Development and characterisation of structurally reforming engineered flat‐rice xerogel for hot water cooking

Abstract

Summary Shape transforming foods are an emerging area of interest that could be customised according to consumer needs with the desirable structure and reduced package space. The current work aims to investigate the shape transformation behaviour of a 2D xerogel developed from rice hydrogel at the concentration of 4% and 90 °C. This flat xerogel is coated with ethyl cellulose as constraint material in the form of linear equally spaced strips. Immersing the xerogels in hot water over a temperature of 70 °C, resulted in a 3D transformation of the discs in 12 s (Video S1). The transformation is achieved owing to xerogel's increased swelling power (0.27–0.78) due to the anisotropic nature. This is confirmed by the SEM images of top (smooth) and bottom (rough) xerogel. In order to characterise the process of shape transformation bending analysis was done wherein a significant difference in bending angle (35.86–63.10°), height (24.73–50.26 mm), curvature (0.57–2.38 μ mm−1) and end‐to‐end distance (118.23–15.11 mm) from 2 to 12 s. The formed 3D shape was similar to the commercial tubular (penne) pasta. This study opens up the utilisation of less concentrated rice xerogel in shape transformation for designing engineered food.

Plasma processing: a sustainable technology in agri-food processing

“…Both these techniques produce at 2D food structures that can transform their existing structure into a dened 3D structure under external stimuli (water, oil, drying, or pH) contact. [174][175][176][177] However, to achieve the desired shape-shi, at 2D structures need to be coated with food-grade constraint materials (i.e., ethyl cellulose). These constraints act as a barrier between stimuli and food surfaces and limit the interaction in the coated areas.…”

Future foods based on cereals and pulses: innovative technologies and products

“…In rice processing, this issue includes articles on the influence of coloured rice on the quality of wheat flour bread (Iqbal et al, 2022) and the influence of pH on the physicochemical properties of rice protein isolate (Dai et al, 2022). What is particularly interesting is the research of Boopathy et al (2022), who prepared the engineered flat-rice xerogel for hot water cooking, and realised its 2D-3D conversion.…”

“…What is particularly interesting is the research of Boopathy et al . (2022), who prepared the engineered flat‐rice xerogel for hot water cooking, and realised its 2D‐3D conversion.…”