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Introduction
Food chemistry is a fascinating branch of applied science that
combines most of the sub-disciplines of traditional chemistry
(organic, inorganic and physical chemistry) together with
elements of biochemistry and human physiology.
Food chemists attempt to define the composition and properties
of food, and understand the chemical changes undergone during
production, storage and consumption, and how these might be
controlled.
Foods are fundamentally biological substances and are highly
variable and complex; therefore, food chemistry is a constantly
evolving and expanding field of knowledge that underpins other
areas of food science and technology.

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Carbohydrates
Carbohydrate is the collective name for polyhydroxyaldehydes
and polyhydroxyketones, and these compounds form a major
class of biomolecules that perform several functions in vivo,
including the storage and transport of energy.
Indeed, carbohydrates are the major source of energy in our diet.
The name carbohydrate derives from their general empirical
formula, which is (CH2O)n; however, the carbohydrate group
contains several derivatives and closely related compounds that
do not fit this general empirical formula but are still considered
to be carbohydrates.
There are three distinct classes of carbohydrates:
monosaccharides (1 structural unit), oligosaccharides (2–10
structural units) and polysaccharides (more than 10 structural
units).
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Monosaccharides
The monosaccharides are also termed simple sugars, are given
the suffix -ose and classified as aldoses or ketoses depending on
whether they contain an aldehyde or ketone group.
The most common monosaccharides are either pentoses
(containing a chain of five carbon atoms) or hexoses (containing
a chain of six carbon atoms).
Each carbon atom carries a hydroxyl group, with the exception
of the atom that forms the carbonyl group, which is also known
as the reducing group.
Simple sugars are optically active compounds and can contain
several asymmetrical carbon atoms. This leads to the possibility
for the formation of multiple stereoisomers or enantiomers of
the same basic structure.
To simplify matters, monosaccharides are assigned optical
configurations with respect to comparison of their highest
numbered asymmetric carbon atom to the configuration of D-
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glyceraldehyde or L-glyceraldehyde.
Monosaccharides

By convention, the carbon atoms in the monosaccharide molecule

are numbered such that the reducing group carries the lowest
possible number; therefore, in aldoses the reducing group carbon
is always numbered 1 and in ketoses the numbering is started from
the end of the carbon chain closest to the reducing group.
Most naturally occurring monosaccharides belong to the D-
series, i.e. their highest numbered carbon has a similar optical
configuration to D-glyceraldehyde.
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Monosaccharides
• The stereochemistry of the monosaccharides is depicted using
the Fischer projection as shown for D-glucose and D-fructose in
Fig. 2.2.
• All bonds are depicted as horizontal or vertical lines; all
horizontal bonds project toward the viewer, while vertical
bonds project away from the viewer. The carbon chain is
depicted vertically with the C1 carbon at the top.

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Monosaccharides
Aldoses and ketoses commonly exist in equilibrium between
their open-chain form and cyclic structures in aqueous solution.
Cyclic structures form through either a hemiacetal or a
hemiketal linkage between the reducing group and an alcohol
group of the same sugar. In this way sugars form either a five
membered furanose ring or a six-membered ring as shown in
Fig. 2.3 for D-glucose.

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Monosaccharides
The formation of a furanose or pyranose introduces an
additional asymmetric carbon; hence two anomers are formed
(α- anomer and β-anomer) from each distinct open-chain
monosaccharide. The interconversion between these two
anomers is called mutarotation.
The cyclic structures of carbohydrates are commonly shown as
Haworth projections to depict their three-dimensional
structure. However, this projection does not account for the
tetrahedral geometry of carbon.
This is most significant for the six-membered pyranose ring,
which may adopt either a chair or a boat conformation as
depicted in Fig. 2.4.

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Monosaccharides
Of these, the chair conformation is favoured due to its greater
thermodynamic stability.
Within this conformation the bulky CH2OH group is usually
found in an equatorial position to reduce steric interactions.

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Oligosaccharides
Oligosaccharides contain 2–10 sugar units and are water
soluble.
The most significant types of oligosaccharide occurring in foods
are disaccharides, which are formed by the condensation (i.e.
water is eliminated) of two monosaccharide units to form a
glycosidic bond.
A glycosidic bond is that between the hemiacetal group of a
saccharide and the hydroxyl group of another compound,
which may or may not be itself a saccharide.

