The effects of dietary fibre addition on the quality of common cereal products

Cereal products are consumed daily by the majority of the population. Popular belief is that these cereal products, rich in carbohydrates, produce a high glycaemic response and may not be a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic throughout the world. Recently the food industry has investigated ways of improving the overall nutritional balance of carbohydrate rich foods and focused on increasing their dietary fibre (DF) contents at the expense of readily digestible carbohydrates. It is well documented that dietary fibre is involved in disease prevention and enhanced health of consumers. Moreover, the food industry can take advantage of the physicochemical properties of fibre to improve the viscosity, texture, sensory characteristics and shelf-life of their products. The focus of this review paper is on the influence of DFs (inulin, fructo-oligofructose, beta-glucans, arabinoxylans and resistant starch) supplementation on the quality and nutritional aspects of common foods containing cereals- pasta, bread, muffins/cakes and extruded snacks. This review reports on the evidence regarding fibre enrichment of cereal foods and looks at the advances and future trends in enriched dietary fibre cereal products.