Prebiotics inulin, creating a new world for snacks
date:2017-03-23
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For most consumers, probiotics is no longer a strange industry term, and people's awareness of the health benefits of probiotics is also constantly improving. When it comes to the function of probiotics, the first thought of most people is “intestinal health”, which has already been verified by scientific experiments and researches. In fact, the function of probiotics is not that simple, and its biggest role is to affect the balance of intestinal flora, the imbalance of intestinal flora will induce a series of diseases, such as intestinal disease (constipation, gastroenteritis, and diarrhea), immune health, diabetes, angiocardiopathy, cognitive health, metabolic disease (adiposity), etc.

The reasons for the imbalance of intestinal flora are complex, including lifestyle, eating habits, drugs (especially antibiotics) and age, etc., and how to maintain the balance of intestinal flora has become people’s focus of attention. As the high-quality “food”, when people supplement active flora, they pay more attention to the intake of prebiotics. Prebiotics is not only the food for intestinal probiotics, but also has many physiological functions, such as increase the original intestinal probiotics and activate intestinal motivity, so people should pay attention to the rational intake of prebiotics in the daily diet.

In the big family of prebiotics, “inulin” can be the most shining member, because it has the properties of dietary fiber and prebiotics. Inulin belongs to oligosaccharide, it is not hydrolyzed by gastric acid or absorbed by small intestine in human body, but it is directly fermented by the action of microorganisms in large intestine, and it has the functions of preventing constipation, lowering cholesterol, lowering blood glucose, controlling appetite, promoting mineral absorption and improving intestinal health. Recently, the Research Center of University of Newcastle in Australia has first discovered that inulin fiber can relieve the symptoms of asthma and reduce inflammation phenomena of respiratory passage through acting on intestinal flora, which undoubtedly opens up a new application area for prebiotics inulin.

Inulin, better matched with snacks

At present, snacks have changed from the embellishment food in life into a kind of necessity, and they are rapidly increasing in the world, for example, the majority of consumers in the West have treated snacks as dinner. At the same time, consumers have more requirements on snack products, and they show more interested in healthy, natural, nutritious snack products, so the emergence of prebiotics and inulin provides a practical solution to this demand.

From the perspective of application, the most widely applied field of inulin is food & beverage, followed by dietary supplement and animal feed. The characteristics of inulin are stable, so there is no absorption problem of other active materials, and it is easily added into dairy products, food and beverage products without affecting the taste of products, and the compound annual rate of growth of this kind of product will be the highest in the future. Let’s take Chinese dairy products as example, the products from milk powder (excluding infants) to yoghourt, cheese, and ice cream more or less are added with inulin, the reason is that inulin has excellent solubility, and its combination with water can produce a fat-like taste and greatly reduce the use of fat in products. The most important is that inulin can improve the absorption and utilization of nutrients in dairy products, especially calcium. In addition, the ice cream products have very wide consumer groups, and the application of inulin gives these products a new growth point: low sugar and low fat, and there will be more and more ice creams containing inulin in the future market.

Now bakery products are very popular with the consumers around the world, this trend also appears in the Asia-Pacific region. The breakfast with milk and bread begins to be popular in China, especially in the big cities with fast pace of life. Relevant data has shown that the number of consumed bakery products per capita per year in China is 92, which is much lower than Germany’s 731 per capita, the change of lifestyle and westernization of eating habits promote the development of bakery products in China. The application of inulin fiber can replace the use of some sugars and fats, and in general, 0.25g of fat inulin can replace 1g of fat, and also increase the fluffy texture and taste of bakery products, especially the bread products. Low fat and high fiber are the future trends of bakery products, and the application of inulin fiber can solve this problem.

The role of inulin is variable from dietary fiber to prebiotics and then to natural sweetener, it has a faint sweet taste, its heat is only half of the sugar, and it does not cause an increase in blood sugar. “Reduce sugar” is one of the trends in food industry, and many product developers are in the demand for natural sweetener, inulin fiber can replace the use of some sugars in products without affecting the taste and sensory quality. Meanwhile, two experiments conducted by researchers of Oxford Brooks University show that food containing inulin can reduce blood glucose response, prevent and reduce the risk of chronic metabolic disease. In addition, inulin can also be mixed with other natural sweeteners, for example, mixing with sugar stevia leaf can cover the delayed bitterness.
Inulin, unwilling to be the “minor role"
 
Transparent Market Research Market Report shows that inulin market capacity in 2011 is 204 thousand tons, market value is 890 million dollars, and its market capacity is expected to reach 366 thousand tons in 2018, and market value will reach 1 billion 870 million dollars, and the compound annual rate of growth is 11.1%. Inulin can replace sugar and fat in food, especially the processed food and functional food, and it has become the “popular minor role” in food world.

Trans-boundary is one of the trends, the inulin unwilling to be the “minor role" also begins trans-boundary, and tries to mix and match with a variety of natural functional ingredients to maximize its own health advantages, of course, this shall depends on the research & development and innovation of terminal enterprises. At present, Chongqing Joywin Natural Products Co., Ltd has tried to develop the products with inulin as the “leading role”, hoping to push it to the position of leading role.

As China's largest production base for Jerusalem artichoke and inulin, Chongqing Joywin starts the layout of big health industry chain with strong technical advantage and advantage of comprehensive control on plant materials, and now it becomes an excellent raw material manufacturer of natural products in China, such as inulin and plant protease, and it is forming a new pattern covered by the whole industry chain from raw materials to terminal. In the future, Chongqing Joywin will promote the application of inulin to broader and deeper fields with its own advantages.
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