As health-conscious consumers pay close attention to the nutrition factsheets and make educated purchasing choices, products with added fibers are popular choices in the bakery aisle.
Product reformulating with fibers
Fibers improve the nutritional profiles of bakery products and allow related packaging claims. Functional fibers can also provide several benefits, from contributing to better blood glucose management to supporting the balance of the intestinal flora by stimulating the growth of beneficial bifidobacteria – an important element of good digestive health.
However, fiber-enriched products tend to have a grainy or bland taste, so there is a need to incorporate fibers in a convenient and consumer-friendly way. Inulin and oligofructose are soluble and, depending on the type of functional fiber, have a neutral and balanced to slightly sweet flavor. This allows the original taste of a product to be maintained, while also delivering in terms of mouthfeel and texture. They can also be used to create sugar-reduced, fat-reduced and calorie-reduced bakery products with a cleaner label.
Fat/sugar reduction is possible: For example, for water-based bakery fillings that also contain fat, Orafti® Inulin can be incorporated as a fat replacer. It can stabilize water into a creamy structure with a similar mouthfeel to fat. So, a part of the fat content can be replaced with inulin. In applications like soft baked goods or biscuits, BENEO’s chicory root fibers also allow for sugar reduction.
Obtaining a good texture in the final product can also be a challenge, depending on the type of fiber used. When adding fibers to bread, it can sometimes decrease the volume of the end product, so some optimization of the recipe may be necessary. Color can also factor in, with some fibers such as those in wheat or bran making the bread crumb light brown. BENEO’s Orafti® Inulin, for example, keeps the crumb color white.
Replacing certain ingredients with alternative solutions that will improve the product’s nutritional profile is only the start. The next step is to also enrich them with ingredients that provide an added benefit. For example, BENEO explains that its Orafti® Inulin and Oligofructose have a natural sweet taste, mild and delicate in perception, so the sugar can be reduced in recipes using them. While inulin-type fructans occur naturally in a number of fruits and vegetable plants, chicory root is a particularly rich source. “BENEO gently extracts inulin from the root through hot water processing, from which oligofructose is then derived through partial enzymatic hydrolysis – a transformation that occurs naturally in the chicory root during the late harvest period. Thus, both inulin and oligofructose are of 100% plant origin,” Gitte Vaes, Product Manager Functional Fibers, BENEO, says.
“BENEO gently extracts inulin from the root through hot water processing, from which oligofructose is then derived through partial enzymatic hydrolysis – a transformation that occurs naturally in the chicory root during the late harvest period.”
Gitte Vaes, Product Manager Functional Fibers, BENEO
Coming in powder or liquid form, these chicory root fibers are also allergen-free. The powder ingredients can be easily incorporated into bakery mixes, for example. Increasing the fiber content of bakery products with these prebiotic chicory root fibers can have several benefits:
+ Digestion: As proven prebiotics, they support healthy gut microbiota and selectively promote the growth of bene-
ficial microorganisms in the gut (e.g., bifidobacteria), reaching the large intestine almost intact. “Chicory root fibers are the preferred food for beneficial micro-organisms and thus help them to grow and multiply,” Vaes explains, adding these effects on bifidobacteria abundance in gut microbiota and on bowel function parameters have recently been demonstrated by a new systematic literature review with meta-analyses (2).
+ Weight management: Chicory root fibers play several roles in this regard. They can help achieve the desired taste with fewer calories (Orafti® Inulin and Oligofructose contain 2 kcal/g). Moreover, BENEO says its prebiotic fibers – especially Orafti® Synergy1 and Oligofructose – have been shown to help people eat less (3,4,5). “As prebiotic dietary fibers, they are fermented by the beneficial bacteria within the digestive tract, where they trigger a cascade of metabolic effects that result in naturally less food intake,” the ingredient specialist explains. In addition, by replacing sugar or other high glycaemic carbohydrates in food formulations, chicory root functional fibers reduce the glycaemic response of foods.
+ Calcium absorption: “Oligofructose-enriched Inulin Orafti® Synergy1 is efficient in enhancing the bioavailability of calcium in the diet – an important prerequisite for lifelong bone health. The absorption of calcium takes place in the small intestine. However, the fermentation by prebiotic microbiota influences the ecosystem of the large intestine in such a way that calcium absorption can occur here as well. Several human intervention studies have shown that Orafti® Synergy1 can boost calcium absorption,” BENEO explains. A one-year-long study has provided further evidence that increased calcium absorption translates into tangible improvements in bone health-related parameters such as bone mineral density (6).
Communication is key in getting the benefits out of developing products to meet this trend: the nutritional and potential health benefits of enhanced product offerings should be clearly announced, through the appropriate label claims.
1 – Reynolds, A et al: Carbohydrate quality and human health: a series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. January 10, 2019 doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31809-9
2 – Nagy DU, Sándor-Bajusz KA, Bódy B, Decsi T, Van Harsselaar J, Theis S & Lohner S (2022) Effect of chicory-derived inulin-type fructans on abundance of Bifidobacterium and on bowel function: a systematic review with meta-analyses. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition. Published 14 July 2022, DOI: 10.1080/10408398.2022.2098246
3 – Cani P, Joly E, Horsmans Y, Delzenne NM (2006) Oligofructose promotes satiety in healthy human: a pilot study. Eur J Clin Nutr 60(5):567–572. www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v60/n5/pdf/1602350a.pdf
4 – McCann MT, Livingstone MBE, Wallace JMW, Gallagher AM, Weich RW (2011) Oligofructose-enriched Inulin supplementation decreases energy intake in overweight and obese men and women. Obesity Reviews, 12(S1):63–279. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2011.00889.x/pdf
5 – Parnell JA and Reimer RA (2009) Weight loss during oligofructose supplementation is associated with decreased ghrelin and increased peptide YY in overweight and obese adults. Am J Clin Nutr 89(6):1751–1759. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3827013/pdf
6 – Abrams SA, Griffin IJ, Hawthorne KM, Liang L, Gunn SK, Darlington G, Ellis KJ (2005) A combination of prebiotic short- and long-chain inulin-type fructans enhances calcium absorption and bone mineralisation in young adolescents. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 82:471-476. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16087995/
The article is part of an extended feature, which was originally published in [BBI 6 – 2022]. Read the full article in the magazine:
