ABOUT EDITORIAL ARTICLES RECIPES PROJECTS NEWS & VIEWS BAKERY LEADERS FORMS
Trends for healthy bakery products catching on in India
The sales of bakery goods like breads, biscuits, cakes and pastries is on an increase worldwide that grew to 144 million by 2013. In Asia pacific region it registered a growth of 76% in volume between 2008-13. The consumers today want baked goods that taste good and also come packed with nutritional benefits.
As per a WHO release the intake of sugar should be reduced to 10% of the daily energy intake as the high sugar intake is linked to diabetes, obesity & many other health problems. Sugar is a common ingredient in bakery goods. In order to offer healthier alternatives, manufacturers are looking for ingredients that help to reduce or replace sugar without compromising on the taste and texture of baked goods. Some of the options explored by industry are as follows.
Isomalt:
Extracted from sugar beet with a sugar like taste & 50% of its sweetness. It replaces sugar in 1:1 ratio, is low in glycaemic index. When used in baked goods, it provides same taste, body, colour, pore size distribution & fluffiness as if sugar were used.
Oligofructose:
Chicory root fibre is well suited for use in sweet baked goods. Its sensory profile is very similar to that of sucrose. It has a mild sweet taste and 65% sweetening power of sucrose. Oligo fructose, also masks the after taste of many sweetners like sucralose, aspartame, acesulfame k etc., allowing a well balanced sweetness profile to be obtained. Oligofructose does not crystallise and has a higher solubility than sucrose. If sucrose is partially replaced by Oligofructose in a recipe, the amount of water added to the dough may be adjusted in order to yield the desired dough viscosity and volume.
Inulin:
Inulin can be used to increase the fibre content of baked goods without altering the product’s taste or texture. With just 3-6% inulin in a recipe bakeries can produce fibre enriched products and in turn, offer consumers added value & nutritional benefits. Being prebiotic inulin & Oligofructose also improve the balance of intestinal fora by stimulating bifidobacteria growth-an important element of good digestive health.
Furthermore, Isomalt, Oligofructose & Inulin can help to reduce the glycaemic response of final products. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) gave positive positive opinions for the blood glucose lowering properties of the above sugar replacers with corresponding health claim approvals in the Annex of the Regulation 432/2012
