THE USE OF IR-DRIED VEGETABLE-BASED FOOD ADDITIVES TO MAKE NUTRITION STUFFS FOR THERAPEUTIC AND DISEASE-PREVENTIVE PURPOSES
The paper considers the possibility to use IR-dried vegetable-based food additives when making nutrition stuffs for therapeutic and disease-preventive purposes. Nutrition is one of the most important factors of the relationship between man and environment. Nowadays burning is the issue to develop the technology to make nutrition stuffs on the basis of available raw stock sources abundant with biologically active substances. Vegetables are the sources of vitamins (A, B3, B6, B9, C, E, PP), saccharides (grape, fruit sugars, sucrose), organic acids (citric, malic, oxalic), mineral substances. Vegetable composition also contains pectin capable to form compounds with heavy metals and excrete them out of the body. In recent years the largest use has been put to vegetable ingredients with minimal moisture: whole or ground to the size required, up to powder, produced by drying. Particularly common became the latest methods of vegetable raw stock drying including infrared (IR) drying. IR-dried vegetables retain their natural color, aroma and flavor. They are quick to resume their original size in water; they do not lose their beneficial properties in continuous storage. A physiological experiment established that food additives of beet, pumpkin and carrot influence some physiological and biochemical indices in rats. Powder-like dry food of vegetables can be widely used by public catering establishments and food industry as food and flavor additives and for manufacturing therapeutic and disease-preventive stuffs.