BCFN YES! 2015

Snacks are commonly consumed by adults and young ones but the highest consumers of snacks are the school-aged children that eat them as convenience food in little amounts between meals and sometimes as full course meal. Snacks are rich in carbohydrate and crude fibre and therefore are a good source of energy and fibre. Examples of common snacks in Africa include ikokore, kpokpogari, bobozi, abachai, just to mention a few. Snack intake is often associated with excess energy intake and non-balanced nutrient intakes. Protein is necessary in diets of children for growth, maintenance of body tissues and mental growth. Therefore, protein composition of commonly eaten snacks should be given prime consideration bearing in mind the attendant health consequences of their unavailability and inadequacy leading to hidden hunger, poor mental growth, stunted growth and other physiological defects. These snacks are not only low in protein content; they are also low in essential amino acids. Thus, continuous dependence on snacks without protein supplementation could lead to protein-energy malnutrition among the snacks consuming population of vulnerable children. Therefore, high consumption of snacks by growing children necessitates the need to make it of high nutritional quality through protein enrichment.