Food Microstructure and Its Relationship with Quality and Stability

Sakamon Devahastin

• Publisher: Woodhead Publishing
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780081007648
• eBook ISBN:
  9780081017661
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Food Science
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Food Microstructure and Its Relationship with Quality and Stability is a comprehensive overview of the effects that the properties of the underlying structures of food have on its perceived quality to the consumer. The book's first section consists of chapters outlining the fundamentals of food microstructure, food composition, molecular mobility of various food constituents, and their relationships with food quality and stability. The role of various processing technologies in the production of specific microstructures for enhanced quality and stability is outlined. The second part of the book consists of various chapters devoted to microstructures, constituents and their relationship with quality, functionality, and stability of selected foods, for example, food hydrocolloids, frozen seafood, dried foods, extruded products, and dietary fibers. This information is of paramount importance for both academic researchers in the areas of food quality, preservation, and stability, as well as for food developers and processors. - Brings together leading experts from around the world to provide the latest information on a topic essential to the quality of food products - Includes dedicated chapters covering the microstructure of specific products and its relationship to quality and stability, making this book ideal for those working in industry - Provides a single reference source for a topic of great importance to a number of fields within both academic and industrial food sciences – food quality, stability, processing, and engineering

Section II

Food Microstructure and Its Relationship with Quality and Stability of Specific Products

Outline

5 Microstructure and its relationship with release behavior of different vehicles

6 Microstructure, composition, and their relationship with emulsion stability

7 Microstructural changes and their relationship with quality and stability of frozen foods

8 Microstructure and its relationship with quality and storage stability of dried foods

9 Microstructure and its relationship with quality and storage stability of extruded products

10 Microstructure, constituents, and their relationship with quality and functionality of dietary fibers

11 Microstructure and its relationship with quality of confectionary and bakery products

12 Nonthermal processing technologies for fabrication of microstructures to enhance food quality and stability

5

Microstructure and its relationship with release behavior of different vehicles

Xin Jin and Xiao Dong Chen, Soochow University, Suzhou, P.R. China

Abstract

Food, either in its natural or processed form, provides the human body with energy and essential nutrients to maintain human life and stimulate growth. The essential nutrients are protein, lipids, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and water. Moreover, all the fresh food products have well-organized structure, consisting of vacuole, cytoplasm, cell wall, and intercellular spaces. These structures are hierarchical, from macrolevel to microlevel, and can be seen with different microscopes or even with the naked eye. The nutrients are spatially distributed within the hierarchical structure, either bound to plant organelles or entrapped in a complex macromolecular matrix of swollen starch granules or protein. For example, vitamin C is present in the extracellular and intracellular spaces, glucosinolates are localized in vacuoles, lycopene is in chloroplasts, and folate is covalently bound to macromolecules such as proteins. During processing, food structure changes at both macrolevel and microlevel. At the macrolevel, the apparent appearance changes when the food materials are subject to certain food processing methods, such as overall size changes (overall shrinkage), structural collapse, surface folding, and so on. At the microlevel, microstructure changes include, for instance, cellular shrinkage, cellular collapse, pore collapse, porosity changes, and pore size changes. All these microstructural changes eventually result in changes at the macrolevel. Along with the microstructural and overall structural changes, nutrients within the cellular matrix would be released and be activated or deactivated depending on the food processing methods and operational conditions. Furthermore, when moving to the consumption phase by the consumers, the (micro)structure modified or created during processing would influence mastication, digestion, and absorption. There is increased interest in the role that some nutrients may play in having a positive effect in preventing or lowering the risk of certain diseases, such as some types of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. In this regard, there are an increasing number of studies focusing on how to increase both the nutritional values and bioavailability of those nutrients of food products after food processing. In this chapter, we will provide a detailed discussion on all these aspects together with our thoughts on this subject.

Keywords

Bioaccessibility; bioactivity; bioavailability; microstructure; nutrients

5.1 General introduction

Food, either in its natural or processed form, provides the human body with energy and essential nutrients to maintain human life and stimulate growth. The essential nutrients are protein, lipids, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and water. Moreover, all the fresh food products have well-organized structure, consisting of vacuole, cytoplasm, cell wall, and intercellular spaces. These structures are hierarchical, from macrolevel to microlevel, and can be seen with different microscopes or even with the naked eye. The nutrients are spatially distributed within the hierarchical structure, either bound to plant organelles or entrapped in a complex macromolecular matrix of swollen starch granules or protein (Parada and Aguilera, 2007). For example, vitamin C is present in the extracellular and intracellular spaces, glucosinolates are localized in vacuoles, lycopene is in chloroplasts, and folate is covalently bound to macromolecules such as proteins. During processing, food structure changes at both macrolevel and microlevel. At the macrolevel, the apparent appearance changes when the food materials are subject to certain food processing methods, such as overall size changes (overall shrinkage), structural collapse, surface folding, and so on. At the microlevel, microstructure changes include, for instance, cellular shrinkage, cellular collapse, pore collapse, porosity changes, and pore size changes. All these microstructural changes eventually result in changes at the macrolevel. Along with the microstructural and overall structural changes, nutrients within the cellular matrix would be released and be activated or deactivated depending on the food processing methods and operational conditions. Furthermore, when moving to the consumption phase by the consumers, the (micro)structure modified or created during processing would influence mastication, digestion, and absorption.

There is increased interest in the role that some nutrients may play in having a positive effect in preventing or lowering the risk of certain diseases, such as some types of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. In this regard, there are an increasing number of studies focusing on how to increase both the nutritional values and bioavailability of those nutrients of food products after food processing. In this chapter, we will provide a detailed discussion on all these aspects together with our thoughts on this subject.

5.2 Definitions of nutrient content, nutrient release, bioavailability, bioaccessibility, and bioactivity

When discussing microstructure and its interaction with food processing and nutrient availability, there are several related concepts; the most popular concepts are bioavailability, bioactivity, and bioaccessibility. All these terms have been used extensively by food nutritionists, food engineers, or food scientists. Bioavailability is the fraction of ingested nutrients that is available for absorption and metabolic function. The FDA has defined bioavailability as the rate and extent to which the active substances or therapeutic moieties contained in a drug are absorbed and become available at the site for action (Shi and Maguer, 2000). This definition also applies to active substances (nutrients) present in foods (Parada and Aguilera, 2007). Bioavailability includes two terms: bioaccessibility and bioactivity (Fernández-García et al., 2009). Bioaccessibility is the amount of nutrients that can be released from food matrix in the gastrointestinal tract and available for intestinal absorption, which is often studied as the starting point for nutrient bioavailability. The results of bioaccessibility study is often used as an indicator for the nutritional value of food products, which also appears on the nutrient content labels of the food products (Lemmens et al., 2010). Bioactivity is about how the bioactive compound is transported and reaches the target tissue and interacts with biomolecules (Fernández-García et al., 2009).

All the above-mentioned terms reflect the amount of nutrients that are available to the human body through digestion and absorption. Besides, there are certain nutrients that cannot be taken up by our ...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• List of Contributors
• About the Editor
• Preface
• Section I: Fundamentals of Food Microstructure and Its Relationship with Quality and Stability
• Section II: Food Microstructure and Its Relationship with Quality and Stability of Specific Products
• Index