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Oligosaccharides
Disaccharides can be homogeneous or heterogeneous and fall
into two types:
1. Non-reducing sugars in which the monosaccharide units are
joined by a glycosidic bond formed between their reducing
groups (e.g. sucrose and trehalose). This inhibits further
bonding to other saccharide units.
2. Reducing sugars in which the glycosidic bond links the
reducing group of one monosaccharide unit to the non-reducing
alcoholic hydroxyl of the second monosaccharide unit (e.g.
lactose and maltose).
A reducing sugar is any sugar that, in basic solution, forms an
aldehyde or ketone allowing it to act as a reducing agent, and
therefore includes all monosaccharides.

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Oligosaccharides
Of the disaccharides, sucrose, trehalose and lactose are found
free in nature, whereas others are found as glycosides (in which a
sugar group is bonded through its anomeric carbon to another
group, e.g. a phenolic group, via an O-glycosidic bond) or as
building blocks for polysaccharides (such as maltose in starch),
which can be released by hydrolysis.
Probably the three most significant disaccharides in food are
sucrose, lactose and maltose.
Sucrose is the substance known commonly in households as
sugar and is found in many plant fruits and saps.
It is isolated commercially from sugar cane or the roots of
sugar beet. Sucrose is composed of an α-D-glucose residue
linked to a β-D-fructose residue and is a non-reducing sugar.
Its systematic name is α - D-glucopyranosyl-(1↔2)- β -D-
fructofuranoside (having the suffix -oside, because it is a non-
reducing sugar). 12
Oligosaccharides
It is the sweetest tasting of the disaccharides and is an important
source of energy.
Lactose is found in mammalian milk and its systematic name is
β -D-galactopyranosyl-(1↔4)- α –D-glucopyranose.
To aid the digestion of lactose, the intestinal villi of infant
mammals secrete an enzyme called lactase (-D-galactosidase),
which cleaves the molecule into its two subunits -D-glucose and
–D-galactose.
In most mammals the production of lactase gradually reduces
with maturity into adulthood, leading to the inability to digest
lactose and so-called lactose intolerance.
However, in cultures where cattle, goats and sheep are milked
for food there has evolved a gene for lifelong lactase production.

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Oligosaccharides
Maltose is formed by the enzymatic hydrolysis of starch and is
an important component of the barley malt used to brew beer.
It is a homogeneous disaccharide consisting of two units of
glucose joined with an α(1→4) linkage.
Maltose is a reducing sugar and the addition of further glucose
unit yields a series of oligosaccharides known as maltodextrins
or simply dextrins.

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Polysaccharides
Polysaccharides are built of repeat units of monosaccharides
and are systematically named with the suffix -an.
The generic name for polysaccharides is glycan and these can be
homoglycans consisting of the one type of monosaccharide or
heteroglycans consisting of two or more types of monosaccharide.
Polysaccharides have three main functions in both animals and
plants: as sources of energy, as structural components of
cells, and as water-binders.
Plant and animal cells store energy in the form of glucans, which
are polymers of glucose such as starch (in plants) and glycogen
(in animals).
The most abundant structural polysaccharide is cellulose, which
is also a glucan and is found in plants.
Water-binding substances in plants include agar, pectin and
alginate.
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Polysaccharides
Polysaccharides occur as several structural types: linear (e.g.
amylose, cellulose), branched (e.g. amylopectin, glycogen),
interrupted (e.g. pectin), block (e.g. alginate) or alternate
repeat (e.g. agar, carrageenan).
According to the geometry of the glycosidic linkages,
polysaccharide chains can form various conformations, such as
disordered random coil, extended ribbons, buckled ribbons or
helices.
One of the most important properties of a great number of
polysaccharides in foods is that they are able to form aqueous
gels and thereby contribute to food structure and textural
properties (e.g. mouth-feel).

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Polysaccharides
Starch
Starch occurs in the form of semi-crystalline granules ranging in
size from 2 to 100 μm, and consists of two types of glucan:
amylose and amylopectin.
Amylose is a linear polymer of α(1→4) linked α-D-
glucopyranose and constitutes 20–25% of most starches.
Amylopectin is a randomly branched polymer of α-D-
glucopyranose consisting of linear chains with α(1→4) linkages
with 4–5% of glucose units also being involved in α(1→6) linked
branches.
On average the length of linear chains in amylopectin is about
20–25 units.
The chemical structures of amylose and amylopectin are shown
in Fig. 2.6.
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Polysaccharides

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