Bread, pasta, and baked products are considered worldwide as staple foods, essential for human nutrition. In particular, ancient wheats and whole wheat flours, despite being able to provide health benefits via bioactive compounds, present significant rheological and technological problems. Moreover, both the food industry and consumers are increasingly sensitive to environmental impacts, highlighting an urgent need for sustainable innovations and improvement strategies, from cradle to grave, for these production chains. Bread, pasta, and bakery products are mainly influenced by the three major production stages; the milling, the kneading, and the baking (or drying) processes. For this reason, in order to suggest specific innovations and improvement strategies, a comprehensive approach, from wheat cultivation in field to the final product, is needed. As a results, the correct management of the wheat cultivation stage was found to be essential since it represents the most impacting phase for the environment. Moreover, it significantly influence the final product quality. Successively, particular attention needs to be paid to the milling process, the kneading phase, and, finally, to the strategies able to reduce environmental pressures. With respect to the milling phase, the correct management of wheat conditioning, the rediscovery and modernization of traditional stone watermills, the wheat debranning before milling combined with the stabilization of bran, middlings, and germ, and the use of the break, sizing, and reduction systems for improving roller milling technology, flour differentiation, and reducing the impacts, seems to be the most interesting improvement strategies. With regard to the kneading process instead, the most interesting, eco-friendly, improvement strategies are avoiding dough warming during kneading using alternative refrigerants (like carbonic snow), delay the addition of bran, middlings, and germ during whole wheat dough kneading, and, finally, develop automatic and adaptive kneading machines able to optimize the kneading process. Last but not least, in order to reduce the environmental impacts, the use of alternative sources of proteins (e.g. insects and legumes), and the use of LCA for comparing local and global dry pasta production scenarios, proved to be effective.
Challenges and opportunities to increase sustainability, productivity, and quality in pasta, bread, and bakery products production chains: a comprehensive approach from cradle to grave
alessio cappelli;
2021-01-01
Abstract
Bread, pasta, and baked products are considered worldwide as staple foods, essential for human nutrition. In particular, ancient wheats and whole wheat flours, despite being able to provide health benefits via bioactive compounds, present significant rheological and technological problems. Moreover, both the food industry and consumers are increasingly sensitive to environmental impacts, highlighting an urgent need for sustainable innovations and improvement strategies, from cradle to grave, for these production chains. Bread, pasta, and bakery products are mainly influenced by the three major production stages; the milling, the kneading, and the baking (or drying) processes. For this reason, in order to suggest specific innovations and improvement strategies, a comprehensive approach, from wheat cultivation in field to the final product, is needed. As a results, the correct management of the wheat cultivation stage was found to be essential since it represents the most impacting phase for the environment. Moreover, it significantly influence the final product quality. Successively, particular attention needs to be paid to the milling process, the kneading phase, and, finally, to the strategies able to reduce environmental pressures. With respect to the milling phase, the correct management of wheat conditioning, the rediscovery and modernization of traditional stone watermills, the wheat debranning before milling combined with the stabilization of bran, middlings, and germ, and the use of the break, sizing, and reduction systems for improving roller milling technology, flour differentiation, and reducing the impacts, seems to be the most interesting improvement strategies. With regard to the kneading process instead, the most interesting, eco-friendly, improvement strategies are avoiding dough warming during kneading using alternative refrigerants (like carbonic snow), delay the addition of bran, middlings, and germ during whole wheat dough kneading, and, finally, develop automatic and adaptive kneading machines able to optimize the kneading process. Last but not least, in order to reduce the environmental impacts, the use of alternative sources of proteins (e.g. insects and legumes), and the use of LCA for comparing local and global dry pasta production scenarios, proved to be effective.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
