Nutritive Profiles of a Blend of Balanites aegyptiaca and Sorghum Beer residue consumed by some communities in Uganda: The Case of Karamoja sub-region

Abstract

In Africa, sorghum grain is the major cereal crop used to produce the traditional “opaque” beers (Novellie, 1976; Asiedu, 1991) [5, 31]. It is Africa’s second most important cereal and it provides the majority of daily calorie consumption for millions of residents (Belton &Taylor 2004) [7]. Sorghum is very well adapted to the semi-arid and sub-tropical conditions prevailing over most of the African continent (Agu et al., 1998) [1]. While sorghum provides a large number of carbohydrates for local diets, it lacks a key nutrient: vitamin A (Lindsay, 2010) [25]. The manufacturing processes of African traditional sorghum beer essentially involve malting, drying, milling, souring, boiling, mashing, and alcoholic fermentation, but variations may occur depending on the geographic localization (Haggblade et al., 2004) [17]. These types of beer differ from European (lager) types in the fact that lactic fermentation also occurs during sorghum beer processing.