Healthy Instant Brown Rice Flour Dumpling in Cereal Cream

Nowadays, the modern lifestyle of urban people results in changing consumption behavior. The consumption of fast food has increased. Moreover, the social pressures cause stress to people, then they consume more sweets and snacks which contain high sugar, fat and salt to relieve the stress. In addition, less consumption of fruit and vegetable, lacking of exercise and increase in smoking and drinking lead to increasing prevalence of non-communicable chronic disease (NCDs) such as diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, cancers and obesity. Thus, the trend of the product development has turned to the healthy products such as meals and snacks reduced sugar, slow energy, slow-release or sustained energy products.

This research aimed to develop pre-gel brown rice flour (PGBRF) in order to increase resistance starch (RS) which cannot be digested by enzyme. Brown rice still contain germ which is rich in nutrients. Moreover, seed coat or bran also is a good source of dietary fiber. Brown rice which had been selected for this research was Riceberry, Sinlek and Sangyod due to high antioxidant activities, γ-oryzanol and γ-amino butyl acid (GABA). Pre-gelatinization and retrogradation processes had been used to increase RS in PGBRF lead to the decrease in glycemic index (GI). Moreover, these processes could improve the physical properties of PGBRF. The PGBRF was applied to produce the dumpling in coconut milk (Bau-Loy) by replacing glutinous rice flour. Dumpling in coconut cream is one of the popular Thai traditional desserts. The main ingredients of this dessert are glutinous rice flour, sugar and coconut milk. The high consumption may cause NCDs. Coconut milk is high in saturated fatty acids lead to increase blood cholesterol and risk of cardiovascular diseases and stroke. Therefore, the cereal cream was used to replace coconut milk to adjust the ratio of fatty acid by increasing monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. This can help to reduce risk of cardiovascular diseases and stroke. Furthermore, stevia extract or stevioside was used to replace palm sugar in order to reduce sugar content in the product. Stevia extract is sweetener which is 250-300 times sweeter than sucrose, but no calories. Finally, the consumer acceptability test, nutritional values, health benefits and shelf-life of “healthy instant brown rice flour dumpling in cereal cream” were evaluated.

The development of the healthy instant brown rice flour dumpling in cereal cream was an application using PGBRF in order to explicate the health products. The cereal cream and stevia extract were substituted coconut cream and palm sugar in the product. Energy, carbohydrate, total sugar and saturated fatty acid contents of the developed product decreased 11, 23, 54 and 39%, respectively, whereas dietary fiber increased 1 time when compared with control formula. Furthermore, GABA, phenolic compounds, antioxidant activities and enzyme inhibitory activities related to diabetic were higher than that of the control formula. Therefore, the product might be alternative dessert for people who have diabetic, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, controlling weight and people who concern their health.