Extrusion cooking characteristics of soy-wheat blends to produce ready to eat snacks

The snacks constitute an important part of our daily nutrient and calorie intake. Soy-cereal blends such as soy-com, soy-rice and soy-sorghum have been reported to give good quality snacks with extrusion processing. Soybean is the cheapest source of quality protein and good calorie whereas wheat is a popular cereal in India with 70–85% starch. Extrusion provide sexpansion of starch, conversion of protein into easily digestible form at relatively lower operating costs. The experiments were conducted with full fat soyflour blended with wheat flour in proportion of 10, 20 and 30%, at 3 feed moisture levels of 15, 20 and 25%(wb) and three barrel temperatures of 80, 90 and 100°C. Analysis of various quality indices of extrudate with process variables indicated optimum condition of 10% blending of full fat soy flour (FFSF), 25% moisture content and 90° C barrel temperature. The second set of experiment conducted on defatted soyflour, showed optimum condition at 10% blend, 15% moisture content and 90°C barrel temperature.