Sunflower Meal Snack Production Using a Village Texturizer and its Shelf Life

Abstract

As a by-product of the oil extraction process, sunflower meal (SM) is still high in nutrients and especially fiber and protein. The study objective was to use SM in dried mixtures for snack production using a village texturizer and to study the properties and shelf life of the snack chips produced. The processing parameters using the village texturizer involved 160 °C, 6 psi and 6 sec/chip. The snack chip was 1.5–1.7 mm thick and 4–5 cm in diameter and weighed 0.5–1 g/piece. The chips were crispy having a compression force of 6.20 kg using a TA-XT2i texture analyzer (50 mm aluminum cylinder). The snack was a cream color, with water activity (a_w) of 0.28 and consisted of blended sunflower meal (12.30%), cassava starch (61.48%), all purpose wheat flour (8.20%), seaweed powder (8.18%) and refined palm olein oil (9.84%). The snack had moisture, protein, total carbohydrate, fat, ash, and dietary fiber contents of 1.89%, 6.19%, 72.18%, 13.29%, 2.82 and 3.63%, respectively, and contained 1.81×106 J/100 g. The overall liking preference of the product was “moderately”. The shelf life of the product in an oriented polypropylene/metallic cast polypropylene laminate film bag was only 1 mth at room temperature, because the product became rancid.