Innovative Changes in Bakery Products – Nutrition Meets Food Science

Bakery products have been enjoyed for long by everyone. Bread and flat bread or roti have been part of our meals for ages and continues to fill our stomachs with many other foods of animal and plant origin including meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, dairy products etc. completing our meal in a balanced manner. There are many other bakery products such as biscuits, cookies, cakes, donuts, muffins, pies, and a range of snack products that could be consumed at various places and times. Some variations such as pizza, rolls, and many other bakery products from different places are now globally enjoyed for their taste, flavour, appearance etc. that health professionals are now cautioning against overconsumption that may cause certain non-communicable diseases.

Bakery industry has been trying to make changes in their products to make them healthier. It is very easy to visualise what alterations should be made to the bakery products, but what is not realised is the effect that these changes may cause in the products making them less desirable. So, there is a realisation that special ingredients and additives are needed in order to achieve the healthier changes without adversely affecting the appeal of the product.

The easiest example would be trying to make whole wheat bread or gluten-free bread. As the dough needs to rise after adding yeast to flour and water, the whole grain flour would make the dough much less extensible. The elasticity would be affected by bran particles letting the gas formed escape so volume would not rise much, making the bread loaf very dense and harder rather than fluffy and soft.

If you try to replace wheat flour by other grain flour not having any gluten, then the dough would not be elastic and not be able to hold much gas. Thus, again it would fail to make the loaf fluffy and soft.

Therefore, there needs to be adjustments both in ingredients and additives to counter this physico-chemical change in healthier product. This requires a proper study of the baking process and how it affects the various properties including texture, colour, flavour etc. The original formulation was perfected over centuries of experience and improvements. However, the changes are mostly possible because of better understanding of baking process, the time, temperature, moisture and other parameters affecting the process and also the final product along with other ingredients such as salt, sugar, fat, emulsifiers and other additives making their presence felt. Each ingredient has been chosen with a specific technical purpose in the baking operation. Still when refined flour is made, it loses dietary fibre along with some vitamins and minerals. FSSAI has already permitted addition of iron, folic acid and vitamin B12 to fortify the wheat flour and use the FSSAI symbol of fortified food on it. Some bakers abroad are using chickpea and lentil flour to add protein and dietary fibre to wheat flour to improve the nutritive value.

In many bakery products, there is fairly high level of sugar and fat. Although low calorie sweeteners could be used, but bakers may want to use label friendly ingredients. Fructo-oligo-saccharide (FOS) is dietary fibre from chicory root and it not only improves the fibre content but also reduces the sugar content of the products due to its sweetness. This is used by many sweet manufacturers and also some biscuit producers in India. Along with FOS they also use polyols and/or stevia to adjust the sweetness profile.

Fats and oils are important ingredients in bakery products. They not only contribute to rich and pleasant flavour; they also help in texture enhancement of baked products. Moisture, tenderness and mouthfeel of bread, pastries and cakes depend to large extent upon the fat in the product. Proper fat can also prevent staleness of products. Fats also play a crucial role in dough handling affecting its elasticity, machinability and shaping.

There is not only consumer demand for lesser fat in the products but also changes in types of fat used. Bakers are now looking for plant-based alternatives as well as low-trans fats in their formulations. Even some functional fats such as medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) and omega-3 are becoming popular.

As fats are very critical in the bakery products sensory properties, any alteration, either reduction or replacement should be carefully tested as the product should still be appealing to consumers. Some carbohydrates and additives are used to maintain the sensory properties while making such changes, there is a possibility of consumers worrying about the labelled ingredient list.

There have always been efforts of adding nuts in bakery products to improve the nutritional value. Such nuts as cashew, almonds and pistachio etc. are quite popular and they elevate the both fibre and protein contents.

There is always a need to communicate the consumers and health professionals about the healthy nature of bakery products. These not only fulfil the needs of consumers for snacks and enjoyment, but most have a very important role in supplying significant proportion of nutritional requirements. This part is often ignored by health professionals and regulators and only highlight the enjoyment part of these products. Most of these are quite convenient so they could be carried to any place and eaten in any place at any time. So proper selection of products made with nutrition and health in mind can become an important part of our diet, especially because people are now working at odd hours at such locations that are difficult to supply a proper meal that we are used to at home and sometimes even in our well-equipped offices.

In future, we may see a big growth of functional and healthy bakery products that would still maintain their sensory appeal. They would need a lot of innovative inputs not just with ingredients but also processing. The way dough is made, handled, baked, cooled and even packed will determine its success in the market.