Food-to-Food Fortification to Enhance the Bio-functionality of Rice

Project description

Rice is used in different forms as a prime ingredient for food products like cooked rice, noodles, breakfast cereals and extrudates. Lack of micronutrients in the daily diets has been the cause of iron deficiency (causes anemia), Zn (leads to stunting, low quality pregnancy and birth weight), vitamin A, folate, vitamin B12, omega-3 poly unsaturated fatty acid and vitamin D deficiency. Iron deficiency has not only led to stillbirth and maternal death in women but also deteriorating effects on children’s physical growth and cognitive performance. Further, Zn and vitamin A deficiency is a prevalent public health problem associated with various health disorders specifically in children and pregnant women. Keeping in mind the production and consumption pattern of rice, fortification of rice with requisite amount of vitamins and minerals can be an effective strategy to address the issue of MNM. Whole grain fortification using hand dusting, coating, spraying, extrusion, and parboiling techniques is one such strategy that has yielded significant improvement in sensory properties as well as micronutrient levels of rice kernels, however, the viability of this technology in terms of affordability is still under question. There are several factors that needs due attention for developing a robust fortification technology like final micronutrient levels, processing time, losses during cooking, production losses, washing and cleaning retentions, storage stability and finally bioavailability and solubility of the nutrients of interest. Therefore, the aim of this project is to investigate a food-to-food fortification technique to enrich the food and nutritional attributes of rice with improved bio-functionality. In the project, a novel and scalable fortification technique for fortification of whole rice kernels with Vit B, Vit A, and Fe will be developed using nano/ micro indentation technique. The fortified rice kernels (FRKs) will be investigated for their various quality attributes such as gelatinization profile, optimum cooking time, water uptake ratio, gruel solid ratio, length expansion ratio, volume expiation ratio, texture profile, etc upon cooking. The FRK rice will also be analyzed for its shelf-life assessment and in-vitro bioavailability test. The consumers perception for this FRK rice will be evaluated with the control samples.

Outcomes

Food/Chemical/Biochemical engineering/Chemistry/Polymer Science/Engineering. A good understanding of food material properties.

Essential capabilities

Food/Chemical/Biochemical engineering/Chemistry/Polymer Science/Engineering. A good understanding of food material properties.

Desireable capabilities

Experience in food fortification, experience working with wet-chemistry and material characterization techniques

Expected qualifications (Course/Degrees etc.)

Food/Chemical/Biochemical engineering/Chemistry/Polymer Science/Engineering

Additional information for applicants

note: i-students must have own scholarship to apply (CSIR, UCG-NET, etc)