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Predicting the functionality of carrageenans
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Carrageenans are one of the major texture ingredients. They have been used for decades as gelling, thickening and stabilizing agent in foods, ranging from frozen desserts to instant products. Carrageenans are obtained by extraction from certain species of red seaweeds.
Since natural carrageenans are mixtures of different sulphated polysaccharides, their composition differs from batch to batch. Even small variations in composition can have an enormous influence on their functional properties. For instance carrageenans containing irregularities (around 3%) give much better gelling properties in dessert applications. Therefore, both ingredient suppliers and food industries set great store by the qualitative and quantitative analysis of carrageenan batches. By choosing the right composition, product quality can be improved while costs are reduced. Key is the characterization of the molecular structure, allowing interpretation of the texturing properties. With NMR spectroscopy, NIZO food research offers a fast and accurate method to determine carrageenan quality for both ingredient suppliers and food industries.
Based on this unique expertise, NIZO is also able to apply this approach to other polysaccharides, such as pectins, and to assess the feasibility of developing such a method.
keywords: texture, structure, NMR, functionality, polysaccharide
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