STUDIES ON SOME FACTORS RELATED TO MAILLARD REACTION RETARDATION

Abstract

The amino-carbonyl (Maillard) reaction of amino acids with sugars takes place during the processing, cooking and storage of foods. It was first observed by the French chemist Louis Maillard (1912) following the heating of a solution of glucose and lysine. This reaction was subsequently referred to as the Maillard reaction and essentially covers all those reactions involving compounds with amino groups and carbonyl groups present in foods. These include amines, amino acids, and proteins interacting with sugars, aldehydes, • and ketones, as well as with products of lipid oxidation (Feeney et al., 1975; Kwon et al., 1965; Montgomery and Day, 1965). The general mechanism of browning was first proposed by Hodge (1953) and subsequently reviewed by Ellis (1959), and volumes of research on this reaction, the original reaction sequence proposed by Hodge ( 1953) still remains valid. According to these reviews, the chemical reactions which occur can be broadly divided into three main stages: (a) the early stage, consisting of the formation and degradation of the N-substituted glycosylamine to the rearrangement product or fission products; (b) the advanced stage, comprising degradation of the rearrangement • product, and subsequent secondary reactions; and (c) the final stage, typified by the production of brown polymers and co-polymers (the melanoidins). In the past, studying the chemistry and mechanism of Maillard reaction take place by using the a-amino group of lysine residues in polypeptide chains in foods. But, this type of reaction still suffering from many problems including the interactive effects take place between the intermediate and end products of Millard reaction and other different components of food (Mottram et al., 1982 ; Mottram, 1985; and Shabidi., 1994). Consequently, recent • investigations of the chemistry of the Maillard reaction have frequently used amino acids or amines, in order to simplify model systems (Turk et al., 1985;