Winter 2000 Issue — Dietry fibres as nutritional and functional ingredients

Mercedes Cuesta

International Sales Manager, CFF GmbH & Co KG, Germany

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1. Introduction

Nutraceuticals will be the trend of the new millennium. People all over the world are getting more health conscious. Trends for low-fat and sugar-free are still existing but today's consumers want more, they are aware of the fact that a well balanced diet is very important. Therefore the link between food and pharmaceuticals is getting closer. More and more consumers buy nutraceuticals in order to supply their body with all necessary components. Each individual has different necessities concerning their nutrition depending on the kind of work and activities they are doing — is he sitting the whole day in the office or is he doing hard physical work, is he a professional sportsman/woman, does he do some leisure sport or no sports at all? Nutrition should be healthy and balanced at the same time depending on the single constitution of the consumer. The challenge of today and tomorrow for the food industry is to offer products for each individual situation. How can we help the food industry and therefore consumers to contribute a healthy nutrition? We can offer QUALICEL®.

2. What is QUALlCEL®

IMAGINE a fibre additive that is completely inert and yet so extremely versatile, it brings healthy aspects to wide variety foods. What if it was a high quality source of dietary fibre, completely taste and odour free, had no calories or fat, could improve batter cohesion and prolong product freshness? And what if it could increase volume, prevent caking, increase dough yield, reduce fat absorption, and was an ideal carrying agent? Sound too good to be true? Try our QUALICEL® pure vegetable fibre and find out that, this time, just because it sounds too good to be true, doesn't mean it is.

QUALICEL® dietary fibres are vegetable fibres obtained from fibre-rich parts of the bamboo plant. The vegetable parts are physically cleaned, purified and milled in several steps. The final product appears as a white powder and is neutral in taste and odour. QUALICEL® dietary fibres are 100% natural with high nutritional value. The fibre content is of at least 95% (AOAC). The fibres are insoluble in water and oil. The main functional ingredient of QUALICEL® fibre concentrate is cellulose.

3. What is roughage (fibre) and how does it influence the human well-being?

Components of fruits, leaves, roots or other parts of a plant which are not or only partly utilised by the human organism are known as roughage. In general we talk about plant fibres, i.e. fibrous polymer materials like polysaccharides (cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin) and lignins but also lipids and trace elements in unabsorbable linkages. Due to the fact that the human body does not have an enzyme system to split these polymers, the fibres enter the large intestine unhindered and increase the volume of the stool, this leads to a regulation of the peristaltic and therefore other usable components are absorbed in an optimal way as well. There are two types of fibres: water soluble and water insoluble fibres. Both types increase the volume of the pre-digested food and lead to a slower evacuation of the stomach. The result is that the hunger sensation is less and therefore one eats less. Especially the water insoluble fibres bulk the content of the large intestine and remove undesirable by-products of the metabolism process, a shorter passing time and a better movement of the bowels are therefore achieved.

Another positive aspect is that the gall acid metabolism is influenced in a positive way because gall salts are bound and their removal increased. This results finally in a positive (reduced) sensation of the blood cholesterol.

The energy level of the body is not influenced significantly by the input of roughage. Nutritionists from the DGE (Deutsche Gesellschaft ftir Ern~hrung) recommend adults an intake of 30g of fibres per day and person. Traditional fibre sources are not able to meet this demand therefore a fibre concentrate needs to be added. Wheat bran as an example for such traditional fibre source has a roughage content of approximately 45% — - to achieve a fibre content of 7% in the final product nearly 16% of wheat bran must be added. This, however, is not possible due to technological and taste reasons. An ideal solution at this point is the usage of a fibre concentrate like QUALICEL®. Being neutral in taste, colour and odour and having such a high fibre content the application areas are widespread. Advantages can be seen from a nutritional, functional and sensorial point of view.

The declaration of a (high) fibre content in a product is in g per 100 g product. It makes only sense if the product contains a nutritional significant quality, therefore:

• if the product is declared as "contains fibres" at least 10%
• if the product is "fibre rich" at least 20% of the recommended daily intake (30g) of a daily portion must be contained.
• if a product is "very rich in fibres" it needs to contain at least 25% more fibres than the comparable standard product.

3. General characteristics of QUALICEL®

• TASTE- and ODOURLESS
• High fibre content, no calories and therefore high nutritional value
• Different water and oil affinity depending on the fibre length (short fibres are more hydrophile than long fibres)
• High liquid binding capacity through capillary effects (long fibres bind more water than short ones). Moisture is retained and therefore shelf-life of a product can be increased and drying out of a product can be prevented.
• Insoluble in water and oil. Texture, mouthfeel and cut can be improved significantly. In many applications insoluble fibres are therefore preferred to soluble ones.
• Mechanical reinforcement by three dimensional fibre network — applicable for soft and fragile structures such as cream fillings, biscuit doughs or extrudates. Please note that the right corporation into the product is important.
• Temperature stability (high and low i.e. baking up to approx. 200°C and freezing)
• Binder or carrier of essences and aromas
• Anti-caking for e.g. spices
• Microbiologically impeccable

4. Three nutritional and functional application examples

QUALICEL® in sports bars

QUALICEL® can offer six advantages:

1. Biscuit dough (dosage up to 5%)
   • reduced calories
   • improved shelf-life
   • structural reinforcement
2. Wafer (dosage up to 4%)
   • reduced breakage
   • improved crispiness
3. Foam sweets and fillings (dosage up to 5%)
   • no drying out
   • improved cohesion
4. Cream filling (dosage up to 5%)
   • thickened texture
   • improved consistency
   • supported emulsification
5. Fruits (dosage up to 3%)
   • stabilised pastes
   • no fruit juice migration
6. Icing (dosage up to 3%)
   • delayed re-crystallisation of sugar coatings
   • prevented clumps

And: The dietary fibre content is increased up to 5% without changing the sensorial properties.

QUALICEL® in biscuits

In order to achieve a calorie reduction and fibre enrichment in dry baked goods in general flour and starch need to be replaced by fibre rich and low calories materials as QUALICEL®. By adding 5% QUALICEL® to a standard biscuits recipe the fibre content is increased from < lg/l00g to > 6g/l00g and the energy is reduced by 5%. Besides you will have functional advantages like easier handling of the dough during production, improved texture of the biscuit, less breakage during production and a crispier biscuit. QUALICEL® can also be used as a carrier for flavours.

QUALICEL® in sport drinks

The task to increase the dietary fibre content in drinks is not as easy as it seems. Using water soluble fibres your problem will be that the viscosity is increased, the dosage for labelling will not be achieved, other additives like minerals will be bound by the soluble fibres and the processing of the fibres into the product can be more difficult. As an alternative to this traditional way QUALICEL® can be of great help. QUALICEL® is insoluble in water and oil, is inert against minerals, does not increase viscosity significantly, can reduce mixing times and contributes to the mouthfeel of the drink. Beside these technical advantages the fibre content of the drink is increased.

Conclusion

These are only three examples for the use of QUALICEL® as nutritional and functional ingredient. Other application areas are bakery-, meat-, frozen-, dairy-, confectionery-, instant- and extruded products.

QUALICEL® offers you many functional advantages combined with a fibre enrichment of any product. The described application areas might be an inspiration for new product developments in new areas. Beside QUALICEL® as bamboo dietary fibre CFF Vertriebs GmbH offers WHEAT-CEL® as wheat dietary fibre with similar nutritional and functional properties.

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