Healthier spaghetti

Spanish and Italian researchers have developed a ‘super-spaghetti’ of enriched pasta, enhanced with functional flours, which contains more fibre and proteins than normal pasta and helps to reduce the risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases.

The researchers, who published part of their results in the Food Research International journal, have proven that new green technologies (such as the so-called ‘air classification’) allow processors to obtain functional flours using the whole cereal grain, thus avoiding waste by-products production during the milling process.

Ana María Gómez Caravaca, lead researcher for the project, explains that the air classification process allows the division of milling by-products in two different fractions (coarse and fine) by means of a physical process that doesn’t modify the properties of the obtained fractions.

“These fractions have different chemical characteristics due to their different properties, and they will be used depending on the final product we want to obtain. Our work has proven how we can obtain two fractions by air-classifying whole barley flour — one of them is enriched in antioxidant compounds and soluble fibre (especially betaglucans) and the other contains more proteins,” the researcher said.

The study results have demonstrated that the fraction used in the elaboration of spaghetti allows the enrichment of the final product in soluble fibre (betaglucans) as well as in catechin-derived antioxidant compounds.

“Comparing the obtained final product with the ones available at the market, we observed that our spaghetti was especially rich in betaglucans. The amount of betaglucans present in our functional spaghetti fulfilled the requirements of the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in order to be able to label it as ‘good source of fibre’ and ‘might lessen the risk of suffering cardiovascular diseases’,” said Professor Gómez Caravaca, who reported that two Italian companies have developed a new line of pasta using coarse fractions obtained by air classification.