Despite its nutritional benefits and potential as a functional food, amaranth is still little known in Brazil. In order to increase its consumption, the inclusion of amaranth in the formulation of conventional products has been recommended, such as in extruded snacks, which are being prepared with defatted amaranth flour. There has been little research on the direct extrusion of whole amaranth grains, which would eliminate the grinding and defatting processes. Thus, this study evaluated and compared the quality of snacks obtained by the extrusion of whole amaranth grains and defatted amaranth flour and their mixtures with 25 and 50% corn grits. The lipid content present in the amaranth grain (8%) impaired the expansion and texture of the extrudates. Even with the addition of corn, the snacks based on whole amaranth grains were not well accepted (overall acceptability between 3 and 4 on a nine point hedonic scale), due to their low expansion, hard texture, dark color and strong aftertaste. On the other hand, snacks made with defatted amaranth flour and its mixtures with corn grits showed good expansion and had a crunchy texture and lighter color, and were therefore better accepted (overall acceptability > 5). It was concluded that under the present experimental conditions, it was not possible to develop an acceptable snack based on whole amaranth grains, but the production of snacks based on defatted amaranth flour provided products better accepted by the consumers.
Amaranthus cruentus; Extruded snacks; Acceptance
