Nutritional Enhancement of Some Popular Rice Based Traditional Recipes of Chhattisgarh

The inhabitants of Chhattisgarh the Rice Bowl of India, eat rice in all the meals as a staple cereal and they also use rice as a main ingredient in all their other food preparations. Rice is a good source of carbohydrate and hence is quite energy dense but is deficient in a number of essential amino acids. So this study was undertaken and ten traditional recipes popularly consumed in Urban, Rural as well as Tribal belts of Chhattisgarh were value added by functional ingredients like soy flour, soy milk, soy curd, bengal gram, spinach& groundnut. Three different samples along with control samples were prepared and evaluated nutritionally. Nutritive value was calculated using Food Composition Table in terms of energy, protein, calcium, iron& vitamin A. It was observed that the energy value of such recipes rose in a range of 16.8 kcal to 103.2 kcal while the protein content dramatically shooted up in a range of 5.38 g to 16.32 g. The micronutrient content like calcium, iron& vitamin A rose in a range of 17.55 mg to 89.7 mg, 1.58 mg to 4.13 mg& 16.95 g to 941.5 g, respectively. Thus the results revealed a dramatic improvement in proteins and other important micronutrients. The study supports the view that to combat malnutrition, existing in Chhattisgarh specifically& in the entire country in general value addition of popular recipes can play a major role