Elwood F. Caldwell, Robert B. Fast, and Jon M. Faubion
Breakfast Cereals and How They are Made, Second Edition
Pages 1-15
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1094/1891127152.001
ISBN: 1-891127-15-2
Abstract
Breakfast cereals have been defined as “processed grains for human consumption” (Fast, 1987). Indeed, one or more of the cereal grains or milled fractions thereof are major constituents of all breakfast cereals, approaching 100% in the case of most cereals that require cooking. The proportion drops well below this in many ready-to-eat (RTE) cereals and to less than 50% in presweetened products having nutritive sweeteners (sucrose, or fructose, dextrose, and other corn-based products) as substantial constituents.
In broad terms, then, breakfast cereal ingredients may be classified as 1) grains or grain products, 2) sweeteners, caloric or otherwise, 3) other flavoring or texturizing macroingredients, 4) microingredients for flavor and color, and 5) microingredients for nutritional fortification and shelf life preservation. Each of these areas is itself the subject of entire books, and even the cereal grains can be dealt with only briefly here in the specific context of the manufacture of breakfast cereals. Accordingly, this introductory chapter summarizes the characteristics and the role of the principal grains used in breakfast cereals (corn, wheat, oats, rice, and barley). Brief comments are included on the other principal and traditional macroingredients, malt, sugar, and salt, the first two of which also are (or can be) of cereal origin. Discussion of nutritional and preservative microingredients (the latter primarily antioxidants) is reserved for Chapter 10, and discussion of other flavor and color ingredients is reserved for other books by other authors, except insofar as they are dealt with along the way in chapters on other aspects of breakfast cereals.
