It’s hard to stop after eating a single potato chip—and that’s kind of their whole problem. The deep-fried, popular salty snack is loaded with unhealthy fats, oils, and other unwanted ingredients that are linked with numerous health problems. Unfortunately, those are also the flavor profiles humans are evolutionarily wired to crave.
After decades of tinkering and experimentation, there still isn’t an alternative that provides that perfect (yet still nutritious) flavor profile. Even when swapping out baking for frying, the cooking heat often still reduces the food’s overall nutritional value. According to Cornell University food scientist Chang Chen, however, combining beets with a technique called microwave vacuum drying(MVD) might be the solution snack lovers have been waiting for.
“We wanted to produce a healthy snack from whole vegetables, with all-natural ingredients and high fiber,” he explained in a university profile. “We said, ‘What if we can engineer the process and achieve the same texture without adding any oil?’”
Chen and his colleagues detailed their approach in a study published in the journal Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies. MVD removes moisture from the root vegetable similar to frying or baking, but more quickly and at a lower temperature. Because of this combination of cooking factors, nutrients that normally deteriorate during long drying cycles remain in the food. At the same time, MVD retains the starch required for a chip’s trademark texture.
While potatoes are the go-to for such snacks, beets are far more nutritious. In addition to being a great fiber source, they’re high in vitamins and minerals like vitamin C, manganese, potassium, and iron. If you could swap out potatoes for beets and still get the same flavor profile, then you wouldn’t only replace traditional chips—you could improve them. And that’s exactly what they believe they have accomplished.
“We have achieved a good puff, usually only seen in deep-frying, and they are even crispier than fried chips,” said Chen.
Chen’s collaborator, food scientist Diane Makovic, explained that the chips people love rely on starch due to how it gelatinizes under heat.
“You need a thin layer of gelatinized starch,” she said. “The puffs form when you use high heat and interior water evaporates and creates the puff.”
Chen, Makovic, and their team believe MVD won’t only benefit beets, but also other tubers like butternut squash and traditional potatoes.
“Down the road, that’s what we are going to do. And we’ve hired a new student to work on apples,” Chen said. “It’s all about balancing the food’s properties.”
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