Showing posts with label acrylamides. Show all posts
Showing posts with label acrylamides. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Tips to reduce acrylamide formation in snack and tips to reduce trans fatty acid

Here are some tips that can be used to reduce formation of acrylamide in products including snack product:
• Use ingredient to prevent the reaction between asparagine and reducing sugars.
• Change the asparagine into other forms, such as aspartic acid, by using enzymes.
• Modification of processes, mainly related to temperature, time, and pH.
• Less / replace the use of raw materials / ingredient containing asparagine and / or a reducing sugar.
World snack industry grow quite rapidly. Innovation and high market demand is the key to why the product is still evolving. In fact, excessive snack consumption is often regarded as a cause of some health problems. For example, obesity, trans fatty acids, acrylamide, and so on.
The condition is exactly what later became a trend in the development of new products. Many industries are then trying to change the image by designing a healthy snack snack. It feels easier, because the food industry also received support from ingredient industry, machinery and other supporting industries. Some snack products that offer health effects of reducing agent, which is an important stage of the formation of acrylamide.
In addition, the use of amino acids are also widely studied. For example proline amino acids commonly found in flour that also could reduce acrylamide formation by 80%. The same is true of several other amino acids, namely tryptophan, cysteine, and glycine, although the level of effectiveness varies.
Meanwhile, researchers from China in a report published by the Journal of Food Chemistry reported that vitamin B3, can also be used to inhibit the formation of acrylamide in french fries by 50%. In that study, Zeng et al. (2009) actually use different types of vitamins, both water-soluble or water insoluble. However, vitamin B3 has the best effectiveness.
Tips to reduce trans fatty acids
Trans fatty acids are formed through partial hydrogenation process and its existence becomes a very important issue in recent years. It is not because the presence of trans fatty acids can lead to greater levels of LDL cholesterol in the blood and the risk of heart disease. So it is not strange if the USFDA requires to include the presence of these fatty acids in the label.
In the snack industry, the presence of trans fatty acids derived from fats and oils are used, especially the shortening and margarine. Actually, the increasing awareness of trans fatty acids is a separate chance for the national oil industry, because the palm oil contains no trans fatty acids.
Research conducted by Byung Hee Kim et al (2009) from the University of Georgia says, that interesterification of a mixture from canola oil, palm stearin and palm kernel oil with a certain ratio can produce a margarine with the same quality as commercial margarine. As for the shortening, a mixture of palm stearin and palm oil can produce a fat that is plastic that can be used as shortening. Jeyarani et al. (2009) in a report published by the Journal of Food Chemistry stated that a mixture containing 60-70% palm stearin palm stearin and 30-40% have a wider melting range, making it suitable to be used as a shortening.

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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Acrylamide: brain cancer and how to inhibit its formation?

As already known, several studies have shown that acrylamide is formed in the Mailard reaction, is carsinogenic. However, several epidemiological studies indicate exposure to acrylamide in food products is still too low to worry about. But, however the industry has been doing a lot of prevention, such as by resetting the temperature of the process used. Acrylamide is a carcinogenic compound formed by reaction between sugars and amino acid asparagine at the time of heating. Formation through the Maillard reaction is also responsible for the formation of brown color and flavor to various food products. Acrylamide issue has indeed been a lot of attention.


Acrylamide is not associated with brain cancer?
A study conducted by Maastricht University in the Netherlands concluded that the content of acrylamide in food products has no relationship with an increased risk of brain cancer. Research involving 58,279 men and 62,537 women was conducted considering the acrylamide found in many diet of Dutch society, in a certain level. The study was conducted by distributing questionnaires to estimate the amount of acrylamide consumed. Acrylamide sources were estimated coming from potato crisps, French fries, Dutch spiced cake, coffee, bread, and cookies. The result, after research during several years, obtained 216 respondents were diagnosed with brain cancer. But according to the researchers, it has no relationship with increased intake of acrylamide. The study still needs confirmation from other studies.

Inhibition of acrylamide formation
There are several methods that have been used to avoid the formation of such compounds, including the process modification through temperature regulation. Recently, a new way to inhibit the formation of acrylamide has been found, namely the use of calcium lactate based ingridient. Several companies are developing products that were claimed to reduce acrylamide in snacks to 80% without affecting taste and crispiness. Calcium is present in the ingredients are claimed to interfere with the reaction between reducing sugars and asparagine which is the key to the formation of acrylamide. This product can be widely applied, because it does not require modification of process or temperature. Not even affected by variations in pH or moisture content.

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Acrylamide in food product
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