A review: New Approach to Enrich Pasta with fruits and vegetables

Pasta is one of the most popular foods consumed in the world because of its low price, easy cooking and good taste. It is rich in calories (complex carbohydrates), but it is poor in dietary fibers, minerals, phenolic compounds and vitamins. Due to the limited number of raw materials in pasta production, its popularity among all segments of society as well as the simple production process, it can be used as a suitable carrier for enrichment. In this study, the effect of pasta enrichment using fruits and vegetables on physicochemical and nutritional properties of the pasta was investigated. The results of this study showed that the addition of vegetables and fruits to formulation of past considerably increased content of bioactive compounds such as phenolic compounds as well as antioxidant activity. In between pasta production steps, pasta cooking had the most impact on the reducing of bioactive compounds. Vegetables and fruits can leach into boiling water (cooking water) or can be thermally degraded. The enrichment has a dilution effect of the gluten network, leading to changing of cooking and texture properties. Due to the type of compounds added to the pasta formulation, their effect on glycemic index was different. Therefore, enrichment is successful only if processing conditions are optimized to keep in the final product the desired nutritional characteristics of the vegetables and fruits