Concept and Classification of Puffed Food
Concept of Puffed Food: When people talk about puffed food, they immediately think of snacks like snow cakes, potato chips, shrimp strips, and chicken strips. However, it would be difficult for them to define puffed food. The domestic nutrition community believes that puffed food is also known as extruded food, exploded food, or lightweight food, and has recently become a new star in the snack industry. Specifically, puffed food is made from raw materials such as grains, beans, potatoes, and vegetables, processed through puffed equipment to create a wide variety of foods that are exquisite in shape, nutritious, and crispy and delicious.
Classification of Puffed Food: According to production technology, puffed food can be divided into three categories. First, puffed food made from corn and potatoes as raw materials. Second, structured protein foods made from plant protein as raw materials. Third, staple foods made from grains, beans, or potatoes after being puffed. According to the function of the food, it can be classified into the following categories: Staple foods, such as sesame cakes, bread, steamed buns, and pancakes; Oil-tea type, mainly puffed flour tea; Military food, including compressed biscuits; Pastry type, such as peach crisps, stove fruit, eight-piece pastries, shortbread pastries, mooncakes, imprinted cakes, and egg rolls; Snack type, mainly including rice crispy and cold cakes; Cold food type, filling for ice cream bars and popsicles.
The Pros and Cons of Puffed Food
Currently, due to the relatively simple and easy-to-operate production equipment for puffed food, as well as low investment and quick returns, the puffed food industry is developing very rapidly. Coupled with the characteristics of low nutrient consumption, crispy texture, and easy digestion and absorption, puffed food has quickly become the main force in the snack industry. However, some nutrition experts claim that puffed food has an excessively high lead content, and long-term consumption can cause diseases such as digestive problems and anemia. As a result, a fierce debate about the pros and cons of puffed food has展开 among consumers.
Advantages of Puffed Food
According to the technical data of puffed food: The puffed technology can completely gelatinize starch (so-called gelatinization refers to the conversion of raw starch, i.e., beta starch, into alpha starch in food). Once converted to alpha starch, it cannot revert to beta starch even after being stored. Thus, the food retains its softness, good flavor, and high digestibility. This is another characteristic that makes puffed technology superior to other physical processing methods, opening up a new processing field for making coarse grains into refined products. Therefore, it presents the following advantages:
Delicious taste and low price: After coarse grains are puffed, their coarse and hard structure is destroyed, and they no longer look or taste like coarse grains. The texture is soft and delicious. From a production perspective, using an indirect heating puffed machine, the processing cost for one kilogram of corn into puffed flour is about 6 fen, meaning the selling price of one kilogram of puffed corn flour is 26 fen. Assuming 10 kilograms of coarse grains per person per month for local workers, the monthly expense per person only increases by 6 jiao, which is economically affordable.
Less loss of nutrients and easy digestion and absorption: Puffed technology not only changes the shape of the grain but also its internal molecular structure. The vitamins in the grain are less damaged (for example, the content of vitamins B1 and B6 is significantly higher than in steamed and boiled foods). Puffed technology thoroughly cooks the starch, making the puffed food mostly porous and increasing its water solubility, which is beneficial for the penetration of gastrointestinal digestive enzymes, improving the digestion and absorption rate of nutrients and making it easier for the body to absorb (for example, the protein digestibility of cooked rice is 75.3%, which can be increased to 83.8% after puffing).
Convenient to eat and easy to store: After coarse grains are puffed, they become cooked food and can be directly eaten with hot water, or made into compressed food, or slightly processed into various foods. It is convenient to eat and saves time. As long as grain departments or factories, mines, enterprises, agencies, and schools supply puffed flour, it can be processed and prepared at home or in collective canteens, becoming a truly convenient food. Grain after puffing is equivalent to a high-temperature sterilization process. The moisture content of puffed flour is reduced to below 10%. Such low moisture restricts the growth of insects and mold, enhancing their stability during storage, making them suitable for long-term storage and suitable for making military rations to improve their quality.
Disadvantages of Puffed Food:
Proven by nutrition and medical experts, puffed food contains lead substances. Long-term or excessive consumption of puffed food can easily lead to excessive lead content in the human body. At the 1994 "Global Lead Poisoning Prevention Conference," medical experts stated: A lead content exceeding 10 micrograms per 100 milliliters of blood will have adverse effects on children. For every 10 microgram increase, a child's IQ will drop by 6-8 points, and their height will decrease by 1.3 cm.
