Application of Food Extrusion Process to Develop Fish Meat-Based Extruded Products

摘要

Food extrusion provides a great versatility for the development of low-cost, high-nutritive and convenient food products such as cereal-based snacks and food products. Extruded snacks are gaining importance nowadays due to their peculiar taste, texture and convenience. Extruded products contain low levels of protein, which makes it necessary to fortify them with protein-rich diets. One of the possible ways for alleviating this problem is to utilize fish and fish proteins to enrich cereal-based extruded products. Demand for fish meat and fish meat-based products is increasing day by day, and utilization of bycatch, low-cost and underutilized fish and shellfish is a major current issue. Utilizing fish meat and fish portions to develop extruded products will add value to the low-cost and underutilized fish and shellfish, thus promoting their utilization. The major factors during extrusion processing which affect the physical and chemical properties of the final product are high barrel temperature, feed moisture, composition of raw materials (protein and starch mainly) and the screw speed. Extrusion processing and changes in the ingredients will influence the system variables as well as product characteristics. In this view, the present article describes in detail about food extrusion process, application of food extrusion to develop fish meat-based extruded products, quality of fish-based extruded products and future prospects of the technology.