The production and shelf life of high-iron, pre-cooked rice porridge with ferrous sulphate and other high-iron materials

The production and shelf life of high-iron, dried, pre-cooked rice porridge with ferrous sulphate and other high-iron materials was studied. Broken brown rice was soaked in water and ferrous sulphate was added at 0.05, 0.1 and 0.15% of the dried brown rice. The mixture was steamed for 20 min and dried in a double drum dryer. Green shallot, young ginger and cooked chicken fillet were dried in an electric cabinet dryer. Chicken blood and edible fern were dried in a double drum dryer and vacuum freezer respectively. The optimum ferrous sulphate added to the rice was 0.05% and the developed formulation of dried porridge consisted of ferrous sulphate rice (67.80%), chicken fillet (20%), chicken blood (3%), green shallot (0.7%), young ginger (1%), edible fern (0.5%), pepper powder (0.5%), sucrose (3%), salt (3%) and monosodium glutamate (0.5%).The dried porridge had a high iron content of 10.18 mg/50 g and the shelf life was three months at room temperature when stored in either aluminum foil laminated bag or metalite bag.