To be honest, I didn’t eat shrimp crackers as a snack when I was a kid. I started to learn how to cook formally, often using shrimp crackers. At the time I thought they were different colored plastic pieces. I'm curious about how they can get bigger when deep fried in hot oil. As I progressed from apprentice to chef, I learned more and more. Today I will answer why the expansion is so big.

First of all, let’s take a look at the main ingredients of shrimp crackers

In fact, as the name suggests, shrimp crackers are a kind of fried puffed food using shrimp as raw material. At the beginning, the quality and taste of the shrimp crackers were good. With the changes of the times, there is basically no shrimp feed now, most of them are starches and additives that increase the flavor of shrimp.

At present, the main ingredients of shrimp crackers are starch, various additives and food colorings. Just like the colorful shrimp crackers we see, they are all shrimp crackers with food coloring. The reason for the expansion after frying is the starch contained in the shrimp crackers. Starch expands when exposed to high temperatures, and its expansion coefficient is very high.

The remaining moisture in the shrimp crackers will evaporate at high speed, forming a crispy structure filled with bubbles. If you take a household vermicelli and light it with a lighter, you can see the same phenomenon. This is because vermicelli, like shrimp crackers, is starch. I believe you may have eaten fire-roasted sweet potato vermicelli when you were a child. When you hold one end of the vermicelli in your hand and put the other end into the stove, the vermicelli will expand rapidly. The principle of both is the same.

The dangers of shrimp crackers

Excessive consumption of shrimp crackers can easily lead to obesity and accelerate aging. Although shrimp crackers are called shrimp crackers, their main ingredient is starch, of which oil, sugar, salt and other auxiliary ingredients are essential. After frying, the heat is too high. The shrimp powder named after this product has little effect, and its nutritional value is far inferior to the high-quality protein and low-fat raw shrimp.

Written at the end

When we were children, shrimp crackers gave us a complete childhood. As we grow up, shrimp crackers are no longer the shrimp crackers of our time. I think after I introduced shrimp crackers from several aspects, everyone must have a great understanding of shrimp crackers. The disadvantages of shrimp crackers are quite big, so it is recommended to eat less. If you are greedy, choose white shrimp slices, at least without coloring.