A soluble fibre gel produced from rice bran and barley flour as a fat replacer in Asian foods

A hydrocolloidal fibre composite made from rice bran and barley flour, called Ricetrim, was found to have similar rheological properties to coconut cream. Coconut cream displayed a very narrow region of linear viscoelastic behaviour, both above and below strain values of 0.1%, the oscillatory shear modulus dropped sharply with increasing strain, indicating non-linear viscoelastic behaviour. This region of linear viscoelastic behaviour extended to strains of 10%. When Ricetrim was substituted for coconut cream in Thai foods, it was found to produce acceptable products, but with lower saturated fat contents. Cookies, pumpkin pudding, layer cake, dip for pot crust, taro custard and sauté chicken curry were produced with fat contents reduced by 47.8, 94.3, 59.8, 75.3, 61.3 and 60.6%, respectively. Some differences in flavour and texture were observed at the higher levels of substitution, but these differences appeared to present only small changes in the overall score of general acceptability, or suitability, of the fibre gel foods. Scanning electron micrographs of the pumpkin pudding revealed only small changes in their surfaces with Ricetrim addition, even at higher levels of substitution.