Course outline

 Introduction

Macronutrient
Water in a food system
Lipid/fat
Protein
Carbohydrate
 Cont.
Micronutrient
Vitamins, Enzymes, Minerals
Food additives
Antioxidants, Sweating substances,
Emulgators, Conserving sub, Color,
thikning sub.
Introduction to food
chemistry
 Food Chemistry I
Concern about food exists throughout the world,
but the aspects of concern differ with location.
In underdeveloped regions: - attainment of
adequate amounts and kinds of basic nutrients
remains an ever-present problem.
In developed regions-food production is
mechanized
Involve small tract of the population.
Food is available in a abundance.
Much of it is processed
 Cont.
Its cost
Quality
Processing
Safety
nutrition value
Whole sameness and convenience.
 Cont’d
 Food Science deals with the production,
distribution preparation, evaluation, and
utilization of food.
Food chemists work with plants that have
been harvested for food, and animals that
have been slaughtered for food.
 Cont.d
Food chemists are concerned with how these food
products are processed, prepared, and distributed.
 For example, to address consumer demands, some
food chemists are involved with finding fat and
sugar substitutes that do not alter food taste and
texture
 Develop and understanding of how individual
components contributes to the overall quality of
foods.
 Achieve an understanding of the chemical changes
that take place with food components during
processing and storage.
 Cont.
Recognize reactions and mechanisms important in
food chemistry.
Be capable of designing and conducting
experiments and interpreting data to understand
important food chemistry principles
 Historical Perspective
 Food grown on the farm and processed in the kitchen in
the past. 
 Now, major factories are processing food and they sold
in supermarkets (What drives that food processing in the
factory)
 A huge number of formulated products enter the market
every year and much science lies behind each product 
Why Study Food Chemistry?
 To understand the major components of foods: CHO,
lipids, protein, water and acids and the chemical changes
of food composition which occur during the preparation
of food. As well as the functional properties and
chemical reactions of food components.
 Cont.
 To develop a successful food product one needs
a basic understanding on how ingredients work
chemically and how they interact with each
other
 Shelf stability
 Appearance
 Texture
 Taste
 Nutrition
If one fails the whole product can fail
 Cont.
 Food chemists work with biological systems that are
dead or dying (post-harvested plants and postmortem
animal tissues) and study the changes they undergo when
exposed to different environmental conditions.
 For example, during the marketing of fresh tomatoes,
the food chemist must determine the optimal conditions
to sustain the residual life in the tomatoes so the
tomatoes will continue to ripen and arrive at the
supermarket as a high-quality product for the consumer.
 Cont.
 The study of food science / chemistry also includes
biotechnology, which is the use of biological processes to
make new foods, enzymes, supplements, drugs, and
vaccines.
 For thousands of years, people have been using
microorganisms in the fermentation of beer and in the
making of cheeses, wines, and breads.
 Today biotechnology also encompasses genetically
engineered foods.
 In genetic engineering, scientists splice (join) genetic
material from plants, animals, or bacteria and insert
this genetic material in to the DNA of other
organisms.
 These new organisms are called genetically modified
organisms (GMOs).
 Approach to the food chemistry
 It is desirable to establish analytical approach to the
chemistry of food formulation, processing, and storage
stability, so that facts derived from the study of one food
or model system can enhance our understanding of other
products.
 There are four components to this approach.
a) determining those properties that are important
characteristics of safe & high-quality foods.
b) determining those chemical and biochemical
reactions that have important influences on loss of
quality and or wholesomeness of foods.
 Cont.
 c) Integrating the first two points so that one
understands how the key chemicals and biochemical
reactions influence quality and safety.
 d) Applying this understanding to various solutions
encountered during formulation, processing and
storage of foods.
 Quality and safety attributes
 Safety is the first requisite of any food in a broad sense,
this means a food must be free of any harmful chemical
or microbial contaminate at the time of its consumption.
E.g. In the canning industry commercial sterility
means the absence of viable spores of clostridium
botulinum.
This can be translated in to a specific set of heating
conditions for a specific product in a specific package.
These heating requirements, can then select specific
time - temp. conditions that will optimize retention of
quality attributes.
 In peanut butter, operational safety can be regarded
primarily as the absence of aflatoxins –carcinogenic
substances produced by certain spices of moldes
 Cont.
 In fabricated foods, the comp. can be controlled by
adding approved chemicals, such as Acidulates,
chelating agents, flavors, or antioxidants, or by
removing undesirable reactants.
 Composition of the atmosphere is important mainly
with respect to relative humidity and oxygen content.
 The consequences of a small amount of residual oxygen
sometimes become apparent during product storage e.g.
early formation of a small amount of dehydro-ascorbic
acid (from oxidation of ascorbic acid) can lead to
Millard browning during storage.
 Some products must not exposure to light during
packaging
 Cont.
 Food chemists must be able to integrate information
about quality attributes of foods, deteriorative reactions
to which foods are susceptible, and the factors governing
kinds and rates of these deteriorative reactions, in order
to solve problems related to food formulation,
processing, and storage stability.
