What is your favorite cereal? Cereals are the most important food in the human diet. Cereals are one of the first crops grown in ancient civilization. These are the seeds of domesticated grass. Cereals can be actually known as “A wealthy of nutrients in a small package”. The daily recommendation is 7 – 8 servings of grain products. Here, we are going to talk about favorite cereal products and the nutrition of cereals and processing methods.
Examples for cereals: Corn, Wheat, Rice, Barley, Sorghum, Oats, Rye, Millet
The distribution of cereal production depends on climate. Wheat can mainly grow in the temperate zone. Rice mainly grows in tropical and subtropical regions. Barley, oats, and rye are in Europe. People mainly cultivate maize in America. Asia is famous for rice.
When we consider the above cereals, wheat and rice are major cereals in human diets. Maize and barley mainly use for animal feeds.
Various people like various types of cereals. There are cereals around for decades and still are most popular. In stores, there are various types of cereal choices. Also, now cereals become baby foods, a midnight snack, and dinner. When considering Americans, they eat approximately 160 bowls of cereal per year. There are various cereal products.
Corn flakes
Corn flakes are low-fat food, which is why they keep your stomach full and minimize excessive, unhealthy food consumption. These are fine since there’s less cholesterol in them.
Oatmeal
Oats are good for the skin. If you take a close look at any of the packets of skincare items, you will find that the product uses oatmeal. For dry, itchy, and irritated skin, eating oatmeal is fantastic. Also, eating oats can benefit people with hypertension. A bowl of oatmeal will help to lower the blood pressure.
Muesli
It has oats that make it fiber-rich. Fiber-containing food helps reduce the level of cholesterol and helps to maintain the digestive system. Adding fruits to the bowl of muesli improve the taste and nutrients. Sweetened muesli is tastier than savory.
Weetabix
This is a cereal product in the United Kingdom. Weetabix Company is started in 1932 and it is very strong. With its high-fiber, palm-sized biscuits, the cereal might look a little different, but judging by its local and global success, it seems like a cereal that might only make its way to the top.
Post’s Oreo O’s
It is a cereal product in South Korea. This is a combination of the shape of a Cheerio with the taste of an Oreo. This is unique to South Korea. This cereal is another reason to eat cookies and milk for breakfast without feeling too bad about it, with fluffy marshmallow pebbles and little circular circles.
Nestle’s Milo
This is a cereal product in Australia. The taste of hot chocolate you’ll get as soon as your taste buds touch those chocolate pebbles.
When considering Nestle cereal products, Indonesians consume these products because these cereal products have been around for more than three decades and there is still an influx of trendy food products.
Oat groats
This is another cereal product. It has a pleasant flavor, good chewiness, nutritious, and ready to cook quite quickly.
Hulled barley
When considering hulled barley, it has excellent protein, fantastic taste, excellent texture, and good dietary fiber.
Magic millet and apricot cereal
This cereal can be eaten with milk or yogurt in addition to being fortified with millets, oats, and apricot seeds and still tastes equally fine. A full regular breakfast meal is made from a fiber-rich meal.
Dr. Oetker’s Vitalis Multifruct Plus
This is a cereal product in Germany.
When considering the above things under the main topic of “What is your favorite cereal?” there are many cereal brands producing tons of varieties of cereal. Also, combined with some milk, the top cereal is the perfect option to begin your day.
Cinnamon toast crunch, frosted flakes, honey nut cheerios, froot loops, cocoa pebbles, corn pops, rice Krispies, cheerios, and cookie crisp, are some other favorite cereal products around the world.
Not only cereal products but also very important to know about the nutrition of cereals and processing methods. Here you can get very valuable facts about cereal nutrition.
Nutrient composition and their distribution
Carbohydrates
In endosperm, carbohydrates occur as starch granules. In cereal granules, there are two types of available carbohydrates. They are free sugars and starches. Free sugars like glucose and fructose are available in low concentrations (typically 0.8-2.7g/100g). Sucrose is the major sugar in cereal grains. Maltose concertation can increase in germination. Oligosaccharide like raffinose, glucofructans can be commonly found.
70% of the total dry matter of a cereal grain is starches. They store as granules in the endosperm cells. The content of amylose and amylopectin differ between cereals. Although common varieties (no waxy) contain 15%-30% of starch amylose. In waxy such as barley, maize, rice, millet, and sorghum varieties amylopectin content is high (amylose less than 5%). Although starches are present in different amounts. The type of starch determines the behavior of food when cook. Starch granules absorb water during heating and swell. With rupture of starch granules, amylose leaches out and forms a viscous solution. Upon cooling form, a gel by rearrangement of amylose and linear parts of amylopectin in a crystalline structure, insoluble in water.
Unavailable starches are also present in cereal grains. They are non-starch polysaccharides. Dietary fibers which are mainly present in the outer bran layer are a major non-starch polysaccharide. Other non-starch polysaccharides contribute to building cell wall structure. The amount of non-starch polysaccharides are varied according to the type of cereals and milling and fractionation. Arabinoxylan and beta-glucans are water-soluble non-starch polysaccharides in cereals.
