Vegetable Fortified Expanded Food Product and Method of Producing

Abstract

A grain-based expanded food product comprises a base formulation and a vegetable powder component present in an amount from about 7% to about 11% by dry weight. The vegetable powder component includes at least one starch-containing tuber vegetable powder, at least one low-starch root vegetable powder, and at least one leafy green powder, wherein the vegetable powder component comprises at least about 10% starch. In preferred embodiments, the vegetable powder component comprises a combination of sweet potato powder, carrot powder and spinach powder. The food product can be a puffed breakfast cereal or a puffed snack. A method of producing a grain-based expanded food product comprises combining a base formulation with a vegetable powder component to form a dough and processing the dough in an extruder to form an extruded mass. The method can further comprise forming the extruded mass into pieces, which can be further processed.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.