Food products sugar-reduced

Both in the USA and the EU, the introduction of renewable fuels standards is likely to increase considerably the consumption of bioethanol. Lignocelluloses from agricultural and forest industry residues and/or the carbohydrate fraction of municipal solid waste (MSW) will be the future source of biomass, but starch-rich sources such as corn grain (the major raw material for ethanol in USA) and sugar cane (in Brazil) are currently used. Although land devoted to fuel could reduce land available for food production, this is at present not a serious problem, but could become progressively more important with increasing use of bioethanol. For this reason, it is important to utilize other crops that could be cultivated in unused land (an important social factor to preserve rural populations) and, especially, start to use cellulose-based feedstocks and waste materials as raw material. 

Since process flavours are generated by the interaction of raw materials like protein derivatives (amino acids) and reducing sugars (Maillard reaction), it is obvious that a large number of prepared food products are affected ... 

Bedinghaus, A.J. and Ockerman, H.W. 1995. Anti-oxidative Maillard reaction products from reducing sugars and free amino acids in cooked ground pork patties. J. Food Sci. 60 992-995. 

The Maillard reaction commonly occurs in food products and during food processing. A typical or pure Maillard reaction is simply the reaction of a sugar and an amino acid. Strictly speaking, the sugar must be a reducing carbohydrate and the amino acid can be either free or bound, as a peptide or protein. The reaction generates not only volatile compounds, which provide odor, but also odorless nonvolatile compounds, some of which are colored. 

To reduce the viscosity of sugar syrups used in various food and sugar products... 

Monosaccharides Reducing sugar Polyol Food products Abbreviations... 

Reactions between reducing sugars and amino acids (G18, H12, H13, R6) precede the browning (Maillard) reaction that may occur in food products, especially milks. Such adducts, subjected to acid pyrolysis are hydrolyzed to... 

Xylitol, a sugar alcohol, has potential use as a natural food sweetener, a dental caries reducer and a sugar substitute for diabetics. It is produced by chemical reduction in alkaline conditions of the xylose derived mainly from wood hydrolyzate (169). The recovery of xylitol from the xylan fraction is about 50-60% or 8-15% of the raw material employed. Drawbacks of the chemical process are the requirements of high pressure (up to 50 atm) and tenq>erature (80-140°C), use of an expensive catalyst (Raney-Nickel) and use of extensive separation and purification steps to remove the by-products that are mainly derived from the hemicellulose hydrolyzate (770). The bulk of xylitol produced is consumed in various food products such as chewing gum, candy, soft drinks and ice cream. It gives a pleasant cool and fresh sensation due to its high negative heat of solution. 

Most authors have used phosphoric acid for acidifying the food prior to distillation. In certain fruit products, such as dried fruits and molasses, where the sulfurous acid is in close combination with sugars, it is difficult to effect a complete liberation of the sulfurous acid by using phosphoric acid. The use of hydrochloric acid insures a faster and more complete liberation of sulfurous acid from its combinations. In the case of apricots, even when relatively large quantities of hydrochloric acid are used, it takes more than 1 hour for complete distillation of sulfurous acid. Preliminary treatment of the product with sodium bicarbonate does not yield appreciably different results. Increasing the acid concentrations hastens hydrolysis of the food constituents and reduces frothing, but it may favor production of volatile sulfur compounds from protein-containing foods. 

Yamaguchi, N. Fujimaki, M. Studies on the reaction products from reducing sugars and amino acids. Part XIV. Antioxidant activities of purified melanoidins and their comparison with those of legal antioxidants. J. Food Sci. Technol. (Japan). 1974, 21, 6-12. 

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