 To day, with nation wide industries and with the growth
of a consumer market which expects and demands a
uniform product, it is necessary to control processes
carefully.
 This control demands understanding of the process, some
industries have been very active in attempting to develop
a scientific basis for their procedures
Types of Water in Foods
 Water
 An understanding of water and its properties is
important to the study of food chemistry.
 The macromolecular components of cells, proteins,
polysaccharides, nucleic acids, and membranes-assume
their shapes in response to water.
 Some types of molecules interact extensively with
water; other molecules or parts of molecules that do not
dissolve easily in water tend to associate with each other.
 In addition, much of the metabolic machinery of cells
operates in an aqueous environment.
 Water is an essential solvent as well as a substrate for
many cellular reactions.
 Cont.
 The water content or the moisture content of a food
influences its appearance, texture and flavor.
 It varies a great deal in different food items.
Products                 Water (%)
 Green leaves 95
 Tomato 95
 Watermelon 93
 Orange 87
Potato 78
Banana 75
Butter 16
Rice 12
Legumes (dry) 9-11
 Types of Water in Foods
Water in foods can be either in free or bound
form, depending on its interaction with the
surrounding molecules.
The ‘bound water’ refers to water that is physically
or chemically bound to food components.
Many compounds like starch, proteins and some salts
have water bound to them in the form of hydrates.
 Cont.
 The free water is the bulk water free from any other
constituents.
 It is held in narrow channels between certain food
components due to capillary forces and is held trapped
within the spaces in food.
It is surrounded by physical barrier e.g., biological
cell that prevents it from escaping. 
It is actually responsible for the microbial growth
and deterioration of food. It is also called the
available water.
This free /unbound /available water is expressed in
terms of water activity.
 Cont.
 Another form of water in food is called imbibed water.
It is found in hydrophilic gums like gelatin which is a
type of protein with ability to absorb a large amount
of water.
Gelatin forms a jelly like mass on absorbing or
imbibing water.
It is more or less like the hydrate formation
and Involves hydrogen bonding.
 Another form of water in food is adsorbed water. Some
solid foods have the ability or tendency to absorb water
on surface.
The powdered forms of the solids adsorb more
water because of a larger surface area.
 Cont.
 A portion of the total water content present in a product is
strongly bound to specific sites on the chemicals that
comprise the product.
These sites may include the hydroxyl groups of
polysaccharides, the carbonyl and amino groups of
proteins, and other polar sites.
 Hydrogen bonds, ion-dipole bonds, and other strong
chemical bonds tightly bound water.
Some water is bound less tightly, but is still not
available (as a solvent for water-soluble food
components).
 Many preservation processes attempt to eliminate spoilage by
lowering the availability of water to microorganisms.
 Moisture Content
 The moisture content of a food item is defined as the
amount of water lost per gram of the food product at
about 100o C.
 Though important, water content or % moisture is not a
reliable predictor of microbial responses and chemical
reactions in food products.
 The water content of a safe product varies from product to
product and from formulation to formulation.
 One safe, stable product might have a water content of 15%
while another with a water content of just 8 % is susceptible to
microbial growth.
 This is so because the microbial stability or physicochemical
properties of food are often determined by amount of free
water Present rather than the total amount of water
 Cont.
 Reducing the amount of free--or unbound--water also
minimizes other undesirable chemical changes that occur
during storage.
The processes used to reduce the amount of free water
in consumer products include techniques like
concentration, dehydration and freeze drying.
Freezing is another common approach to controlling
spoilage.
Water in frozen foods is in the form of ice crystals
and therefore unavailable to microorganisms and for
reactions with food components.
 Properties of water that is important to
the chemistry of life
 The physical properties of water allow it to act as a
solvent for ionic and other polar substances
 Water molecules can form weak bonds with other
compounds including other water molecules.
 Water affects the interactions of substances that have
low solubility in water.
 The Ionization of water and its acidity and basicity are
important for understanding the molecules and the
metabolic processes of life.
 Water molecules is polar
 Water molecule has hydrogen bonding (e.g. ice).
 Cont.
 The ability of water molecules in ice to form four
hydrogen bonds and the strength of these hydrogen
bonds give ice an unusually high melting point.
This is because a large amount of energy, in the form
of heat, is required to disrupt the hydrogen bonds and
retained by liquid water.
 Each molecule of liquid water can form up to four
hydrogen bonds with its neighbors, but the bonds are
distorted relative to those in ice, so that the structure
of liquid water is more irregular.
 Cont.
The fluidity of liquid water compared to the rigidity
of ice is primarily a consequence of the irregular
pattern of hydrogen bonding in liquid water, which is
constantly fluctuating as hydrogen bonds break and
re-form.
Because ice is less dense than liquid water, ice floats
and water freezes from the top down.
This has important biological implications, since a
layer portion on a pond insulates the creatures below
from extreme cold.
 Cont.
