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Biscuits made from atta and other healthy ingredients are more nutritious
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Wednesday, 12 May, 2021, 14 : 00 PM [IST]
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Joshna Joseph
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A biscuit is a snack that is usually made up of flour (mostly refined flour), sugar, raising agents and fats, and is baked and has a long shelf life. Biscuits have crunchy texture and are available in various flavours.
Atta biscuits are made up of whole wheat flour instead of refined wheat flour and are considered to be more nutritious as compared to the biscuits made up of refined wheat flour as the whole wheat flour contains more fibre and nutrients.
Types of biscuit include sandwich biscuits, digestive biscuits, crackers, ginger biscuits, shortbread biscuits, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate-coated marshmallow treats, Anzac biscuits, biscotti, butter biscuits, Arnott’s biscuits, nankhatai and speculaas. Biscuits are classified from the type of doughs from which the biscuits are made.
There are two basic types of doughs i) Soft doughs/short doughs (glucose biscuits, cream biscuits and cookies) ii) Hard doughs (Marie biscuits, Crackers, Salted biscuits). Sometimes, biscuits are also classified based on the taste. i) Sweet ii) Semi sweet iii) Salted.The more hard version of biscuit is known as a cookie.
Biscuits are either sweet or savoury. Biscuits usually contain high amounts of fat and sugar. Therefore to make biscuits healthy health experts have come up with new recipes that have much more fibre and low in fat and sugar. One of the healthy types of biscuit is atta biscuit as it contains more fibre than an ordinary biscuit.
Biscuits that contain low amounts of saturated fat, trans fat and sugar are considered to be healthy. Digestive biscuits are considered to be healthy because they contain wheat bran, oats and other healthy cereals and less amount of sugar and fat but they too have small amounts of refined flour in them.
There is a common misconception that digestive biscuits aids in digestion of food or digestive biscuits helps in weight loss, all these are myths as digestive biscuits hardly aids in digestion or weightloss given their ingredient composition.
Digestive biscuits are better in terms of nutrition as compared to other biscuits. The fibre in the digestive biscuits acts as a prebiotic to the gut microbes which helps in proper digestion of food. Since these biscuits contain sodium bicarbonate they act as antacid and may have a laxative effect on the body.
Another kind of biscuits which are considered to be healthy are sugar free biscuits. It is probably beneficial for people suffering from diabetic conditions and are craving to have biscuits. The sucrose in the biscuits are replaced by stevia, sugar alcohol (polyol) or sucralose. Some may also have fructooligosaccharides which is a natural sweetener. Usually diabetic friendly biscuits contain flours which have low glycemic index like oatmeal etc.
Multigrain biscuits are also trending nowadays for the addition of more than one flour in the biscuit. Multigrain biscuits usually include oatmeal, jowar, ragi, bajra, maize, chickpea , wheat flours than the usual refined flour. These biscuits are considered to be nutritious as it contains the nutritional benefits of 5 grains. Multigrain biscuits are also rich in fibre and have low glycemic index as compared to the biscuits made from refined flour.
High protein biscuits are also available in the market. These biscuits contain around 16-20% of protein which is mainly derived from a blend of wheat and groundnut meal in the ratio 75:25 and is also fortified with a certain amount of vitamins and minerals which are beneficial for the body.
Groundnut meal can also be replaced with soya seed or cottonseed meal. Normal biscuits contain 5-6% of protein which are usually derived from wheat. In a study it was seen that using 25% wheat germ instead of oil seed meal improved the taste and texture of the biscuits. Whey biscuits which are considered to be rich in protein are also good in terms of taste and texture.
Most of the water soluble vitamins are lost during the process of baking the biscuits. Therefore to compensate on the loss of the vitamins, the biscuits are fortified with vitamins such as Thiamine (4g/100g), Riboflavin (0.5g/100g), Nicotinic acid (5g/100g) and folic acid (34µg/100g). Fat soluble vitamin A can also be easily incorporated in the biscuits to increase the nutritional value.
Calcium rich biscuits available in the market contain calcium sulphate,calcium lactate, Calcium chloride and calcium citrate as the source of calcium. In a study conducted, it was observed that when calcium lactate was used as a calcium source in the biscuit, it did not have any after taste. Calcium can be incorporated into the biscuits in the range of 150-200 mg /100g of the biscuit.
In developing countries the need to curb micronutrient deficiency especially iron deficiency has become very important. Ferrous sulphate is normally used as a source of iron in biscuits, other fortificants include ferrous fumarate, iron EDTA and reduced iron. The level of iron to be fortified should be between 25-30mg/100g.
To make biscuits healthy, low fat or no fat biscuits were introduced. These biscuits contain sucrose esters instead of fat. These sucrose esters mimic the property of fat in the biscuits, making the biscuits soft and crunchy in texture. Other fat replacers include modified starches, dextrins, fibres, enzymes and emulsifiers.
Biscuits are processed food products and almost all processed foods contain high sodium in the form of salt which is harmful for health. To avoid the use of sodium in the biscuits black salt which is low in sodium is used and sodium bicarbonate is replaced by potassium bicarbonate. These biscuits can be consumed by people suffering from high blood pressure.
People prefer eating biscuits as they are convenient and ready to eat food and are easily available in the market. Due to changes in the lifestyle people are having affinity towards eating more nutritious food because of which all these therapeutic biscuits were innovated. These kinds of healthy biscuits have encouraged the consumers to move towards the healthier variety of food.
(The author is research and development manager, Soch Foods LLP)
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