Determination of Growing Capability and Nutritional Contents of Grain Amaranth for Food Security and Healthy Living in Nigeria

This paper was presented at our 2016 Conference by the Abolaji, Olooto, Ogundele, and Williams, from the Kwara State University and the University of Ilorin in Nigeria.

They investigated how grain amaranth has multiple benefits as complementary and supplementary food and medicine respectively. The study focused on determining the nutritional and medicinal properties of grain amaranth cultivar obtained from REAP in Kenya which was propagated in Kwara State, Nigeria; harvested after 65 days; and prepared as samples for the study. Standard procedures of Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC), Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer, Flame Photometer, and Spectrophotometer. were used to determine the macro/micronutrients in the grains.

They conclude that research efforts are needed on growing, inclusion in diets, consumer behavior and market acceptability of amaranth based products in order to contribute to the efforts of addressing food security, poverty reduction, nutritional, and medicinal needs of vulnerable communities.