir. After a few minutes, take the pot off the fire and add fruits like lemon, baobab fruit, tamarind or banana. You can also add shear butter or oil for energy and clean water to make the porridge easier for the children to take.
