Sensory aspects and consumer assessment of legume extruded snacks

Abstract

Legumes are an important source of protein for the human diet. Still they are underutilized mainly because they have a long preparation time, even when the protein content is higher than in grains. In order to make legumes more utilized, snacks from different legume flours were made using a twin screw extrusion cooker. In this paper, extruded snacks made of three different legume bases from grey pea ( Pisum sativum L.), cow pea ( Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp) and faba bean ( Vicia faba L.) were analysed. The obtained products were divided and spice coated, and control samples without coating were made. A questionnaire was carried out in order to ascertain consumers' opinion about extruded snacks. In order to determine which snacks would be most likable, sensory analyses were carried out. Consumers from different European countries were asked to determine likeness using a 5-point hedonic scale. Best results were obtained for sweet snacks with almond taste, based of grey pea ( Pisum sativum L.) and salty snacks with onion taste, both of grey pea ( Pisum sativum L.) extrudates and cow pea ( Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) extrudates. Unfortunately, participants didn’t have a consensus about the quantity of spiciness. Such differences can be explained by different tastes. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ct.66.1.12362