Proteins
Although cereals are generally carbohydrate foods, protein content is important. Proteins are present in the aleurone layer in high concentration. But usually, low in the bran layer. The lowest concentration of proteins can be found in endosperm. The amino acid composition differs in proteins in different parts of the grain. Endosperm proteins are higher in glutamic acid and lower in lysine than proteins germ. Proper soluble and insoluble proteins differ between cereals. Soluble proteins mainly distribute in the cytoplasm. Insoluble proteins present as storage form. Glutamic acid or proline is the major storage form of protein. In many kinds of cereal, lysine is the first limiting amino acid. But in maize tryptophan is the first limiting amino acid. All cereals contain glutamic acid and glutamine.
Gluten is a special type of protein that is commonly found in rye, wheat, and barley. Wheat and rye have a high level of gluten. Gluten is the composite of gliadin.
Gluten is the composite of gliadin (a type of prolamins) and glutenin (a type of glutelin’s) proteins. Gliadin is a protein whose component responsible for gluten intolerance; celiac disease. Gluten is important for bread making which helps to bind and prevents crumbling. Gluten provides many additional important qualities to bread. It keeps gases that are released during fermentation in the dough, bread is able to rise before it is baked. Gluten firms up when it is cooked & with the help of starch, ensure the bread maintains its proper shape.
High heat during (60 C) flour making can denature proteins. When lysine combines with carbohydrates, lysine becomes unavailable.
These are very important nutrition facts about cereals that we can discuss under the main topic of “What is your favorite cereal?”.
Lipids
Mainly in the germ (Maize:35g/100 g) & bran fractions. Little in the endosperm. The milling process distributes some of the lipids into other fractions.
- Lower levels (1-3%) – Wheat, Rice, Rye, Barley
- High levels (5-10%) – Oats, Maize
Cereals are low fat foods. They have a minor contribution to total intake of fats.
Lipids include triglycerides, phospholipids (4% of isolated cereals oils). All cereals are rich in oleic and linoleic acids (1-8%). The major saturated fatty acid is palmitic acid.
Minerals
Minerals occur in high concentrations in the pericarp, testa & germ. Major minerals in cereals are K, Mg, and P. Cereals are low in Na, Ca, and appreciable amount in Iron and Zn. Rice and Oats husk are rich in silica. Phosphorous present as salts of phytic acid (m-inositol hexaphosphate). These phytic acid react with divalent cations (form insoluble salts). Therefore, the bioavailability of Fe, Zn, Ca is low.
Vitamins
Many B vitamins like thiamine, riboflavin & niacin in germ, & aleurone layer (high concentrations). The endosperm contains riboflavin & pantothenic acid. Aleurone layer and germ have vitamin B and vitamin E but no vitamin C. Yellow maize have carotenoids.
When considering nutrition, if you want to know about meat nutrition, you can use this link to know about the nutritive value of meat.
What is your favorite cereal? When considering this thing about cereals, cereals undergo different processes before consumption. Milling, parboiling, and polishing are some important processing method of cereals.
Milling
This is a common practice followed by fractionation of grain. Process remove fibrous layers and producing highly refined white products are done in this process. Fractionation separates components of the grain. It affects the nutrient composition of cereals. Traditional methods such as pestle and mortar or stones are used to milling process in the rural areas. This process produces a grain without outer coats but retains parts of germ and scutellum. In light milling (similar to home pounding) retains most nutrients while heavy milling loses most of the nutrients. White corn flour, polished rice, white wheat flour are examples of heavily milled cereals. They have been lost their germ and outer layers with Vitamin B, some proteins & minerals. Demand for refined cereals increases with Improved milling machinery. They are pure white, neutral taste, and easily digestible.
Parboiling
Parboiling means partially pre-cooked in its inedible husk before being processed for eating. In parboiling first soak the raw, unhusked rice in warm water to increase the moisture content. Then steaming to help to kill bacteria and other microbes. Finally drying to reduce the moisture, because that it can be milled. This helps to improve the texture, storage, and health benefits of rice. Also, change the color of rice to a light-yellow color. During parboiling, some water-soluble nutrients move from the bran into the endosperm. This minimizes some of the nutrient loss that normally happens during refining when making white rice. Parboiled rice is higher in fiber and protein. Also, parboiled rice has significantly more thiamine and niacin than white rice. Some minerals, including magnesium and zinc, are slightly lower in parboiled rice, compared to regular white and brown rice.
Polishing
The polishing process can affect the nutrient value of cereals. Polishing of cereals increase the digestibility and palatability but also decrease some nutrients. The polished rice of commerce is the scored and polished endosperm. Most non-starch are concentrated in the hull and bran part in a cereal grain, which is removed during polishing. Nutrients lost include a small amount of cellulose, hemicellulose, protein, fatty acids, several vitamins such as biotin, niacin, and minerals. And also, during polishing moisture content is also lost and mainly changes in texture due to the removal of insoluble fiber.
When considering the above facts under the main topic of “What is your favorite cereal?” you can get facts about some main favorite cereal products around the world. Also, there is information about the nutrition of cereals and processing methods too. When considering cereals, those are very important to know.
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