I recently completed my first practical assignment focused on food formulation as a new student of Nutrition and Dietetics, Federal Polytechnic Ilaro. Our lecturer had grouped us and assigned each group a food group to formulate a food from, and my group was tasked with cereals. Before the practical, we had also been assigned a group project for another course, Introduction to Human Nutrition, where we were asked to write about the benefits, uses, and nutritional values of foods in our assigned group. I was assigned to write about cereals, which made it easier for me to identify the various types of food in that category.


Initially, my group and I found it challenging to decide on what to formulate. We were given the task to create two unpopular food items from already existing food, and with only a week left, we finally agreed to make oat flapjacks and rice smoothie. Although these were not foods I had previously consumed, we had to create them as part of our assignment.


We used a sachet of Quaker Oats, almond milk, rice, coconut, banana, wheat flour, honey, sugar, and groundnut oil. We planned to purchase the almond and milk separately, but we couldn't find them at the market, so we purchased almond milk from a store instead.


For the oat flapjacks, we soaked the oat with almond milk in a bowl and added eggs, honey, sliced banana, and two eggs, which we blended with an electric blender. We then poured the grinded oat and other ingredients into another bowl and added one cup of wheat flour and six teaspoons of sugar, which we mixed with a spatula. We placed a dry, clean, stick pan on the fire, rubbed a few drops of groundnut oil onto it, and shallow-fried the mixed oat cake.


For the rice smoothie, we per-boiled one derica of rice and then poured out the remnant of the water. We added sliced coconut, banana, honey, and a few spoons of sugar and stirred them together. We put a small quantity of the mixed rice into the electric blender and blended it. We repeated the process until the rice was fully ground. Although the smoothie turned out to have shafts, which made it less smooth than we expected, we thought that sieving it might have helped to remove the shafts and the remnant would have been the milk.


We served the oat flapjacks and rice smoothie to our friends and neighbors, and their ratings ranged from three out of five to four out of five. Although it was my first time trying these foods, I personally enjoyed them.

 

Written By: Boluwatifemito

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