In the Beginning Was the Apple

Many food formulators describe the fruit that contributed to Adam and Eve's banishment from the Garden of Eden as being heaven-sent. Not only do apple ingredients provide flavor and nutrition to prepared foods, compared to many other ingredients, they're functional and cost-effective.

Apple ingredients traditionally pair with bakery items and breakfast cereals. Thanks to consumers' desire for innovative foods, apple ingredients are used as both a characterizing ingredient and a carrier for other flavors.

Fresh and individually quick frozen (IQF) apples come in many forms. Foodservice and commercial processors use them in condiments, such as dipping sauces, chutneys and even salsas. Applesauce, often served as a side dish to pork chops, presents flavorful opportunities for including apple ingredients in other pork and poultry dishes, as well as gourmet sausages and stuffed roasts.

To transform apples into easily used, dried ingredients, processors convert them into many shapes and forms and dry them to various moisture levels. Evaporated apple ingredients range from 12% to 26% moisture and come sliced or diced, or in rings, chips or grinds. Dehydration reduces shipping and storage costs and extends shelf life. Once the apples are rehydrated, food formulators use them in the same manner as fresh or frozen fruit. For full reconstitution, formulators generally use four parts water to one part evaporated apple ingredients.

Low-moisture apples contain a maximum of 3.5% moisture. Available in forms similar to dehydrated apples, low-moisture apple ingredients also can come in granule and powder form. Low-moisture apple ingredients generally are used in shelf-stable applications, where the consumer does the rehydrating instead of the food manufacturer. Low-moisture apple ingredients are fully hydrated when one part apple ingredient is combined with five parts water.

Puréed apple can be drum-dried to a 3.5% moisture powder that can be colored, flavored or combined with other fruit powders to economically substitute for or extend more-expensive fruits in various applications.

Drum-dried apple purée is not the only apple ingredient that can be colored and flavored to mimic more-expensive fruit for use in prepared foods. Innovative apple ingredients can substitute for expensive freeze-dried fruits found in many ready-to-eat cereals. For example, apple pieces can be colored and flavored with raspberry juice concentrate. Product labels can still tout "made with real fruit," and if the apple pieces are flavored naturally, they can be called "all-natural." Our proprietary method puffs apple pieces by forcing air into the apple's cellular structure. This duplicates the freeze-dried texture of pricey fruits, such as raspberries. Colored and flavored puffed-apple pieces provide consistency and availability, and save money, since some freeze-dried fruits cost as much as four times more.  

Infusion technology can color, flavor and sweeten apple pieces. A humectant, such as fruit juice, sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, displaces most of the moisture with soluble solids. This enables the apple pieces to retain a soft texture at a final moisture range of 3% to 5%. With a texture softer than dehydrated fruit, but firmer than fresh fruit, infused apple pieces can survive many processing steps encountered during food manufacture. With low water activity (aw=0.2 to 0.4), these ingredients are shelf-stable in most applications.

Despite the misplaced furor over carbs, apples still make nutritional sense. A typical apple contains (per 100 grams) 296 calories, 5 grams of fiber (although if the peel is left on, the apple would yield more fiber), 590 milligrams of potassium and 18 milligrams of calcium. An apple a day really can keep the doctor away.

Recent research from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, suggests that apples and apple juice may protect against oxidative damage that contributes to age-related brain disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, and help maintain brain performance. This complements a clinical study completed in 2000 at the University of California-Davis showing that apples and apple juice can help slow oxidation, which contributes to heart disease.

Apple fiber is showing up in numerous applications. This very neutral-tasting, insoluble fiber is removed from apples during juice manufacturing. With less than 5% moisture, apple fiber is an extremely economical, all-natural carrier for dry ingredients. It can be used as a thickening agent for low-viscosity products, with the added benefit of contributing to a food's fiber content.

Apples can even help address the trans-fat problem. Trans fats will be back in the spotlight soon -- FDA has mandated that trans-fat contents be included on Nutrition Facts labels starting Jan. 1, 2006.  

Drum-dried apple powder combined with pear and plum powders and milled to proper screen specifications helps reduce or eliminate trans fats from select applications. The soluble and insoluble pectin forms a stable film of air and leavening gases during mixing and bench time. It also entraps flavors released during mastication. The ingredient's sorbitol, an effective humectant, can replace half or more of the shortening in many bakery products and still produce a moist, tender product that remains fresh. The remaining fat works in synergy with the fruit powder, so only a little is needed to carry flavors and provide texture. The fruit powder does this without producing a finished product that appears or tastes dark and fruity. It also benefits low-fat meat products, keeping extra-lean sausages, formed meats and even meat analogues moist and juicy.

There's an apple ingredient available for practically every application ... thank heaven!

Scott Summers is the technical director for Tree Top's Ingredient Division in Selah, WA, where he oversees research & development and quality assurance. He received a master's degree from Indiana University in 1978 and has worked in the food industry since then, the last 19 years with fruit processors. Tree Top's Ingredient Division is one of the world's leading suppliers and marketers of processed apples and other fruit ingredients. Among the wide array of fruits processed for the food industry are strawberries, cherries, plums, berries, apricots, peaches and watermelon

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