Abstract:
The dietary amino acid requirement pattern established by the World Health Organizationis thestandardcriterion for measurement of protein quality in food and treatment of malnutrition. IndigenousLeafyVegetables (ILVs) in the region of Kenya are a source of proteins that are culturally acceptable but incomplete;their critical deficiency is in essential amino acids, mainly lysine and Methionine while others areavailablebutlimited to the WHO standards. Fermentation has been reported to improve the nutritional bioavailabilitybutthe possibility of producing a WHO-compliant complete protein from ILVs through this process hasnotbeeninvestigated extensively. Aiming to do so, the present study sets off to formulate and evaluate asoy-fortifiedfermented ILV blend through direct quantitative comparison against the WHO standard. Inarandomizedsimulated design, a 1:1:1 mixture of Nightshade, African Spider Plant, and Slender leaf was simulatedtofermentation using Lactobacillus plantarum, both without soy (S0) and with soy fortification(S1). Theaminoacid profiles were generated through a simulated HPLC and evaluated based on the Amino AcidScore(AAS).The formulation comprising of ILVs only remained substandard (AAS 84%), with lysine beingthelimitingamino acid. On the other hand, the soyfortified product attained an AAS of 118%, thus meetingor surpassingWHO requirement for all essential amino acids, thereby being classified as a high-quality completeprotein.The study states that it is not fermentation alone but rather strategic soy fortification that is essential fortheachievement of the WHOcompliant nutritional completeness. The optimized 60:40 vegetable-soyblendisatovalidated by conducting actual experiment, locally sourced food model which can be used for thesustainableaddressing of protein malnutrition in Kenya and other similar regions
