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U.S. researcher working to use fiber to make healthy snack foods |
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15:51, July 08, 2007 |
U.S. researchers of the Kansas University were experimenting with ways of using fiber to make a more healthful snack alternative that consumers like to eat, according to a recent report.
According to the report published at EurekAlert, a website of the American Association for the Advancement of science, funded by a one-year, 30,000-U.S. dollar grant from the Kansas Wheat Commission, the researchers created flour enriched with varying levels of bran.
The researchers mixed the bran-enriched wheat flour with water using a standing mixer like the one cooks may use at home, and they let the dough sit overnight.
The hydrated flour was then sent through a machine called an extrusion processor. The processor uses a series of rotating screws and heated barrels to precook the flour before it is pushed out of the end.
After ropes of the dough come out, they are taken to a drying oven or a freeze dryer, the latter of which Alavi said produced higher-quality flour. Then the dried ropes were ground back into flour, ready to use for baking.
"The more fiber you add, the more the dough quality deteriorates," said Sajid Alavi, an assistant professor of grain science and industry at the university's College of Agriculture. "We're hoping this process will increase some of the properties of the flour. The foods might have a better physical quality."
The researchers worked with the bakery science lab at the university's department of grain science and industry to produce cookies and tortillas made with bran-enriched flour that had been precooked using extrusion processing, and those that had bran-enriched flour that wasn't precooked.
The team then worked with the university's sensory analysis team to conduct taste tests. Subjects were offered vouchers for ice cream in exchange for tasting and comparing the regular snacks and their bran-enriched counterparts.
The snackers reported liking cookies and tortillas made with enriched bran, whether precooked or not. However, the precooked flour did have an increased level of soluble dietary fiber -- the kind the body can absorb readily.
Alavi said researchers didn't necessarily get better properties with extruded flour. In the future, he said researchers could look at extruding the bran separately from the flour.
The professor said snack food producers may be able to use this precooking method to add fruits and vegetables to snack foods.
"With fruit- and vegetable-based snacks, it's still hard to process the dough, so you really don't see those kinds of products out there," he was quoted as saying.
Source: Xinhua
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