Remember acrylamide, that nasty substance (neurotoxin, probably carcinogenic) that was formed in the process of frying carb-rich foods to various golden crispy lovely tasty states? They found it in Sweden in 2002, and everyone went nuts.
Well, the world’s food chemists are on the case—trying to reduce acrylimides in their products without sacrificing flavor compounds.
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Mei Lin Low at the University of Reading has developed a kinetic model that describes what happens when a potato cooks. The comforting flavor of a fried potato relies on compounds known as ” Strecker aldehydes ” and “pyrazines” that form during the delicious Maillard reaction. Techniques to stop those same reactions from forming acrylimides include dumping in a little citric acid to change the pH and mixing in a bit of glycine. Alas, both options also mess up some of these key flavor compounds.
But, says Low, they do different things to the different compounds. (Even something as straightforward as nummy potato taste is a complex bouquet of the things) So if you do a little bit of each, you can theoretically get your acrylamides down without noticeably changing the flavor.
All her work is on paper. No tasters have yet brought in. But scan your bag of potato chips in a year or so and see if both citric acid and glycine are in the ingredient list.
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