Designing a Contextualized Food-Based Strategy to Improve the Dietary Diversity of Children in Rural Farming Households in Central Uganda.

Background: Food-based strategies have a high potential of improving the diet quality and reducing the prevalence of nutrient deficiencies in agriculture-dependent communities. Their design is however complex with trade-offs that are rarely systematically presented to allow replication and efficient contextualization.

Objective: The systematic design of a food-based strategy to improve the dietary diversity of children in rural farming communities in Uganda.

Pro-vitamin A carotenoid content of 48 plantain (Musa AAB genome) cultivars sourced from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Background: Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Unlike in developed countries, where the main source of vitamin A comes from meat, the diet of poor populations in SSA is largely plant based. It is thus important to identify local / popular plants with higher vitamin A content for combating VAD.

Content of Iron and Vitamin A in Common Foods Given to Children 12⁻59 Months Old from North Western Tanzania and Central Uganda.

Improving infant and young child feeding is an effective intervention to improve child growth. A cross-sectional study followed by observation of selected households was used to establish the most popular foods given to children 12⁻59 months old in Bukoba and Kiboga districts of Tanzania and Uganda, respectively. Six meals were identified: maize-based porridge, steamed-mashed banana served with beans, banana cooked with beans, banana cooked with groundnut sauce, stiff porridge () served with beans and sardines, and cassava cooked with beans.

Formulation of a drinkable peanut-based therapeutic food for malnourished children using plant sources.

High ingredient costs continue to hamper local production of therapeutic foods (TFs). Development of formulations without milk, the most expensive ingredient, is one way of reducing cost. This study formulated a ready-to-drink peanut-based TF that matched the nutrient composition of F100 using plant sources.