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Families need to know how to make soya beans powder for infants at home from scratch. With a rising need for more foods with complete proteins that are dairy-free, more children are being fed with soya beans.

Why?

• They are accessible
• Locally grown and
• Highly nutritious.

Does Soybean Have Any Health Benefits?

• It’s a rich source of protein (essential amino acids). The protein content is equivalent to that from animal sources. This makes it very important for vegetarians and undernourished children in underserved areas.
• It’s high in fibre. This property makes it good for preventing constipation, lowering cholesterol and controlling blood sugar for people with diabetes.

However, poor processing can lead to indigestion, intolerances or worse. It is important to ensure that the soyabeans powder being used is produced by a trusted brand or made at home in the proper way.

Here is a simple recipe for processing soya beans powder at home that ensures your child gets the full benefits of the legume.

How To Make Soya beans Powder?

If you have been wondering how to make soya beans powder, then do not worry. Follow this process and you’d get your soya beans powder.

1. Soaking- Soak raw soybeans in clean water for 3-4 days. Replace the water every 48hours. This process is known as fermentation. Fermentation helps introduce probiotics into the legume, as well as increases the legume’s nutritional value. It also makes the soy easier to digest.
2. Drying- Sieve the soybeans then airdry till all moisture is gone.

3. Frying or Roasting-Fry without oil or Roast the soyabeans on medium heat till cooked through. The soyabeans would release their own oil to prevent the legume from burning.

4. Milling-Once completely cooled, mill the soyabeans into powder and stored in an airtight container.

How Do I Use Soya Bean Powder ?

You can add soybeans powder directly to meals such as pap when processed this way. Alternatively, you can use it to make soya milk for an infant 6 months and above. Soya bean powder is also a component of Tom Brown. Pap and Tom Brown are two staples used to wean babies off breast milk, as well as encourage weight gain in malnourished children.

This method of processing soyabeans powder ensures easier digestion and reduces the risk of any child eating raw or undercooked soya beans.

FAQs About Soya Beans Powder

Yes. We know that learning how to make soya beans powder is only the first step on your journey to eating and living healthy.

The big question is: What comes next?

In this section, we’ve answered all of the frequently asked questions (FAQs) on soya beans powder and its health benefits.

What Are The Health Benefits of Soya Beans Powder?

As we mentioned earlier in this post, soya beans powder is a healthy food option for you and your baby. This is because it:

• Is highly proteinous
• Can help in diabetes or high blood sugar management
• Helps build healthy and strong bones
• Improves blood flow
• Aids digestion and relieves constipation

Does Soya Beans Powder Cause Weight Gain?

Yes. Soya beans powder is one of the many food options that can cause weight gain in most people. This is because it contains ingredients that can boost appetite and increase food consumption.

Furthermore, adding milk or honey to soya beans powder before eating can improve the quality and cause weight gain.

Tom Brown is a locally made meal that is usually used to wean babies in Nigeria. It is a thick powder gotten from a combination of yellow corn, millet, guinea corn (cereals), groundnut (peanuts), and soybeans (legumes).

This healthy powder is highly nutritious and filling, maintaining your baby’s health even after you’ve stopped breastfeeding. It’s one of the popular Nigerian meals used to wean babies.

Although it is majorly prepared for and consumed by babies, Tom Brown also serves as food for adults. This is because it’s easy to prepare (basically under 5 minutes). This helps adults cope with their busy schedules and early breakfasts.

This article is a step-by-step guide on how to make Tom Brown.

Ingredients For Making Tom Brown Powder

1. Millet – 500grams
2. Guinea corn – 1kilogram
3. Yellow corn -1kilogram
4. Soybeans – 500grams
5. Deshelled Groundnut (peanuts) – 200grams

Optional Ingredients:

• Crayfish- 1cup
• Ginger- 1 handful
• Dates (sweetener also known as dabino) – 1 handful
• Cloves (kayan kanshi) – 2 tablespoons

In Addition,

Remember to vary the quantity of ingredients if you want your tom brown to come out nicely.

Let me explain….

It’s best when the corn (yellow maize and guinea corn) is more than the other ingredients, and your millet and soybeans are half the measure of your corn. Corn has more starch compared to millet. It helps to bulk up the meal.

The groundnut (peanut) helps to add a pasty texture to the tom brown. However, it has a lot of oil, therefore the quantity of groundnut used should be less than all the other ingredients.

Step-By-Step Preparation of Tom Brown Powder

1. Put your grains in separate trays and carefully remove the stones and foreign particles
2. After picking out the stones from your grains, wash them separately and spread them out to dry in the sun.
3. Pack them in separate bowls once they are completely dry.
4. Toast your corn using a wide frying pan. Be careful not to fry too much to a point where it begins to pop like popcorn.
5. Also roast your groundnut, millet and soya beans separately till they become golden brown.
6. After toasting, spread your grains and allow them to cool down.
7. The next step is to remove the outer shell/ seed coat (also known as chaff) of the soya beans. You can do this by grinding it softy with a mortar and pestle.
8. When you are done grinding, sift the chaff away by breezing it out. Then pour it into a suitable bowl.
9. Next thing is to grind your crayfish, ginger and kayan kanshi. You can either use a mortar and pestle for this or you use a blender. Put it inside a bowl after grinding.
10. Now, you need to grind your dates (dabino) as well. Break them open and remove and discard the seeds inside first. Then crush the outer fruit with a blender or mortar and pestle.
11. Pour all your ingredients in a bowl and mix them well.
12. You can blend this mixture with a high power blender at home or you you take it to a local mill to blend. Do not add water while blending.
13. After blending, pour your powder on a wide tray and allow it to cool down completely.
14. Next thing is to sieve your mixture to remove any residual chaff. This leaves you with a smoother powder.
15. Viola! Your tom brown is ready. Just store it inside a sizeable container and prepare it anytime you want.

