Scientists
from the IPN are producing foods like pasta and bread made with alternative ingredients such as plantain flour, to fight illnesses such as colon cancer and diabetes.
These foods are produced at the Biotic Products General Development Center ( Ceprobi ) and help control glucose, cholesterol, and triglycerides in blood levels.
In a statement released by the institution, it emphasized that pasta and bread are high-demand products, therefore the products created in the institution can be consumed without any health risk.
It also informed that it contains resistant starch, which acts as dietetic fiber, antioxidants, potassium, magnesium, and B6 vitamin .
Perla Osorio Díaz
, the Academic and Research Sub-director, explained that when the plantain in unripe, it is mostly starch, and that's when they use it to produce flour to create foods that can be consumed by people with restricted diets, such as people with diabetes and those who are gluten intolerant , as well as people with obesity, overweight, and constipation .
Also, these products have little impact on the glycaemic response, which is the quantity of glucose that enters the blood after eating.
Osorio Díaz added that the biggest challenge they had to overcome when making these products is the substitution of gluten , as this protein creates texture.
Conventional bread has a certain volume, the size and pores in the center are specific, but plantain flour doesn't create those characteristics, they try to equal the quality, so they add other ingredients and process the starch to create a certain texture.
All the processes they apply to both the pasta and bread help create high-quality products, similar to the conventional one.
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