On account of studying the feasibility of the production instant cereal beverage powders admixed with mulberry leaves by extrusion process, a box-behnken design of the response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to investigate the interaction of operating conditions at varying screw speed (300, 350 and 400 rpm), mulberry content (5, 10 and 15%) and feed moisture (15, 17 and 19%) on the physical and antioxidant property of product. Data were modelled by multiple regression analysis and the coefficient indicating for best fit model. The results showed that the effect of mulberry content and feed moisture had significant on bulk density, color, viscosity, water absorption index, antioxidant activity and total phenolic compound. Increasing of mulberry content resulted in finished product with higher bulk density, less lightness, less viscosity, less water absorption index, higher antioxidant activity and total phenolic compounds as a result of materials in green foods. Whereas increasing of feed moisture resulted in finished product with higher bulk density, less viscosity and less water absorption index also, but tended to lower antioxidant activity and total phenolic compounds. In addition, the optimum condition should be operated at 350 rpm screw speed, 10% mulberry content and 17% feed moisture to obtain finished product of high antioxidant activity and total phenolic compounds with good characteristics of moderate color green, easy to dissolve in hot water, palatability, and acceptability.Keywords: mulberry leaves, extrusion, instant cereal beverage powders *To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: ifrclc@ku.ac.th
IntroductionBreakfast really is the most important meal of the day which help everyone maintain a healthful eating pattern throughout the day. The market of cereal breakfast has high potential currently as Thai people's lifestyle requires speed and convenience, as well as complete nutrition values. To correspond this consumer demand, instant food is one of the processed products that require very little effort of reconstitute or cook prior to consumption. Due to efforts to reduce the amount of in -home preparation time, breakfast cereal technology has evolved from the simple procedure of milling grains of cereal products that require cooking to the manufacturing of highly sophisticated ready-to-eat products that are convenient and quickly prepared. Nowadays, extrusion cookers which offer numerous processing advantages over conventional processing methods (Sevatson and Huber, 2000) are used extensively in the ready-to-eat cereal industry and expanded product with porous structure. The porous texture of the extruded products show "good instant characteristics", as a result of gelatinizing or cooking of cereals from extrusion process for the targeting any kind of instant food and beverage applications (Anderson et al., 1969 ;Bookwalter et al., 1971 ;Lou et al., 1995 ;Hagenimana et al., 2006) To satisfy the demands of increasingly health -conscious consumers, many food processors are finding...