Note 01 Food Chemistry 03/11/2023

Browning Reactions
Following are certain instances in our day today life, where we experience

browning in foods.

1. When you cut a fruit/vegetable, on the flesh surface of it, formation of brown

color may be observed.

2. Sometimes when you boil sugar like carbohydrates with water, formation of

brown color can be observed.

3. In the bakery industry, carbonyl carbon of a compound react with

amine/ammonia to form brown color.

4. When you expose vitamin C into the environment for some time, color changed

to brown .

Enzymatic browning

• Polyphenol oxidase is required.

• Substrate-polyphenol compounds

• Polyphenol compounds interact with polyphenol oxidase in the presence of

oxygen. As a result of that, brown colour is formed.

• To minimize browning-inactivate PPO is essential.

• Phenolic compounds are very important in nutrition because they have

antioxidant activity.

• To incorporate antioxidants to plant material it is important to consider

above reaction.

• To stop PPO activity, blanching is helpful.

• Black tea manufacturing process use PPO activity.

• People produce natural colours using this reaction.

Mechanism of the reaction

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Though potato does not contain any polyphenol compound, its cutting surface

get brown color when exposed to air. Why is that?

Potato contain an amino acid called tyrosine. It’s a phenolic compound, but not a

polyphenolic compound. When a potato is cut, this amino acid interact with the

tyrosinase enzyme and form a polyphenolic compound called 3, 4-

dihydroxyphenyl alanine (DOPA). Then this polyphenolic compound react with PPO and

cause formation of brown color.

What is enzymatic browning?

Polyphenolic compound in the presence of oxygen, interact with polyphenol

oxidase enzyme and form polymeric compound via ortho quinone intermediate.

• When cutting an apple, its cutting surface get brown color due to enzymatic

browning. It contain a polyphenolic compound called “chlorogenic acid”.

Chlorogenic acid is the major polyphenolic compound present in the flesh

of eggplant fruit (brinjal).

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• There’re two main types of tea available in the market. They are,

1. Black tea

2. Green tea

• The main physical difference between those two is color. Black tea is dark

brown in color and green tea is not a dark colored one. Green tea has an

astringency taste and black tea has a bitter taste. This difference is

obtained by process difference.

• In green tea processing, to inactivate PPO enzyme, tea leaves are exposed

to steam before crushing. Therefore, green tea gives more polyphenolic

compounds to the consumer. Because of that, green tea has anti-

carcinogenic and anti-oxygen properties but don’t have an ability to reduce

the cholesterol levels. But, sugar free black has an effect on reducing

cholesterol levels. Black tea has a compound called thearubigin which is the

major compound responsible for its taste. It is an acidic compound and has

an effect on gastritis. Green tea also has a greater effect on gastritis

because polyphenolic compounds are also acidic.

Polyphenol compounds available in tea leaves

In black tea formation,

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• Epicatechin converts into epicatechin quinone by the action of PPO in the

presence of O2.

• In green tea manufacturing process, above reaction does not take

place. They inactivate PPO by steaming before crushing.

• When frying dried chillies salt is added to remove capsacin as a salt of

capsacin. It would help to minimize the spicy taste.

• Black tea is good for diabetic and cholesterol suffering patients.

• Green tea has antioxidant properties.

• Tea leaves contain polyphenols, polyphenol oxidase, caffeine, pectin and

pectinase. And also it contain essential oils, chlorophylls, amino acids and

some glycosides.

• Beetle leaves have an astringency taste because of the polyphenolic

compounds present in them. To remove this taste, people crush the leaves

using hand and due to that, the beetle leave get dark colored. That is

enzymatic browning. After that, the leave is bitten twice. Then we can taste

the astringency taste at a minimum level. When we crush the leave,

polyphenol oxidase (PPO) enzyme which is at a separate place of the cells,

interact with polyphenolic compound and form a polymeric compound

called “melanoidin”. That compound does not have an astringency taste.

• In kitchen, to remove bitter taste of bitterguards, they are kept in a lid of

cooking vessel. In here steam blanching theory is applied.

Controlling of this enzyme.

1) Blanching: hot water, steam, IR, micro wave.

2) SO2 as a chemical inhibitor of PPO enzyme. SO2 is a competitive inhibitor for PPO enzyme.
Through that we can control the reaction.

Application; Baby jack sellers dip baby jack in SMS containing water. SMS contains SO2.

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3) Use of vitamin C / Ascorbic acid. It can prevent the formation of ortho quinone intermediate.
Therefore browning reaction cannot move forward. Through that we can control the reaction.

Non enzymatic browning reactions.

We can utilize these reactions in food industry.

Millard reaction.

There are three stages.

1) Sugar amine condensation and Amadoori rearrangement.

2) Stecher degradation

3) Aldol condensation (We can see the brown colour formation only at this third stage)

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2) Final compound obtained in Amadoori reaction is degraded in Strecher degradation. After
degradation aldehydes, ketones and alcohols are obtained.

3) Those aldehydes, ketones and alcohols form polymeric compounds. It is known as aldol
condensation. Brown colour is formed here.

170 c is the caramallization temperature of sucrose. Most of sugars have their own caramallization
temperature.

Sucrose is easily digested as it is a disachcharide. Normally juggery is better for diabetic patients
because caramalene takes long time to digest. (There's no problem of consuming sugar cane juggery
and sucrose juggery. But triacle juggery contains very high amount of monosaccharide)

The above reaction is utilized for confectionery industries to take colour and specially in the alcohol
industry.

Desirable applications of non enzymatic browning.

• Bread making

• Golden outer brown crust of bakery products.

• The colour obtained from biscuit ammonia in biscuits