Ready to eat shelf-stable brown rice in pouches: effect of moisture content on product's quality and stability

Despite several nutritional benefits of brown rice (BR) its consumption remains limited compared to white rice. Two of the major barriers to its consumption are long cooking time and limited shelf life. However, those two hurdles can be overcome through the development of shelf-stable BR pouches to create new ready-to-eat (RTE) products, a food category that is gaining important market shares. Nevertheless, scarce information is available on the production and shelf-life stability of ready-to-eat BR products. The first objective of this study was the determination of the optimal moisture range to fully cook BR. The second objective was to determine the effect of moisture content and storage time on two fundamental parameters for consumer's acceptance of rice: color and texture. Three RTE BR pouches with moisture contents of 54%, 57% and 60% were produced and texture and color were evaluated after 1 year of storage. Significant changes in hardness and stickiness were reported during long-term storage. Moisture content negatively affected hardness and positively affected stickiness. Furthermore, storage time and moisture showed a significant effect on rice color. The present results provide information that will be useful to design new RTE meals to promote brown rice consumption.