Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato Consumption For Improved Nutrition In Gairo

ABSTRACT

In developing countries like Tanzania, vitamin A deficiency remains a public health concern, due to monotonous, cereal-based diets that lack diversity. Evidence from study on Orange Fleshed Sweet Potatoes (OFSP) consumption for improved nutrition in Gairo shows that the diets of a large percentage of households are deficient in vitamin A. Overall objective of the study was to increase contribution of sweetpotato particularly OFSP as a component of dietary intake on improved nutrition in Gairo district. It was observed that there were differences in household-level 24 hours dietary recall that was taken for two non-consecutive days (i.e., during weekday and weekend) whereas in Meshugi was (n=42 households), Ngiloli (n=44 households) and Ihenje (n= 45 households). Of the commonly grown cultivars, Kabode and Mataya had the highest content of β-carotene (878.31 and 426.39 µg/g) respectively and lowest were Naspot 1 and Polista (9.99 and 5.40 µg/g). The study revealed that 59.5% of the respondents’ households cultivated non-OFSP while 10.7% solely grew OFSP and 29.8% cultivated both. Only 16% of the visited respondents had knowledge on how to store sweetpotato. Most of complementary foods given to children aged 6-24 months did not meet their RDA. Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) across villages during weekdays and weekends differed statistically during weekdays (p