Routes to a healthy extruded snack: influence input materials on expansion behaviour

[Webcast] In the last years, there is a large tendency to develop food products with health promoting ingredients such as reducing cholesterol level or introducing satiety related feelings via fibres. Adding, replacing or diminishing components by healthy counterparts is not straightforward, because the consumer will ask for the same textural and sensorial experience. The main question of our research is: what is the influence of the different components in indirect expanded snacks on their expansion, structure and texture? How could this knowledge be used to predict the effect on the snack characteristics by introducing healthy components, such as fibres, or diminishing or replacing salt? What is the relation between the glass transition temperature and snack expansion? How are these phenomena measurable on a quantitative and qualitative way? The latest results in this field will be discussed in this paper.