The Influence of Fruit Pomaces on Nutritional, Pro-Health Value and Quality of Extruded Gluten-Free Snacks

The processing of fruit generates large amounts of different by-products, such as pomace. The extrusion process gives an opportunity for their utilization as a good source of pro-health components. Therefore, this research focused on the utilization of fruit pomaces (cherries, blackcurrants, and chokeberries) as a value-added component of extruded corn snacks. The effect of the level of pomace addition on the content of bioactive polyphenols and nutritional value in cornmeal-based extrudates, as well as antioxidant capacity, was investigated. Additionally, the influence of fruit pomace on the quality of extruded gluten-free snacks was also investigated. It was found that pomace can be a good pro-health addition to corn snacks due to the enrichment of bioactive compounds and dietary fiber in this product. Especially valuable proved to be chokeberry pomace added at a 20% level. Such additions to snacks caused an increase in the content of total phenolic compounds, phenolic acids, flavonoids, flavonols, anthocyanins, and antioxidant activity, respectively, by about 10 times, 2 times, 5 times, 2 times, 10 times, and 5 times, as compared to control snacks. It was observed that the addition of chokeberry pomace did not worsen the physical properties (WBC, hardness, and expansion ratio) of the resulting snacks, which affect the quality of the obtained product. Therefore, such snacks could be recommended for commercial production in order to increase the availability of gluten-free products for people with celiac disease.