Development and quality evaluation of extruded RTE snack food from starch based food products

Abstract

As the eating patterns are changing day by day, snack foods play very important role in the diet of the modern consumer. Extrusion cooking has been used increasingly in the production of food and food ingredients such as breakfast cereals, baby foods, snacks, meat and cheese analogues, as well as modified starches which have a pivotal role in the food industry. With the increased demand of extruded RTE snacks in the modern food industries, an extruded product was developed and standardised with starch based food products such as rice, cassava and banana. The raw materials mixed in different proportions of rice: banana and rice:cassava:banana were extruded under various process parameters viz. die temperatures, extruder screw speeds, feed rates and feed moisture content. Quality evaluation of the developed 96 extrudates along with control was done for standard engineering properties including physical, functional, textural and machine parameters. MAP of the extrudates were carried out in 400 gauge aluminum bags and kept for 3 months period for shelf life studies. Based on puffing characteristics, 17 samples were selected as best products. At the end of storage studies, the quality evaluation of these extrudates in terms of textural and organoleptic properties were analysed and yielded satisfactory results. The subjective analysis with good overall acceptability was also noted. The study concluded that rice: cassava: banana combination of R 10 :C 80 :B 10 with extrusion done at temperatures of 180oC to 200oC at higher screw speed (100 and 120 rpm) could be considered optimum. The proposed product technology was found feasible with 37% IRR with a calculated unit cost of ₹ 3/- per 20g pack. So this product will be a snack cum breakfast kit for the consumers with a balanced mix of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals which will ensure nutritional security and food safety.