Prospective directions for modification of flour confectionery products for children over three years old
Quality balanced nutrition is one of the most discussed and studied topics in the scientific community. For children and adolescents, nutrition is the foundation of physical and cognitive development. The nutritional model has undergone significant changes in the last 10 years: the most affordable products have become products with a high energy density, which do not have an optimal nutritional profile, and cause non-infectious diseases, including in childhood. In the structure of nutrition of a modern person, 1/3 of the daily energy consumption is «snacks on the run». As a rule, these are confectionery products with long shelf life, the main segment of which is cookies. In 75% of the sugar cookie samples tested, the content of added sugar and fat exceeds the established level of redundancy, 90% of the samples contain the average recommended level of table salt, the content of dietary fiber is in the range of 1,9-2,8 g /100 g of product, which indicates the need a quantitative decrease in critical substances and an increase in dietary fiber content due to the imbalance of this food group. The monitoring of recommendations for improving the nutritional composition of food products, analysis of the recipe composition of flour confectionery products of the group of cookies allows us to establish the main promising directions of its modification, the most important of which is to ensure that a sufficient amount of dietary fiber from whole grains is supplied to the recipe of cookies in accordance with the principles of healthy nutrition and the requirements of the existing legislation on specialized products for children over three years of age. The creation of improved confectionery products will strengthen and preserve the health of the younger generation.