Background::
Protein is an important macronutrient and plays a vital role in our body’s growth and development. Protein deficiency can cause retarded growth and development, fatigue, nutritional edema, and might be even life threatening. As per Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) report, an adult should consume about 0.8–1 g protein per kg body weight for a healthy life; however, the actual value of protein consumption is close to 0.6 g per kg ideal body weight for an average diet among Indians. A recent report has also stated that 73% of the Urban Indian diet is protein deficit. :
Hence, there appears a need to supplement food products with a superior quality protein to meet the nutritional demands of the global population. Vegetarian diets derive almost 60% of their protein from cereals and pulses, which have relatively low digestibility and bioavailability. When compared to different dietary protein sources, quality of milk proteins especially whey proteins are superior with PDCAAS value of 1.00, biological value of 100 and DIAAS value of 1.09.:
Technology Details::
Ice cream is a popular dairy dessert and is very much liked by all age groups. Supplementing protein through ice cream will help in alleviating protein deficit of larger population. To address the protein deficit of Indian population, a High Protein Ice cream containing 10% milk protein was developed by Dairy Technology Division, ICAR-NDRI, Karnal. In comparison to conventional ice creams which contain only 3.5-4% protein, the developed High Protein Ice cream contains 150% higher milk protein content. But, increasing the protein concentration in ice cream was not an easy task and several textural and sensory quality defects occur which may hamper the marketability of the product. But, modifying microstructure of ice cream through suitable ingredient formulations and processing interventions high protein ice cream with good palatability was developed. This high protein ice cream addresses the consumer demands for protein rich foods and will help in alleviating the protein malnutrition.