Food Research Institute

Le, T. T. – Ta, M. N. – Qi, X. – Tester, R. F.
Carbohydrate engineering in sweet energy biscuits


Xin Qi, Glycologic Limited, Lambs Farm Business Park, Basingstoke Road, RG7 1PQ Reading, United Kingdom. E-mail: e.qi@glycologic.co.uk

Original article
Received 25 January 2024; 1st revised 23 February 2024; 2nd revised 6 March 2024; accepted 7 March 2024; published online 20 March 2024.

Summary: Biscuits containing sugar, rapidly digestible starch (RDS), slowly digestible starch (SDS) and resistant starch (RS) were characterized for composition and impact on blood glucose concentration with healthy volunteers. Products with added starch contained 1.7–2.2 % moisture, 23.8–24.4 % fat, 64.6–67.4 % carbohydrates where 19.4–19.5 % was sugar and 45.1–48.0 % starch, 1.1–3.6 % dietary fibre, 4.2–4.8 % protein and 0.5 % salt with 41.5–42.3 % digestible starch (SDS). The proportion of available carbohydrates as starch exceeded 55 % as recommended by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for glycemic claims, where the SDS content exceeded the EFSA recommendation (40 %). For the wholewheat-based product with added starch, there was a progressive glucose response with a peak around 50–80 min, then a gradual return to baseline after approximately 4 h. For the white flour-based product with added starch, the peak was spread over 50–115 min with a flatter profile than for the wholewheat variant and still slightly above baseline at 5 h. The peak blood glucose concentrations for both the wholewheat and white flour-based products were approximately 6.4 mmol·l^-1 and 6.7 mmol·l^-1, respectively. The release of glucose over hours is relevant to general health, sport (endurance) and disease (hypoglycemia).

Keywords: blood glucose; starch; digestion; sweet; biscuit

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