In creating healthy foods, formulators often reduce fat and sugar, the very ingredients responsible for the attributes creamy, smooth and soft that consumers expect in dairy foods. What’s the solution? Texturants.
In September 2011, a study appeared in the journal Appetite reporting that texture, not flavor, best predicted the level of satiation that subjects expected from certain dairy products. In three separate experiments, the researchers wrote, product samples with the thicker texture — whether yogurt, custard or chocolate milk — rated higher for expected satiation than thinner ones.
All fibers fit — including isolated and synthesized/modified fibers. That’s the conclusion of the Institute of Medicine, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the World Health Organization/Food and Agricultural Organization of the United States (CODEX).