By Cindy Hazen, Contributing Editor
Those of us of a certain age remember the tagline, “Bet you can’t eat just one." The admen who developed this campaign for Lay’s played on a human truth: It’s easy to eat more than we intend. As a result, consumers may regret taking in empty calories, eating fats they perceive as unhealthy or consuming too much salt.
Thankfully, there are strategies the product developer can use to create healthy snacks that help consumers stay on track.
Texture first
A flaccid chip or a soggy cracker has little appeal. The key to creating a guilt-free snack is to develop a texture similar to a traditional snack.
Yet there is more to texture than the obvious. Suzanne Mutz-Darwell, senior marketing manager, texture, National Starch Food Innovation, Bridgewater, NJ, explains, “There are a variety of textures enjoyed in snack foods today, ranging from ’crispy’ to ’crunchy,’ and even a group in between called ‘crinchy’ that shares textural attributes of both groups."
To meet these targets it’s important to have an understanding of the ways that processing, formulation and additional ingredients impact texture. “Specialty-starch snack texturizers can play a role," Mutz-Darwell says. “They can help manage the moisture content throughout the process, so a baked and sheeted cracker or fabricated potato crisp can form a consistent dough that is sheetable and not sticky, can be easily cut into shapes, be evenly baked, and can contribute to achieving the end product texture and eating experience desired."
It can be a mistake to think that starch contained in wheat or corn meal is sufficient for managing water and creating texture. The native starches in these ingredients are “inconsistent, hold less moisture, and can't deliver some of the bold crunch or light crispiness that can be achieved by adding 10% to 20% of a cold water-swelling specialty starch," Mutz-Darwell says. Another benefit of using a specialty starch is the ability to create gourmet snacks or signature textures using the same equipment used for traditional products.
Fortifying with fiber
While the consumer generally views fiber as healthy, the savvy food developer sees fiber in terms of potential textural challenges. Corn bran, for example, can be incorporated in tortilla chips, crackers and extruded snacks to contribute to a fiber label claim. A corn bran product from Grain Processing Corporation, Muscatine, IA, averages 85% total dietary fiber and contributes 0.6 calories per gram. It has a slight corn flavor note and a yellowish-brown color.
In most snack applications, corn bran can be added at levels of 5% to 15% without affecting the texture. “We normally recommend dry blending the corn bran with the other dry ingredients prior to mixing the snack dough," says Tonya Armstrong, senior applications scientist, Grain Processing Corporation. As much as 40% corn bran can be used in an extruded snack, but adjustments to the formulation will be necessary.
“Corn bran requires more water for hydration, approximately 3 ml per gram," Armstrong says. “It may take a slightly longer mix time to get everything hydrated. If you go above 30% fiber in an extruded snack you will need to add a modified food starch to increase the expansion of the snack because insoluble fiber tends to damper the expansion of the snack. You have to add some extra starch to the snack formulation to get it to puff and stay crisp like a normal snack."
Oat bran behaves similarly to corn bran in that it will require additional water and can challenge developers of extruded products because the expansion of the starch is impeded.
“All of our granulations can be used in both snack and extrusion systems," says Darren Schubert, vice president sales and marketing, West Coast operations, Grain Millers, Inc., Eugene, OR. “Coarse bran offers more visible texture in the dough of whole grain, but too much can interfere with the dough structure and cause tearing, even under low pressure. Bran that’s more finely milled will help with this and will not be visible in the dough or end product. A fine flour or powder could also lower the grit or mouthfeel under higher concentrations."
Oat bran is produced by grinding clean oat groats or rolled oats and separating the resulting oat flour into fractions “such that the oat bran fraction is not more than 50% of the original starting material, and has a total beta glucan content of at least 5.5% (dry weight basis) and a total dietary fiber content of at least 16.0% (dry weight basis), and such that at least one-third of the total dietary fiber is soluble fiber," Schubert explains.
Commonly, oat bran is added for nutritional benefit. Beta-glucan, present only in oat and barley grains, is recognized by FDA as being beneficial to heart health. The developer must meet all parameters (Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 101, Section 81) to make a heart health claim.
Bill Bonner, senior technical advisor, Viterra/21st Century Grain Processing, Kansas City, MO, believes oat-based products deliver the clearest visual and health-oriented components in a snack mix. “The delivery of flaked or rolled oats can be accomplished in the milled form in a dough system, in coated whole grains for bars and toppings, and as oat-based clusters with other grains in a multigrain format," he says. “These clusters can be sourced ready-to-use in multicomponent visual, flavor or texture snack blends. The simplicity of ready-to-use components results in multiple variety of SKUs and consumer choices."
Custom flavor coatings and natural or high-gloss colors can help target specific demographics. Depending on the market, whole-grain clusters can be further enhanced with sweetener or fortified with vitamins, minerals, proteins, probiotics and prebiotics.
Bonner says snack chips containing multi-grain ingredients are most likely going to be baked. “This seems to be especially true as the industry evaluates new ingredients in this arena, such as ancient grains, lentils, peas and worldwide sourced local specialty items for snack application."
Cooked black-bean powder can be used to replace a portion of the grain traditionally used in a snack. “When making extruded bean crisps, the powder can be used at 100% of the formulation," says Cheryl Borders, manager, soy foods applications, ADM, Decatur, IL. “In addition to the cooked bean powder, black-bean grits also can be incorporated into some snacks, such as sheeted tortilla chips, to provide a whole-grain appearance." Cooked bean powders provide the additional benefit of increased protein and fiber in the final product. Depending on the formulation, the bean powders may require additional liquid due to the fiber content. The amount of additional liquid will vary depending upon the desired final texture.
