Nutritional performance and antioxidant activities of roasted and unroasted sprouted sorghum‐based weaning diets in Wistar rats

: The nutritional performance and antioxidant profile of sprouted sorghum-based weaning diets were evaluated in weaning wistar rats. Rats were fed basal diet, unroasted germinated sorghum-based diet, roasted germinated sorghum-based diet, or a commercial weaning feed (nutrend) for 28 days. Energy, carbohydrate, crude protein, lipids, crude fiber, and ash contents of the sorghum-based diets compared significantly with FAO/WHO recommendations. Contrastingly, moisture content of the germinated sorghum-based diet was higher than the recommendation. Weight gain, feed efficiency ratio, protein efficiency ratio, net protein utilization, biological value, and digestibility of unroasted germinated sorghum-based diet-fed rats compared significantly with Nutrend. Roasted germinated sorghum-based diet produced differential effects on these indices. The unroasted germinated sorghum-based diet significantly raised the antioxidant enzymes in the rat liver and kidney. Overall, evidence from the study indicates that unroasted germinated sorghum-based diet improves the nutritional performance and the antioxidants of weaning rats compared to the roasted germinated sorghum-based diet. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: The provision of nutritionally adequate food from local sources during the weaning period of infants continues to be a major source of concern in developing countries. The formulated unroasted sprouted sorghum-based diet can be adapted and used as weaning food. Furthermore, the diet can be processed and developed into a weaning food.