Performance Characteristics and Organ Weight of Rats Fed “onunu” and “mgbam” Traditional Diets of the Ikwerre People of Niger Delta, Nigeria

In-vivo studies were carried out on albino rats fed “Onunu” and “Mgbam”, traditional diets of the Ikwerre people of the Niger Delta, Nigeria. In this study, the test diets (“Onunu” and “Mgbam”) were prepared using the ordinary traditional cooking methods, the reference diet was Nutrend (a commercial infant food) while the basal or protein-free diet was formulated using corn starch, palm oil, vitamin and mineral mixture, non-nutritive cellulose and sucrose. The body weight change (BWC) of rats fed the different diets was highest in the rats fed Nutrend (84.14 ± 1.99g) followed by rats fed the test diet, Mgbam (54.31±1.84g) and least in rats fed the basal diet (5.52±6.38g). The total feed intake by the rats fed the diets did not differ significantly (P>0.05) from each other while the biological value (BV) was highest in the rats fed Nutrend (87.10±5.90%) followed by the rats fed Mgbam (63.64±6.56%) and significantly higher (P<0.05) than that of Onunu (43.77±5.37%). Variations was observed in organ weight of rats fed Nutrend and the other diets however, rats on the basal diet had the lowest organ weights while the rats feds Nutrend gave the highest heart, liver, spleen and pancreas weight followed by those fed Mgbam which also gave the highest kidney weight. The present study have shown that the values obtained with the test diet, Mgbam compared favourably with the reference diet (Nutrend) in all the parameters investigated and should be considered a good diet nutritionally.