Extruded breakfast cereal is one of ready-to-eat extruded products and ideal food for people’s modern-day lifestyle, where speed and convenience, as well as complete nutritional values, are desirable food characteristics.
Historically, one can trace the use of a screw as a conveying device to the Greek philosopher Archimedes, who used a single screw in a cylindrical open channel to pump water uphill.
The first food extruder was designed to manufacture sausages in 1870s. Breakfast cereal have been produced via extrusion since 1930s when it was used to process making ready-to-eat (RTE) cereals to shape hot, precooked dough.
In this application, the level of shear rate was low. Extrusion technology has replaced the conventional method of boiling and then drying the products and is a popular technique to make ready to eat products.
During the late 1930s and 1940s, directly expanded corn curls were made using extruders, which were characterized by extremely high shear rates. The first patent on an application of twin-screw extrusion technology was filed in the mid-1950s.
The extrusion cooking, especially used in the production of precooked and modified starches, ready to eat cereals, and snack foods has increased recently.
Extrusion
of breakfast cereal
