Role of nutritious extruded snacks to mitigate malnutrition

Extrusion cooking is a high temperature short time (HTST) process in which starch and protein rich food materials are cooked in extruder under controlled conditions of pressure, mechanical shear and heat to create expanded products of varying texture. The short time exposure of food to heat during extrusion minimizes the destruction of nutrients. The extrusion process improves digestibility of starch by gelatinization, of proteins by denaturation and deactivates the action of undesirable compounds such as enzymes and destruction of anti-nutritional factors besides reduction of microbial counts. Extruded products are reported to have less moisture, longer shelf life, microbiologically safe and different raw materials with various combinations can be used to prepare value added and fortified extruded products therefore versatile extrusion cooking has been successfully used by several researchers in order to develop nutritious value added products.