Desarrollo de botana extrudida lista para comer usando mezclas de harinas de semilla de calabaza (Cucurbita pepo) y maíz nixtamalizado (Zea mays).

Extruded ready-to-eat snacks were prepared from ?our blends made with pumpkin seed (PSF) and nixtamalized maize (NMF) using a single-screw extruder with a compression screw ratio of 3:1. A central composite rotatable design was used to investigate the e?ects of the PSF proportion in formulations (0 - 30 g/100 g), feed moisture content (14 - 20 g/100 g) and extrusion temperatures (120 - 180 C) on the physical properties like expansion index (EI), bulk density (BD), water absorption index (WAI), water solubility index (WSI), hardness (H), pH and total color di?erence (?E). The results indicated that EI, BD and ?E were signi?cantly a?ected by increasing the proportion of PSF and BD, whereas increasing ?E resulted in an opposite e?ect on EI (P <0.05). Temperature signi?cantly negatively a?ected (P <0.05) EI and H, while increased moisture content only caused a signi?cant increase (P <0.05) in WAI. Optimal conditions were at an extrusion temperature of 120 C, feed moisture content of 20 g/100 g and PSF content of 10.36 g/100 g and protein content =11.74 g/100 g. The ready-to-eat snack developed in this research could be considered as a functional food with nutritional and health bene?ts.