DEVELOPMENT OF ENRICHED HEALTHY AND NUTRITIVE SNACK PRODUCTS WITH THE USE OF INNOVATIVE DRYING TECHNOLOGIES
Project no. 21952 · Status: Kapanmış · 2020
Summary
<p>In this study, the determination of raw material inputs and their ratios for the production of meatball snacks, and the reduction of their moisture content to the required levels through various pre-drying methods (hot air drying, microwave drying, and freeze drying) prior to puffing, and the conversion of the product into a high-protein snack through puffing were carried out. The aim of this study was to develop meatball snacks using the puffing method. In the initial stage, the inputs and usage ratios for the meatball formulation, as well as the particle size of the ground beef used in the preparation of the meatballs, were of great importance. The control sample for the meatball snacks consisted of 79% ground beef, 10% bread, and 1% spices and salt. The effect of changing the mesh sizes of the meat grinder used in meatball preparation was evaluated, and a 3 mm meat grinder mesh size was selected. For the enriched meatball formulations, the selection of gluten-free flour and vegetable powder was performed. Chickpea flour (selected from chickpea, bean, and green pea flours) was used as a carbohydrate-based input instead of bread, which has high gluten content. As a vegetable powder, red beetroot powder (selected from pumpkin, Jerusalem artichoke, and red beetroot powders) stood out in terms of physical and sensory properties. During the optimization of raw material inputs, the effect of beef usage rate, gluten-free flour (chickpea flour) rate, and vegetable powder (red beetroot powder) rate on the physical, chemical, and sensory properties of puffed meatballs was evaluated. As a mixing variable, the beef usage rate was selected as 70-90%, chickpea flour rate as 10-20%, and red beetroot powder rate as 0-10%. The aim was to minimize the total fat content of the samples while maximizing the expansion ratio, textural crispness, total phenolic content, and sensory overall impression values of the puffed meatballs. The optimal product formulation was determined as 70% beef usage rate, 20% chickpea flour rate, and 10% red beetroot powder rate. In this study, different pre-drying methods (hot air drying, microwave drying, and freeze drying) were used to reduce the moisture content of the meatballs to the required level before puffing, and then puffing was performed to convert them into high-protein snack products. For the puffed meatball samples produced under fixed puffing conditions, the most suitable pre-drying method, process conditions, and moisture content of the pre-dried samples were determined. According to the results, freeze drying was chosen as the optimum pre-drying method, and the appropriate moisture content was determined to be 45% under 0.15 mbar pressure. Furthermore, the optimization of puffing process conditions, namely inflation temperature, inflation time, and system temperature, was carried out according to the Box-Behnken design. After determining the pre-drying method, process conditions, and moisture content of the pre-dried samples, the independent process variables of the puffing process, inflation temperature (90-110°C), inflation time (5-15 minutes), and system temperature (60-80°C), were optimized using the BoxBehnken design. The target variables were bulk density, expansion ratio, textural crispness, and sensory preference. According to the optimization process, the optimum puffing process conditions were determined as inflation temperature of 110°C, inflation time of 5 minutes, and system temperature of 65°C. To enhance antioxidant activity and stability during storage, high-antioxidant spice additions in powdered form (rosemary, green tea, sage) and liquid form of vitamin D were added to the optimized meatball snacks. At the end of the 3rd month, the samples showed no risk in physical and microbiological analyses, and no adverse changes were observed in the meatball snack samples. </p>