Chapters authored
The Extrusion Cooking Process for the Development of Functional Foods
The extrusion cooking technology is applied to the development of instant functional foods. It has advantages of low cost, sustainability, and versatility for production of a wide variety of food products. For formulation of functional foods, bioactive compounds are added to base mixtures, the main sources being fruits, vegetables, cereals, oleaginous plants, legumes, and industrial food by-product such as pomace. These sources provide phenolic compounds such as anthocyanins, flavonols, and procyanidins besides betalains, carotenoids, vitamins, amino acids, and complex polysaccharides such as dietary fiber sources. During the extrusion cooking process, ingredients are mixed, conditioned, and transformed to a melt fluid, thus causing degradation or a release of functional compounds because of structural and chemical changes caused by the effects of some process variables such as temperature, moisture content, screw speed, and inherent factors such as geometrical configuration of the extruder. Retention of bioactive compounds to obtain extruded functional foods is an important topic. The description of degradation by means of mathematical models has been used to determine the impact of process variables on stability and concentrations of certain compounds in final extruded products. These models have been successfully applied, showing a good fit and adequately describing the variability of these compounds in extrusion cooking systems under specific conditions.
Part of the book: Extrusion of Metals, Polymers, and Food Products