PurposeSnack industry is one of the fastest growing food sectors globally, and people are nowadays conscious about intake of healthy snacks on regular basis. There is enormous variety of ready-to-snacks available in the market. Brown rice though highly nutritious in comparison to polished rice is consumed meagerly by masses. Each raw material/ingredient used in extrusion cooking requires specific control of processing variables to meet acceptable product characteristics and consumer demands, which in turn necessitates the need to optimize the conditions for development of brown-rice-based snacks. The aim of this study was to optimize the extrusion cooking conditions for development of brown-rice-based extrudates.Design/methodology/approachExtrusion conditions were optimized through design expert using central composite rotatable design (CCRD) experimental design. The effect of feed moisture (10–22%), screw speed (215–385 rpm) and barrel temperature (95–160 °C) on specific mechanical energy (SME), bulk density (BD), water absorption index (WAI), water solubility index (WSI), expansion ratio (ER), breaking strength (BS) and instrumental color (L*, a*, b*) was evaluated.FindingsAll the system and product responses were significantly (p < 0.01) affected by independent variables. Regression models obtained were highly significant with high coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.992). The optimum extrusion conditions obtained by numerical optimization for development of snacks were moisture content of 12%, screw speed of 350 rpm and temperature of 133 °C. The vitamin B1 content of brown-rice-based snacks was 0.45 mg/100 (50% of RDA) whereas no vitamin B1 was detected in white-rice-based snacks used as control.Practical implicationsThe developed snacks contain 0.45 mg/100 g of vitamin B1. If a person on an average consumes 150 g of snacks in a day, 50% of RDA (1.2 mg/day) for vitamin B1 can be sufficed. Therefore, developed snacks can prove to be a viable vehicle to reduce the vitamin B1 deficiency burden among the target population. Large-scale production and consumption of such type of snacks could improve the nutritional status of vitamin B1 deficient people. Furthermore, it can also provide a good opportunity for snack industry to develop nutritious snacks through utilization of brown rice.Originality/valueBrown rice flour contains nutrients such as iron, calcium, zinc, sodium and vitamin B1 in appreciable portions and was thus explored for development of nutritious snacks. Moreover, developed snacks recorded an overall acceptability of 4.70 out of 5, which depicts it is acceptable for mass production and consumption.

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Background: Antibiotic agents have been used in recent years to increase the growth of silkworm larvae and to improve production. In this context, the present investigation reported the effects of ceftiofur sodium, oxytetracycline and enroflaxcin on total haemocyte count (cells/mm3), survival percentage and economic characteristics in silkworm Bombyx mori L. at various concentration levels. The study regarding the effect of antibiotics was conducted on the silkworm breed APS-45. Three concentrations (0.05%, 0.10% and 0.15%) were prepared for each antibiotic. The worms were reared upto 3rd instar without any treatment. After third moult silkworms were supplemented with antibiotic fortified mulberry leaves. Results: The experimental results showed that the effect of different antibiotics on economic parameters like larval weight, larval duration, cocoon weight, shell ratio and raw silk percentage were significantly increased in the treated lines in comparison to the control. Antibiotics also increased survival percentage and the most effective result was obtained at 0.15% of ceftiofur sodium followed by oxytetracycline and enroflaxcin. In the present study highest THC value of 9157.33 mm/cm3 was recorded in treatment ceftiofur sodium treated batch at concentration C3 0.15%. An increment in the total haemocyte count was observed in other treatments as well and the cell count increased with an increase in concentration of antibiotic dosage and the effectiveness of the antibiotics followed the order ceftiofur sodium, oxytetracycline and enroflaxcin. Conclusion: This research outlines that there is a significant improvement in the total haemocyte count and economic traits in silkworm with the supplementation of antibiotic fortified mulberry leaves. The antibiotic treatment has significantly improved the raw silk percentage and has been found to be effective in reducing the mortality of silkworms. So, this antibiotic fortification can be further exploited for higher raw silk production.