Background: Consuming pulses as a substitute for animal-origin foods is strongly recommended in situations when they are not accessible.  Animal-source foods are not affordable, while consumption of pulses food is very low in Ethiopia because of the lack of knowledge about the various methods of preparation of these pulses food and the benefits they provide. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of nutrition education in improving the consumption of pulses-based food.

Methods: A two-arm cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted among female adolescents in Northwest Ethiopia. Clusters were schools and were assigned into intervention and control groups by cluster randomization. The trial participants were female adolescents. The intervention was pulses-based nutrition education, while the comparator was the usual dietary practice. The education was delivered over four weeks on a 45-60 minutes session per week basis. The primary outcome of the intervention was pulses-based food consumption.  Data were collected both at baseline and end-line of the intervention.  Relative risk and risk difference were calculated. The intervention was considered effective when the p-value was < 0.05.

Results: A total of 269 intervention and 278 control participants completed the trial making response rates of 92.1% and 95.2%, respectively. This pulses-based nutrition education made participants in the intervention group maintain their pulses-based food consumption state, while participants in the control group significantly reduced their consumption by about three-fold [ARR; 95%CI: 2.85(1.80, 4.52)] from harvesting to non-harvesting season. The consumption of pulses-based food was higher by 16% among the intervention participants as compared to the control participants [ARD; 95%CI: 0.16 (0.10, 0.21)].

Conclusion: Pulses-based nutrition education is effective in sustaining protein consumption state from harvesting to non-harvesting season. The current intervention needs to be scaled up.

Trial registration: The trial was registered in the Pan African Clinical Trials Registry (PACTR202111813445259) on 02 November 2021.

Keywords: Randomized controlled trial; Adolescents; Pulses; Pulses-based food; Pulses consumption; Protein consumption.