Digestibility of boiled and oven-dried cassava in infants and small children.

Boiled fresh cassava or oven-dried cassava flour provided 50% of the energy and less than 10% of the protein in diets of convalescent malnourished infants; casein was added to complete 8% of energy as protein, and vegetable oil (soybean-cottonseed) was added to make 20% of energy as fat. Despite high wet weights of feces (172 +/- 42 and 214 +/- 41 g/d), their dry weights (20 +/- 3 and 22 +/- 2 g/d) and their energy (6.9 +/- 0.7 and 7.6 +/- 0.5% of intake) and nitrogen (17 +/- 3 and 20 +/- 3% of intake) contents were low, and their fat content (4.4 +/- 1.3 and 5.2 +/- 1.2% of intake) was very low. Cassava is a surprisingly effective source of energy which interferes little or not at all with digestion of added protein and fat in weaning diets. For its safe use, it is important that home or industrial processing almost completely eliminate its potential hydrocyanic acid content, and that a good quality protein supplement be consumed regularly in nutritionally adequate amounts.