The project
Eating disorders, such as chewing and swallowing difficulties, affect 8-15% of people worldwide and are likely to cause malnutrition, dehydration, and pneumonia, with a mortality rate of 50%. One in 17 people will develop some form of dysphagia in their lifetime, including 50-75% of stroke patients, 60-70% of patients undergoing radiation therapy for brain and cervical cancer and over 50% elderly people in hospitals or nursing homes. Therefore, the development of food products of high nutritional value and alternative structure, so that they are suitable for people with chewing and swallowing difficulties, is challenging for the food industry. Legumes are a prominent nutritional source for the enrichment of the human diet with plant proteins, edible fibers, vitamins and valuable trace elements such as iron, magnesium, calcium. However, their use as a raw material for the development of high nutritional value foods is limited due to their special organoleptic characteristics and intestinal disorders that often result from their consumption. As part of the project, a digestible legume flour will be developed through enzymatic modification process enriched with encapsulated antioxidant and antimicrobial extracts. The modified flour will be used as a raw material for the development of a new range of digestible and delicious ultra-thin pasta, which will be specially designed to be suitable for consumption by people with chewing and swallowing difficulties, providing them with up to 45% more protein than common pasta products. The products will be enriched with ingredients that promote good health of the consumer while they will be suitable for vegetarian diets. The product will be developed in (relatively) dehydrated form that will require minimal to no preparation by the final consumer without additional artificial preservatives due to the presence of enclosed plant extracts with antioxidant and antimicrobial activity. The final product will be evaluated in terms of maintaining the antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of its components during digestion, as well as in terms of its prebiotic activity, i.e., its ability to induce the physiology of specific "beneficial" microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract.
The project focuses on utilizing modified legume flour with improved digestibility and enriched with antioxidant and antimicrobial extracts, in order to develop small practical meals that will require little or no preparation by the consumer. In particular, it aims to develop easy-to-digest ultra-thin pasta based on legume flour, which will be specially designed for consumption by people with chewing difficulties, providing them with up to 45% more protein than ordinary pasta.
Individual objectives of the project are the:
- Development of plant extracts from oregano, rosemary, and Magnolia (Magnolia officinalis) with antimicrobial and antioxidant properties.
- Development of innovative encapsulation structures with controlled release and extended bioactivity endurance of the extracts’ active components.
- Development of a modified legume flour, such as from chickpeas and lentils, with improved digestibility and enriched with antioxidant and antimicrobial extracts.
- Development of a plant-based food with an alternative structure that will require little or no preparation by the final consumer, without added artificial preservatives and gluten, with a high protein content and enriched with vegetable fibers from pureed vegetables or even fruits and with ingredients that promote good consumer health.
- Evaluation of the new product in terms of its antioxidant, antimicrobial and prebiotic activity.
- Techno-economic analysis and environmental assessment of the processes and the product through life cycle analysis.
In summary, the project will contribute to the development of new innovative food products by promoting the more effective interconnection of the country's research system with the productive field of the economy. The project aspires, with its completion, to contribute to the dynamic introduction of Greece into the international trade of plant foods, of high nutritional value, suitable for consumption by people with chewing and swallowing difficulties.
For the improved digestibility of the legume flour, such as chickpea and lentil, enzymatic hydrolysis will be applied, while the recovery of the bioactive components with antioxidant and antimicrobial activity from the selected plants will be carried out through innovative, green extraction technologies. The enriched legume flour will be used to develop easy-to-digest ultra-thin pasta enriched with pureed vegetables (e.g., spinach, carrot, pumpkin, potato, celery) or even fruits (e.g., apple, fig, banana. In addition, a study will be carried out to determine the shelf life of the product and evaluate the antimicrobial activity of the extracts, nutritional characterization and labeling of the product and finally, pilot production of the final product and its safety study.
The project is carried out in 4 work packages (WP).
More specifically, in WP1 legume flour from chickpeas and lentils, will be developed with improved digestibility through enzymatic hydrolysis. Initially, a pre-treatment process of the legumes will be carried out in order to control flour’s granulometry, and afterwards, a partial enzymatic hydrolysis of the flours will be carried out in order to improve their digestibility.
In WP2 research will be carried out on the recovery, characterization, and isolation of bioactive compounds with antioxidant and antimicrobial activity from selected plants such as oregano, rosemary, and Magnolia officinalis through innovative, green extraction technologies. In addition, innovative structures for encapsulating will be developed for the bioactive components of the studied plants in order to maintain the bioactivity of the active components and their gradual/controlled release.
In WP3, modified legume flour enriched with encapsulated antioxidant and antimicrobial extracts will be used as a raw material to develop an easy-to-digest ultra-thin pasta. In addition, the antimicrobial activity of the extracts, as well as the shelf life, the nutritional characteristics and labeling of the product will be studied and finally, a pilot production and safety study of the new product will be carried out.
In WP4, the new final products will be evaluated in terms of their antimicrobial and antioxidant activities, and mainly their prebiotic activity. Additionally, a techno-economic analysis, and a study of the environmental impact of the processes and products will be carried out through a life cycle analysis.
The present project focuses on the utilization of modified legume flour, enriched with antioxidant and antimicrobial extracts, as a raw material for the development of easily digestible ultra-fine pasta of high nutritional value, which will be specially designed for consumption by people with chewing and swallowing difficulties.
The expected results of the project include the:
- Development of green extraction technologies and isolation of high-quality extracts with antimicrobial and antioxidant properties
- Development of a method for analyzing the plant extracts, such as oregano, rosemary, and Magnolia (Magnolia officinalis)
- Techniques for the development of innovative encapsulation structures that will achieve the controlled release and prolonged bioactivity of the extracts’ active components
- Development of small practical vegetable pasta meals that will require little to no preparation by the consumer, suitable for people with chewing and swallowing problems, enriched with ingredients that promote the good health of the consumer
- Evaluation of the new product in terms of antioxidant, antimicrobial and prebiotic activity
- Evaluation of the environmental footprint of the production processes and the final product