MTech

Chocolate is one of the chief ingredients in the global confectionary market. It
contains high concentrations of refined sugar and saturated fat content. Chocolate and
cocoa (Theobroma cacao) provides health benefits to cure cardiovascular disease,
metabolic syndrome, neurodegenerative diseases and other chronic health conditions.
Coconut (Cocos nucifera) is a very versatile and indispensable food item that is considered
a complete food source, rich in calories, vitamins and minerals. Coconut kernel contains 7-
10% dietary fiber and 5% proteins, in addition to 34-60% oil content. The dietary fiber
constitutes significant hypo-cholesterolemic effect. The deficiency of complex
carbohydrates like dietary fiber is a matter of concern that poses major health issues
causing chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, obesity, colon cancer,
hypertension and diabetes mellitus. The recommended acceptable intake of dietary fiber is
28.8 g/day for adults, but the actual intake was found to be lower than this limit. The
present study envisages the development of chocolate enriched with coconut dietary fiber
using the advanced technology of 3D food printing.
Three-dimensional (3D) printing is a novel food preparation concept based on the
additive manufacturing (AM) technique. The technology offers features like personalized
nutrition, taking into consideration of the age, health and diet of the consumer and also
customized designing of foods based on individual preferences. The study focused on the
applicability of 3D printing for dietary fiber enrichment of chocolate. A 3D model of ‘gear’
with dimensions 41.50 mm × 41.50 mm × 10.00 mm was considered to study the 3D food
printing.
The treatment combinations for the formulation of supply material and experimental
design for optimization of process parameters were done using Central Composite Design
(CCD) and Box-Behnken Design (BBD) of Response Surface Methodology (RSM)
respectively. Based on the analysis, the supply material composition with 9% coconut meal,
3% sugar, 0.3% soya lecithin and 87.7% dark compound chocolate was optimized. 3D food
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printing process parameters such as extruder motor speed, nozzle diameter, conveying air
pressure and printing speed were considered as independent variables. The printing
parameters have significant effect on extrusion rate, printing rate, weight, thickness and
hardness of the printed products. The results showed that diameter, colour, moisture
content, cohesiveness and adhesiveness of the printed products were not significantly
affected by the printing process parameters (p>0.05). Based on these results, the optimized
condition for printing of coconut based chocolate was 0.8 mm nozzle diameter, 60 mm/s
printing speeds, 2 bar conveying air pressure and 30 rpm motor speed. Nutritional analysis
showed that the developed product have 8% of dietary fiber along with 54.35%
carbohydrates, 32.26% fat and 4.54% protein content providing an energy value of 549 k
Cal/100.g.