Objectives

This study was to evaluate the feasibility of incorporating dietary fibre, from three distinctive sources—oat bran (OB), whole barley flour, and resistant starch (RS), into regular pasta formulations.

The effects of these fibre sources on product quality and sensory properties were examined, when added at levels of 5, 10, and 15 per cent (w/w, dry basis), respectively. A commercial pasta extruder was used to make spiral-shaped pasta (fusilli) for each formulation, and all samples were dried to be within shelf-stable moisture content [water activity (aw) below 0.4). Quality characteristics including total dietary fibre content, water uptake index, cooking loss, colour, and textural properties were measured for the samples made with optimized formulations. Consumer acceptance of fibre-enriched pasta products was determined using an affective ranking test.

The results demonstrated that fibre-enriched pasta could be produced by adding up to 15 per cent of dietary fibre into regular semolina-based pasta formulation, leading to acceptable products with matching characteristics of texture and colour compared to commercial products. Among the three fibre sources, OB offered better characteristics of texture and taste, while RS featured the most desired golden colour. Although all three addition levels resulted in acceptable products, the lower addition level (5 per cent) led to the highest preference from the sensory panel.