Bringing food chemistry to life

One of the short chain fatty acids produced in lower bowel microbial fermentation. Butyric acid production in the human lower gut is promoted by the ingestion of resistant starch [RS]: that is, starch that is resistant to digestion in the preceding elements of the digestive tract via either acidic or enzymatic hydrolysis. There are different types of RS:

RS1 is starch physically occluded [hidden] by other plant anatomical structures, e.g. when consuming unmilled whole grains;

RS2 is raw granular starch of poor digestibility often with B-type amylopectin crystal structures [potato & banana starches], RS2 starch becomes digestible on cooking after gelatinization;

RS3 is most commonly based on normal, or preferably high-amylose, starch sources. The need for amylose in RS3 is the enhanced capability of amylose to quickly and strongly re-crystallize (retrograde) on cooling of a cooked starch matrix. The strong tendency of amylose to re-crystallize and the ability to grow and make the amylose crystallites more perfect during repeated heating and cooling cycles is exploited in the food industry in order to create sources of RS3 for addition to foods

Back to butyric: the higher levels of butyric acid that arise from the RS fermentation (compared to the higher amount of propionic acid fermented from non-starch fiber sources) are believed to be the genesis of the protective effects of RS against colo-rectal cancers. Butyric acid is believed to act as a cell growth regulator for the cells in the bowel epithelium, but also contributes to other more general factors that improve bowel function such as lowered fecal pH. RS appears to be fermented in the distal (descending) colon, as opposed to non-starch fibers that are fermented in the ascending and transverse colons, it extends these beneficial attributes further along the digestive tract.

I’ve been having a work “vacation” – working with Craig Ponsford at the “Ponsford’s Place”  Innovation Center [link] to fine-tune our barley bread formulations.

We uncovered some interesting processing challenges that point to the particle size of the barley flour as being a suspect.

We played with the water because barley has so much great soluble fiber as mixed linkage beta 1-3, 1-4 glucans that it soaks up water like a sponge. These breads had 50% by flour weight whole-milled barley flour and respectively left to right 90% or 100% [flour basis] water. 100% water on this basis is equal weights of flour and water, and still it made bread.

Oregon State University’s “Streaker” hull-less barley going into the mill.

Once again food gums come to the rescue of our building project.

This time – sodium alginate.

Here an I applying a slurry of a 2% (w/w) alginate solution containing peat moss, compost, and grass seeds to a newly exposed cut at the back of our driveway.

The alginate forms a gel slowly in-situ using the Ca2+ from the soil, and we found out, from the peat moss. It seems to bind the soil  and retains moisture for the seeds.

The alginates gel more strongly if there are more “G” or guluronate blocks than “M” or mannuronate blocks based on a variant of the ion-mediated “egg-box” junction zones of a similar nature to those found in low- methoxy pectins.

Other polysaccharides with ability to bind soil exist, possibly the most unusual one being the gums of  a “new” polysaccharide complex from the seeds of  “Artemisia sphaerocephala” in the family Asterceae. A sphaerocephala is thought to have pectin-like polymers with arabinogalactan side chains and the putative presence of a 4-O-Methyl glucuronoxylan which is considered to be bioactive (Batbayar et al., 2008).

In contrast Zhang et al. (2007) reported onlythe presence of arabinose, xylose, lyxose, mannose, glucose, and d-galactose but no acidic monosaccharides.

The reported ability of A sphaerocephala gum to improve chewing quality and elasticity in noodles (Xing et al., 2009) may suggest an anionic polymer with gelling capabilities similar to alginate or low-methoxy pectins. A sphaerocephala gum is reputed to be effective against diabetes and has a clinical record in animal studies to support that conjecture (e.g. (Xing et al., 2009).

Soil? A sphaerocephala gum also has the interesting property of being able to aggregate sandy soil (Batbayar et al., 2008).

BATBAYAR, N., BANZRAGCH, D., INNGJERDINGEN, K. T., NARAN, R., MICHAELSEN, T. E. & PAULSEN, B. S. 2008. Polysaccharides from  Mongolian plants and their effect on the complement system:  I.  Polysaccharides from plants of the Asteraceae family. Asian Journal of Traditional Medicines, 3, 33-41.

