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Importance of health & nutrition in the Asian context: how to cope with the new challenges?
G. G. HOU (1). (1) Wheat Marketing Center, Portland, OR, U.S.A.
According to United Nations (2001), the number of people age 65 and above in Asia will increase from 207 million in 2000 to 857 million in 2050, an 314% increase. The increasing aging population raises the demand for nutritional and healthy foods. Staple foods in Asia include rice and wheat. Asian noodles consume 20-50% of total flour consumption and have been an important part in the diet of many Asians.
Wheat flour is the main ingredient for making Asian noodles, but it is not considered nutritionally well balanced especially for noodles made with refined wheat flour. Some consumers are concerned about the lack of nutrition and health benefits of regular noodle products. This presentation will provide some specific options to improve nutritional and health benefits of Asian noodles by fortification of proteins, minerals, and dietary fibers. Another important strategy is to produce noodles with whole grain flour; however, these whole grain noodles are lack of desirable eating quality (texture, taste and color) due to presence of coarse brans. New technologies that are effective in improving whole-wheat noodle quality include the reduction of whole-wheat flour (WWF) particle size by fine grinding millfeeds and uses of functional ingredients. Results showed with the reduction of WWF particle size, raw noodle brightness improved and cooked noodle hardness, springiness, cohesiveness and resilience values significantly increased. Transglutaminase, sodium stearoyl lactate and phosphate salts were found to enhance gluten strength of whole-wheat dough and improve the qualities of whole-wheat noodles. These new technologies will provide new tools to food manufacturers to produce whole-grain noodle products with more nutrition and health benefits and acceptable eating quality.
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