How To Prepare Tom Brown Before Serving It

Tom brown is a quick and easy meal that you can prepare under 5 minutes.

These are the steps:

1. Measure a quantity of tom brown powder into a bowl. Add water gradually until it becomes a pasty mixture. Be careful not to add too much water.
2. Put some water on the fire and allow it to boil. Pour in your tom brown paste once your water begins to boil very well.
3. Stir continuously until your tom brown attains a custard-like texture.
4. There you have it! Your meal is ready. You can fortify it with milk and fruit purees to make it even more nutritious for your baby.

Health Benefits of Tom Brown

Tom brown has many health benefits for both babies and adults, some of which include:

1. Lowering blood cholesterol levels.
2. Supplying essential antioxidants.
3. Improving vision
4. Control of diabetes.
5. Reducing inflammation or swelling
6. Boosting energy levels.
7. Control of high blood pressure.
8. It is free of unhealthy preservatives

Tom brown is on our list of meals that help babies gain weight ie. this would be awesome for nursing malnourished kids to health.

What’s The Difference Between Tom Brown And Pap (Ogi)

As you may have observed above, Tom Brown is made from toasted cereals. Pap, also known as ogi or akanmu is made from fermented cereal. Learn how to make pap from scratch here.

The fermentation process in pap production gives it a distinctive flavor and light texture. In addition, it incorporates probiotics into the meal (which increases the ability to produce vitamin B and K from food, improve gut health and immunity). Finally, fermentation breaks down the nutrients in the grain to small easier to digest units. Other ingredients such as soy and groundnuts are added after the pap is cooked.

Tom brown on the other hand is from toasted/ roasted cereals. All the ingredients are added and milled together. This makes a denser, more filling, more viscous meal. The fiber content is likely to be higher, keeping hunger at bay for longer. It may not be as rapidly digested as pap.

Finally, we have just one question….

What are you waiting for? Start making your own tom brown baby food today.

Trust us, your baby will thank you for it!

A number of factors affect the growth and development of children. Understanding how these factors interplay is essential in helping our babies reach their maximum potential. In this article, you’d find all you need to know about the biological factors affecting child development. In addition, there’s a video at the bottom of the page that contains all the milestones to expect in the first five years of your baby’s life.

What Is Biological Development?

In plain terms, biological development refers to the pattern of physical, mental, and emotional changes that your child goes through at different stages of his/her life.

As you’d expect, biological development begins during pregnancy and continues throughout childhood, to adolescence and finally, adulthood. Furthermore, biological development is greatly influenced by certain factors that would be explained extensively in this article.

Examples of Biological Factors

The major examples of biological factors affecting child development include:

• Genes
• Gender
• Maternal influence
• Hormonal influence

What biological factors affect my child’s development?

Genetic Influences on Child Development

This is the transmission of characteristics from parents to their offspring through their genes. Genes contain all the settings (instructions) for features that would eventually appear in the child. It ranges from physical features like height, hair colour and fat distribution to risk factors for diseases like diabetes and hypertension. Careful nurturing and environmental factors may help develop or suppress particular characteristics that are in the genes.

You can read another article that talks about when babies can start sleeping on their stomach

Gender Influence on Child Development

The gender of the child also affects the child’s development. Studies have shown that male foetuses tend to be more fragile than female foetuses and more susceptible to trauma. Also, girls tend to reach adolescence faster than boys while boys are stronger and taller than girls.

Mother’s state of health

Perhaps the single most important factor affecting child development during pregnancy. The importance of the mother’s state of physical and mental health cannot be underestimated. Strong, healthy mothers give birth to strong, healthy babies. For example, a mother who does not take folate during pregnancy puts her baby at risk of neural tube defects . A mother who drinks alcohol while pregnant puts her baby at risk of a condition called Foetal Alcohol Syndrome.

In another instance, a mother who does not consume the right nutrients before conception or during pregnancy reduces the nutrients reaching her child’s body via breast milk. Interestingly, Mothers suffering from postpartum depression engage less with their babies, this affects cognitive and behavioural development in their children.

Hormonal Influence on Child Development

Hormones are chemicals produced by different organs/glands in the body to perform different functions. Normal cyclic production of these hormones ensure that the body goes through its normal phases of development.  For example, a hormone produced in the pituitary gland, located in the brain, is responsible for height while hormones produced in the testes/eggs affect sexual maturation.

Although biological factors may be beyond our control, awareness of them goes a long way in affecting how we plan and live our daily lives.