Accordingly, the national food hygiene standards stipulate that the lead content in pastries must not exceed 0.5 milligrams per kilogram. In fact, the lead content of puffed food from some small workshops has exceeded this standard. As the current development of China's puffed food industry is uneven, it cannot absolutely guarantee that puffed food is both safe and nutritious. This is summarized in the following points:
Easy to cause obesity: Relevant data shows that the fat content of puffed food accounts for about 40.6%, and the calorie content is as high as 33.4%. Because puffed food is a high-calorie food, its main components include carbohydrates, high salt, high sugar, and a lot of MSG. Long-term and excessive consumption of puffed food can easily lead to obesity. In addition, excessive consumption of puffed food can easily cause a feeling of fullness in the body, affecting normal diet, and multiple nutrients cannot be guaranteed and supplied, leading to malnutrition.
Harmful to children's health: The high salt and MSG in puffed food are not good for children's health. Excessive consumption in adulthood can easily lead to high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases. The lead substance in puffed food is a poly-affinity toxin that mainly damages the nervous system, hematopoietic system, blood vessels, and digestive system. Once the blood lead level rises, children will experience intellectual and behavioral problems, such as hyperactivity, aggressiveness, a bad temper, or respiratory infections, loss of appetite, anemia, and urinary tract infections.
The "Family Little Nurse" in Puffed Food
After analyzing the pros and cons of eating puffed food, it may cause some consumers who favor puffed food to panic. Here, experts teach you some tricks on how to select and eat puffed food. Trick one: The three "looks" when buying puffed food
Look at the packaging: When buying puffed food, choose products with complete labels such as manufacturer name, address, production date, and shelf life, and try to buy from some reputable large supermarkets and department stores.
Look at the information: There are hundreds of brands of puffed food, with mixed quality. The main problems with unqualified products are bacterial contamination—such as excessive coliform bacteria, and an increase in peroxide value caused by the rancidity of fat in puffed food. These can cause gastrointestinal discomfort, diarrhea, and liver damage in children. National and local industry and commerce inspection departments regularly conduct some tests. Parents should pay attention to relevant information and avoid buying products on the blacklist.
Look again: To prevent puffed food from being crushed and broken, many puffed food packaging bags are filled with gas. In Europe and America, there are regulations that require puffed food to be filled with nitrogen, which is clean, non-toxic, and dry, ensuring that puffed food does not change color or flavor for a long time and is safe to eat. However, due to the lack of relevant regulations in our country, many manufacturers use compressed air. The water content of compressed air is higher than that of normal air, which can cause the puffed food in the bag to absorb moisture and lose its crispy texture. Moreover, in the process of compressing air, the lubricating oil injected into the machine may be atomized and sprayed into the packaging bag, adhering to the inner wall of the bag and contaminating the puffed food. Therefore, when buying inflated puffed food, if you find the words "filled with nitrogen" on the packaging, you can feel more assured. Trick two: Scientifically eating puffed food starts with children.
Treat puffed food as an occasional snack, do not eat large amounts of puffed food, and do not eat it before meals or before bedtime. Do not treat puffed food as "TV food," eating while watching TV, as this can easily lead to excessive intake, especially eating puffed food at night. High-fat food stays in the stomach for a long time, affecting digestion and nighttime sleep.
For the health of children, educate them to develop the habit of eating less snacks, including puffed food, and cultivate their preference for natural, raw foods, learning to taste the natural flavor of food. Parents should try to keep their diet light in daily meals, use various condiments appropriately, and do not let children develop a heavy taste from a young age and rely on condiments. Help children develop good eating habits, which will benefit them for a lifetime.
Nowadays, many puffed food manufacturers include toys in their products to promote sales, which children often like. This practice has many hidden dangers. On the one hand, children are likely to mistake the toys for food. On the other hand, it is unhygienic to mix metal or plastic toys with food. Therefore, parents should educate their children to stay away from the toys included in puffed food. New Types of Puffed Food
Puffed Seaweed Food: Very popular in Japan. Seaweed plants such as nori and kelp contain various vitamins and minerals needed by the human body, are low in calories, and have an excellent taste. After puffing, they are fluffy, easy to eat, and suitable for children's tastes.
Puffed Fruits and Vegetables: Such as puffed apple slices and puffed cantaloupe. They retain the original nutritional components, color, aroma, and minerals of fruits and vegetables. They are very different in quality and taste from starch-based puffed foods made from rice, flour, and potatoes. They have the characteristics of low calories, high fiber, and rich vitamin content. No preservatives are added, the taste is sweet and crispy, and they are easy to store and carry.