 Specific heat and heat of vaporization of water are
related to its hydrogen bonding.
 The specific heat of a substance is the amount of heat
needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of the
substance by 10C
 The abundance of water in the cells of all organisms
means that temperature fluctuations with in cells are
minimized.
 This feature is of critical biological importance
since the rates of most biochemical reactions are
sensitive to temperature.
 Cont.
 A large amount of heat is required to evaporate water
because hydrogen bonds must be broken to permit
water molecules to dissociate from one another and
enter the gas phase.
 Because the evaporation of water absorbs so much
heat, perspiration (sweating) is an effective
mechanism for decreasing body temperature.
 The unusual thermal properties of water make it a
stable environment for living organisms as well as an
excellent medium for the chemical processes of life.
 Water can interact with and dissolve other polar
compounds and compounds that ionize.
 Cont.
 The solubility of organic molecules in water is
determined chiefly by their polarity and their ability to
form hydrogen bonds with water.
 An increase in the number of polar groups, such as
hydroxyl groups, in an organic molecule increases its
solubility in water.
• E.g. a glucose molecule is very soluble in
water.
Cont.
Cont.
Cont.
Cont.
 Determination of Moisture
 Solar drying
 Frizz drying
 Oven drying method
 Many foods decompose to some degree if they are heated to
100ºc. E.g. foods which contain fructose. It is necessary to dry
them in a vacuum oven where the temperature is maintained at a
lower figure and the pressure is reduced too facilitate less of
moisture.
 Cont.
 The immiscible solvent distillation method. Those
foods which contain volatile compounds other than water
must be treated by another method.
 None of the weight-loss methods are adequate to
differentiate b/n loss of water and loss of some other
volatile substances.
The sample is placed in a flask which is connected
with a reflux condenser equipped with a distillate trap.
The sample is covered with a suitable solvent and the
trap filled with the solvent.
The solvent must be immiscible with water so that as
they distill separation of the two liquids can occur..
Water activity and spoilage
Explain what water activity is and how it relates
to bacterial growth.
 Water in food that is not bound to food molecules
can support the growth of bacteria, yeast, and
mold. The term water activity (aw) refers to this
unbound water.
 The water activity of a food is not the same thing
as its moisture content. Although moist foods are
likely to have greater water activity than are dry
foods, this is not always so. In fact, a variety of
foods may have exactly the same moisture
content and yet have quite different water
activities.
 Cont.
 The water activity (aw) of a food is the ratio between the
vapor pressure of the food itself, when in a completely
undisturbed balance with the surrounding air media, and
the vapor pressure of distilled water under identical
conditions.
 A water activity of 0.80 means the vapor pressure is 80
percent of that of pure water.
 The water activity increases with temperature. The
moisture condition of a product can be measured as the
equilibrium relative humidity (ERH) expressed in
percentage or as the water activity expressed as a decimal.
 Cont.
Most foods have a water activity above 0.95
and that will provide sufficient moisture to
support the growth of bacteria, yeasts, and
mold.
The amount of available moisture can be
reduced to a point that will inhibit the growth
of microorganisms
 Water activity values Water
Food of selected
activityfoods
Fresh meat and fish 0.99
Liverwurst 0.96
Bread 0.95
Cookies 0.3
Instant coffee 0.2
 Predicting Food Spoilage
 Water activity (aw) has its most useful application in
predicting the growth of bacteria, yeast, and mold.
 For a food to have a useful shelf-life without relying on
refrigerated storage, it is necessary to control either its
acidity level (pH) or the level of water activity (aw) or a
suitable combination of the two.
 This can effectively increase the product's stability and
make it possible to predict its shelf life under known
ambient storage conditions.
 Food can be made safe to store by lowering the water
activity to a point that will not allow pathogens such as
Clostridium botulinum and Staphylococcus aureus to
grow in it.
 Effect of aw on Spoilage of Foods
 The table below illustrates the water activity (aw)
levels that can support the growth of particular
groups of bacteria, yeast, and mold.
aw Spoilage Food
microorganism
0.90-1.00 Bacteria Cottage cheese,
meat
0.85 - 9.0 Bacteria, molds, yeasts Margarine,
condensed milk,
whipped butter
0.80 - 0.85 Yeasts Fruit syrups
 Semi-moist foods
 For foods with a high water activity correct proper
refrigeration is always necessary.
 These include most fresh foods and many processed
foods, such as soft cheeses and cured meats.
 However, many foods can be successfully stored at
room temperature by proper control of their water
activity (aw).
 These foods can be described as semi-moist and include
fruitcakes, puddings, and chocolate and caramel sauce.
 When these foods spoil, it is usually the result of
surface mold growth.
 Most types of mold do not grow at a water activity level
below 0.8.
 Cont.
Some will grow slowly at this aw, so it is usually
recommended that products of this type not have
a water activity greater than 0.75.
While this will not completely prevent microbial
spoilage, those few yeast and molds that do grow
at lower water activities need only to be
considered when special shelf life conditions
must be met.