.

The objective of the study was to increase the nutrient content of the cereal and improve the nutritional intake of the
rural consumers. Flour blends were produced from maize, cowpea and moringa seed flours in the following ratios of
maize:cowpea:moringa seed; 100:0:0; 80:10:10, 75:15:10, 75:10:15, 75:20:05 respectively Physico-chemical
analyses (proximate and functional properties) were carried out on the flour blends using standard methods. The
result for the proximate composition shows that the moisture, ash, fat and fibre contents ranged from 8.75% to
11.23%, 2.00% to 3.10%, 8.15 to 15.00 and 2.00 to 3.94% respectively, while protein and carbohydrate contents
ranged from 10.05% to 15.10% and 57.40 to 66.57% respectively. The result of the functional properties shows that;
least gelation, bulk density (BD) and foaming capacity of the samples ranged from 4.00 to 8.00%, 0.80 to 1.44 g/ml
and 4.96 to 13.92% respectively. The swelling index, water and oil absorption ranged from 0.3 to 0.96 ml/g, 70 to
190%, 124 to 220% respectively. The trend observed in the functional properties of the flour blends suggests that
addition of cowpea and moringa seeds flour to maize significantly influenced the water and oil absorption capacities,
swelling index and foaming capacity of the maize flour. This increase in foaming capacity can be attributed to
increase in protein concentration. Thus the lower BD of samples 75:10:15 and 75:20:05 will encourage the intake of
more calorie and nutrients from the samples. Conclusively, enrichment of maize flour with 10% cowpea and 15%
moringa seeds flours will produce a most acceptable and affordable nutritious flour blends with considerable
proximate and functional properties that can serve as potential raw material for indigenous snack production as well
as weaning food.
Keywords: Indigenous crops, complementary foods, nutrient, moringa seeds, Cowpea and maize.