The prospects of using spinach in flour and bakery products

Abstract

Spinach (Spinacia oleracca) is a leaf vegetable with low calorie. It appears to be the source of bioflavonoids, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, which are highly resistant to heat treatment. Among these substances there are beta-carotene, zeaxanthin, lutein, which appear to be active antioxidants. Spinach also contains В vitamins, vitamin E, vitamin K, calcium and iron. It is common in many countries but is not widely used in Russia. The beneficial features of spinach allow to use it as the ingredient for developing of new types of flour and bakery products for functional and specialized purposes. Due to specific organoleptic and technological properties, it is recommended to use refined spinach in combination with other plant ingredients. The high content of fat-soluble substances in spinach causes using in formulations and technologies of flour and bakery products fat components for purposes of digestion of these substances. These components can be the mixture of vegetable oils of different consistency. For improving of spinach technological properties, it is recommended to use drying with following grinding of dried product into powder. There are several drying and grinding methods, which differ in number of stages and.technological operations, machine and hardware design and energy intensity, which defines the choice of optimal method of spinach powder obtaining. The use of spinach powder in formulations and technologies of flour and bakery products allows obtaining products with high organoleptical qualities, and the containment of the aforenamed substances in products allows to consider them as functional.