ZHANG, J., WU, J., LIANG, J., HU, Z., WANG, Y. & ZHANG, S. 2007. Chemical characterization of Artemisia seed polysaccharide. Carbohydrate Polymers, 67, 213-218.

Congratulations to Subha Ranjan Das an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry @ Carnegie Mellon University

For

The Kitchen Chemistry Sessions

and

The taste of Chemistry

Lots of inspiration and resources available through these links

Chemistry in the Kitchen

a forum

The Kitchen Chemistry Sessions

A Facebook page

CMU’s Magazine

Our 2011 FST 425 “Bringing Food Chemistry to Life” pretzels ready for the acid, neutral, and pH 8, 10, and 14 dips.

From Eurkalert

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/uon-tqf020411.php

What barley foods can do for you…

They can keep you satisfied with outstanding flavor as well as keep you healthy and regular, as our whole-grain experiments in fine food here at Oregon State University are showing us.

Sourdough barley boules: 50% of the flour is barley in the style of a light rye via Michel Suas’ “Advanced Bread and Pastry”

Barley baguettes made with a yeasted biga – again 50% of the flour is wholegrain barley and of that 10 to 25% [depending on the day] is our own “Wintwax” winter-habit hulled waxy variety. The rest is our beautiful mutli-colored hull-less winter food barley, also milled as a whole-grain on our stone-mills. Both varieties were bred here at Oregon State University by the denizens of Oregon State University’s BARLEYWORLD. The lack of AMYLOSE in the waxy barley flour gives an outstanding softness and moistness to the crumb. Too much though leaves the bread too soft to support itself: we need that retrograded amylose network. Too much waxy starch also reduces the flavor formation in the crust: clearly messing with the water activity too.

Off to make a “Willamette Valley Sourdough Barley” the autolyse is ready to mix.

Poolish barley baguettes soon as well as great 100 % whole-grain breads made from wheat varieties bred and grown in Oregon by the Oregon State University wheat breeding team, the hard red winter wheat Norwest553 primarily,  and of course wholegrain barley bread by the Oregon State University barley breeding team.

Great discussion of the bread-making process by award winning, erudite, and articulate baker Craig Ponsford. Craig is a past chairman of the board of  the Bread Bakers Guild of America and won the French and Specialty Breads category in the 1996 Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie in France, the win helping to energize the artisan bread movement in the USA. Craig is incredibly generous of spirit as I have luckily come to know over the last year.

[Tom McMahon was the founder of the BBGA]

CRAIG’S “OBSESSIVES” VIDEO at Chow: a beautifully straight-forward exposé of the craft

Craig just opened a new place in San Rafael CA. PONSFORD’S PLACE. It’s worth visiting the website, but if you’re in the area visit the bakery.

You can also see Criag in action at http://communitygrains.com/using.html making a whole-wheat ciabatta [formulation here].

On the theme of community grains keep your eyes out for the Kneading Conference West in the state of Washington September 2011, where if plans go right I will be presenting on formulating barley flour into hand-crafted breads. This is a new extension of the well regarded Kneading Conference in Maine. The barely work is part of our push to reintroduce barley as a mainstream food. The major partner in this is our barley breeding program led by Pat Hayes.

Other proponents of barley as food can be found at…

http://www.barleyfoods.org/

and

http://www.canadianfoodbarley.ca/CFB%20website_english/index.htm

Both sites have info and recipes to help make barley a part of your day.

Why would you. Well apart from great taste it’s good for you.

WHAT BARLEY FOODS CAN DO FOR YOU

Interesting supplementary reading for my Food Chem Winter 2011 class.

http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v4/n10/full/nmat1496.html

AND

http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v3/n9/full/nmat1207.html

-OSU students: you  should be able to see the full text versions [html and pdf] if you are logged in to the OSU system.

How did I miss this series?

Thanks to Martin Lersch at Khymos for being on the ball and posting about this very interesting series from the Harvard School of Engineering and  Applied Sciences and introduced by Prof. David Weitz the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics.

Here is the YouTube link “Science and Cooking”

It will take a lot of viewing, around 24 hours if you watch every minute of the whole series.