<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > technology supports rice dumplings to open the road to diversified industries</h1>
Reporter Wang Wei
Barley, commonly known as naked barley, is mainly distributed in Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu and other alpine areas above 4200 meters above sea level in China, barley grains are rich in β- dextran, a variety of amino acids and trace elements and other nutrients. For a long time, in Tibet, barley stir-fried flour is a daily staple food of the locals. Due to the unity of varieties, differences in local eating habits and the restrictions of transportation conditions in plateau areas, the promotion of rice barley has been greatly resisted, and the industrialization process of barley specialty products is very slow. Rice sticks, rice wafer biscuits... Nowadays, the rice dumpling products with barley as raw materials have begun to diversify under the support of science and technology.
Nutrient-rich: Meeting new demands for healthy eating
In China, the cultivation and consumption of barley has a long history. Barley is a kind of barley crop planted in China's Tibet, Qinghai and other high and cold areas of the grain family, but also the only food crop that can survive at an altitude of more than 4200 meters, so it has become an irreplaceable staple food for the people in Tibet, Qinghai and other places.
"Water blending hand pinch" is the traditional way for Tibetan people to eat rice dumplings
As early as thousands of years ago, in order to meet the convenience of nomadic food, Tibetans invented the method of frying the whole grain of barley and grinding it, and then supplemented with butter tea or supplemented with ghee, qula, sugar and other stirring and kneading to eat. This kind of product made of roasting barley grains and then grinding powder is called "rice dumplings", which are nutritionally balanced and high in calories, which can meet the nutritional and caloric needs of people in the cold areas of the plateau, and rice dumplings have become one of the traditional staple foods of Tibetan herdsmen.
The study found that the raw material of rice barley - barley has high protein, high dietary fiber, high vitamins, high minerals, low fat, low sugar nutritional characteristics, but also the world's β - dextran content of wheat crops, the average content of up to 6.57%, is 50 times the average content of wheat.
Rice rice food has been industrialized
With the formation of the concept of healthy diet, especially the recognition of the nutritional components of barley at home and abroad and the functional characteristics and content of β-dextran in barley, the nutritional value of barley has gradually been recognized by the market. Rice barley is made by frying the barley seeds and then grinding them, retaining the whole grain grains of the barley, so it is also a whole grain food. After stir-frying, the rice dumplings have a strong flavor, a long taste and distinctive characteristics, which greatly meet the modern consumer needs and propositions in terms of nutrition and flavor.
Industrial pain points: single processing mode, no improvement in quality
"The single processing mode and no improvement in quality restrict the development of the rice industry." Guo Shuntang, director of the Beijing Key Laboratory of Plant Protein and Grain Processing at China Agricultural University, learned during a local inspection that for a long time, the processing method of rice flour has always been the traditional single mode, that is, the direct grinding of barley after frying has become a product.
Although with the expansion of the market, the existing barley milling powder has been partially adopted by electric milling, the production scale has been expanded to a certain extent, but the final production of rice flour products have not changed in any way, the product form is only a single rice flour products, the product consumption mode and eating mode has also been following the traditional model, the promotion of rice flour has been greatly limited, the resources of rice flour have not been maximized development and utilization, and it is difficult to achieve high-value utilization of rice flour.
Technological innovation: to achieve high-value utilization of rice flour
In order to expand the scope of utilization of barley and improve the utilization value of barley, with the support of the national "13th Five-Year Plan" key research and development plan project "Development of Key Technologies and Equipment for Industrialized Food Processing with National Characteristics" and the Tibet Autonomous Region Science and Technology Plan Project "Barley Specialty Product Processing Technology and Product Development", the research and development project of the key technology of the deep processing products of the Barley Series undertaken by Professor Guo Shuntang's team has made breakthrough progress, breaking through the long-standing single way of eating barley and realizing the high added value of barley. The laboratory takes rice flour as the object, makes full use of the rich dietary fiber and special aroma of rice dumplings, and develops nutritional stick products with rich dietary fiber content and supplementing protein needs of the human body.
It is understood that the rice rice protein nutrition bar is made of rice flour and protein powder as raw materials, with a variety of high-quality nuts and fruits, and processed by puffing, bonding, molding, cutting and other steps. The Barley Barnyard Protein Bar has the nutritional characteristics of whole grains, with a crispy taste and grain flavor. At present, the rice paste protein nutrition bar has been successfully put into production. In Guo Shuntang's view, this marks the transformation of traditional Tibetan rice dumpling food with a thousand-year history from a single way of eating "water blending and hand pinching" to leisure snacks and high value-added, providing more choices for consumers.
In the study of the project, in view of the problems of single varieties of rice rice products and narrow audience, Professor Guo Shuntang's research and development team identified two major problems through in-depth research on the quality of rice flour at different levels: on the one hand, the cortex rice flour has a strong and prominent aroma and is rich in dietary fiber, but the taste is rough and palatable; on the other hand, the β-dextran content of the heart layer of rice flour is high and the clumping is good, but its viscosity is large, which is not conducive to processing and use.
At the same time, as a category of whole grain powder, the germ and bran components contain unsaturated fatty acids, highly active enzymes, endogenous enzymes, etc., especially in barley, linoleic acid, palmitic acid, oleic acid account for more than 90% of the total fatty acid content, and the unsaturated fatty acid content exceeds 75%. These unsaturated fatty acids are very susceptible to oxidation under the action of heat, so rice flour is very prone to oxidation and failure, and the shelf life is short. This has also become a bottleneck affecting the development of long-distance transportation of rice flour - often before it is transported to the mainland, the phenomenon of oxidation may have occurred.
Limited by transportation conditions and quality problems, the promotion of rice barley has been greatly resisted, and the industrialization of barley specialty products has stagnated. To this end, the research team made full use of the advantages and characteristics of different layers of rice flour to solve the problems of poor taste and palatability of cortical rice flour, high viscosity of cardiac rice flour, short shelf life of easy oxidation, etc., and finally established layered milling processing technology to achieve high added value of powder ingredients for different purposes of rice dumplings.
After obtaining the ingredients of rice rice flour for different purposes, the research team took the quality advantages of each layer of rice flour as the starting point, and developed a series of deep processing products such as barley rice straw nutrition stick products with the skin layer as the main ingredient and the rice rice wafer cake with the heart layer as the main ingredient, which broke through the long-standing single way of eating rice and realized the high added value of barley rice. Successful products include barley sticks, rice wafern cakes, etc. Barley barnyard nutrition stick products with barley, protein as the main ingredient, supplemented by rice flour to highlight the rich flavor and rich dietary fiber of the product, while with a variety of nuts and fruits, through puffing, bonding, molding and other steps made, the product has a unique rice grain aroma and whole grain nutritional characteristics. The rice rice wafer cake takes the heart layer rice flour and grain flour as the main raw materials, highlighting the quality characteristics of the heart layer rice rice flour β dextran content and good clumping, and the product taste is crisp and nutritious.
Guo Shuntang told reporters that the key technologies of the high-value barley and rice dumpling deep processing series established through the project have realized the deep processing of the products of the rice and rice raw materials and extended the industrial chain. Qingbari barley nutrition stick has been transformed into in Suzhou Green Leaf Commodity Co., Ltd., and the products have been successfully listed and have good economic benefits. Rice dumpling waffles have been pilot production, the results are good, and we are actively seeking partners to promote them. "With people's understanding of the health effects of whole grains, in the future, the rice industry will usher in a broader tomorrow." With the development of the industry and the high-value utilization of barley, it will also drive the local people to become rich. Guo Shuntang is full of confidence in the future of the rice industry.