Development and consumer acceptability of a potato-based vegetable chip for pre-schoolers in South Africa

English: Every individual should consume five servings of fruits and vegetables each day to sustain good health. Children worldwide consume less than necessary. The aims of this study were to gather information on consumer behaviour regarding vegetable consumption in SA, to develop a potato-based vegetable chip for children aged four to six years and thirdly, to determine the influence of three different cooking methods on the nutritional content of the developed chip. Consumers’ beliefs regarding the advantages, disadvantages and associations of eating vegetables were collected from 173 consumers from three different ethnic groups (black, white and coloured) through a questionnaire. People from different cultures and demographic backgrounds in SA have different levels of knowledge, attitudes and tastes for vegetables, which influence the type and amount of vegetables they consume. The black group had the lowest knowledge on vegetables, less food safety concerns and family health concerns of all three groups. On the other hand, this group’s acceptance of the taste (they are not able to taste bitter and sour in vegetables), mouth feel and attitudes toward vegetables were the best. They are, thus, more willing to eat a wider variety of vegetables than the other two groups. The coloured group had the best knowledge on vegetables compared to the other two groups. The mothers or caregivers of the children, who participated in acceptability test, completed a questionnaire and it revealed that all children liked potatoes the most, followed by carrots and butternut. One hundred children, between the ages of four to six years, participated in the consumer acceptability study on the developed vegetable chips. Interesting to see was the influence of age, gender and culture on preferences. Carrot chips were preferred to red and green chips (beetroot and green beans), but the liking for the coloured chips were just below ‘like a little’. The children, thus, did not reject it. No significant differences were found for the liking of cooking method. Further tests were done on oven baked sweet potato chips, featuring different oils, coatings and chick pea flour replacements. Three different cooking methods were applied to the sweet potato sample and nutritional analyses were done on the raw, baked, deep fried and air fried samples, determining DM, moisture, protein, fat, energy, free sugars (glucose, fructose and sucrose), minerals, dietary fibre and vitamin A. The nutrients that were the best retained in the air fryer were: ash (2.7%); protein (6.7%); carbohydrates (31.9%); fructose (0.51%); sucrose (1.2 g/100g); Ca (0.92 mg/100g); K (0.70 mg/100g); Mg (36.7 mg/100g); and dietary fibre (5.85 g/100g). For the baked sample, DM (68.2%), glucose (3.35 g/100g) and Mn (0.47 mg/100g) had the highest values, while deep frying had the highest moisture (36.8%), fat (24.0%) and energy (1 467.75 kJ/100g) contents. There is an increasing demand for healthier, convenient and more nutritious food, and the vegetable chip, developed in the present study, contributes to a continuous need for healthy products by consumers. The variety of vegetable chips that can be produced is as endless as the variety of vegetables available. Children need to eat a variety of vegetables and, therefore, these vegetable chips could be the answer to the problem.