050: Understanding Processing Properties of Alternative Butter With Rice Bran Butter

Introduction

Students have a strong interest in plant-based ingredients, however, with textbook information, and literature reading, it is hard to understand the challenge of alternative food resources. Rice bran butter, a plant-based butter alternative, is derived from rice bran oil and is gaining popularity due to its nutritional benefits and versatility in cooking. The objective of the in-class project was to evaluate the sensory characteristics of rice bran butter in comparison to regular butter, identifying consumer preferences for attributes like taste, aroma, texture, and overall acceptability.

Methods

Students were required to develop a food product with rice bran butter and evaluate the product's sensory characteristics from taste, aroma, texture, and overall acceptability with the Just-about-Right (JAR) method. Nine different types of food were developed, including vegan empanadas, French onion dip, brownies, healthy cake bites, sallomim, Vietnamese pizza, rice bran lemon curd, garlic bread, and vegan rolls.

Results

The results indicated that rice bran butter-based products were generally well-received by the evaluators, with the taste, color, and overall acceptability being comparable to traditional dairy butter-based products. However, the aroma of the products was a little low, while the texture of the products was perceived as slightly higher than traditional butter-based products. Further research is needed to optimize the formulation and processing techniques to achieve a texture that is more closely aligned with consumer expectations.

Significance

This in-class assignment provided students with hands-on experience with alternative butter as well as product development experiences. Students can better understand the physical properties, such as melting points, and smoking points in lipids, and reflect the pros and cons of alternative ingredient sources.

Authors: Vince Malaca, Xi Feng