Snaking In Malaysia

Malaysia is one of the most ethnically diverse nations in the world, where the co-existence of the various groups is largely peaceful. According to Census 2010 Malaysia, the total population of Malaysia was about 28.3 million, which made up by Malays or Bumiputera as the biggest ethnic group at 67.4% of the population. It was followed by Chinese at 24.6% of the population, Indian group at 7.3% and others at 0.7% (Department of Statistics, 2011). In our country, people from different ethnicity have their own culture and cuisine; therefore, it makes Malaysia so unique and undoubted to be known as ‘Food Paradise’.

Nowadays, Malaysia consists of a large and growing, primarily urban population. The population always looks for convenient as well as healthy food choices (International Markets Bureau, 2011). Therefore, snaking becomes very common in the culture of Malaysian population regardless their age group. Snack usually been consumed between late afternoon and dinner (Zalilah et al., 2008).

Malaysians regularly consumed a variety of traditional sweet and savory cakes, bakery products, sweet porridge and spicy foods during afternoon tea or snacking (Zalilah et al., 2008). According to Tee et al. (2012) and Poh et al. (2012), traditional cake was commonly consumed by the adolescents and children as about half of them had consumed it as their snacks. It had supported by several studies which stated that more than half of the adolescents and adults in Malaysia consumed snacks or afternoon tea daily (Zalilah et al., 2008; Teo et al., 2012). Therefore, it clearly showed that traditional cakes do play an important role in snacking time among Malaysians.

Study done by Thomas et al. (2013) reported that glutinous rice is originated from Sou...

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... They are highly consumed by the population. However, the nutrient, energy and sugar content of the snacks are not been clearly notified to the consumers. Therefore, it is beneficial for the researcher to investigate the nutrient composition of popular glutinous rice flour based Chinese snack.

Moreover, data obtained after the analysis on nutrition and sugar composition of the snacks is highly needed, particularly for the health personnel to monitor the patients based on their diet intake. Besides, it also assists publics in making better and healthier food choices according to their nutritional needs. It also helps consumers in preventing them from developing chronic diseases which might cause by imbalance snacking. Therefore, findings of this study can fill up the gaps by analyzed the nutrient composition of the selected glutinous rice flour based Chinese snacks.