[Artificial macaroni. 2. Biological value of synthetic macaroni]

Thermodynamic aspects of biopolymer functionality in biological systems, foods, and beverages

Molecular mimicry and molecular symbiosis are proposed to be the main factors controlling thermodynamic activity and phase behavior of macromolecular compounds in foods, beverages, and chyme. Molecular mimicry implies a chemical resemblance of hydrophilic surfaces of globular proteins with their chemical information hidden in the hydrophobic interior and low excluded volume of the globules. The molecular mimicry contributes to the efficiency of enzymes. Molecular symbiosis means that interactions attraction or repulsion) between biopolymer molecules greatly differing in conformation (globular and rod-like) favor the biological efficiency of one of them at least. The symbiosis is based on excluded volume effects of macromolecules in mixed solutions. Association-dissociation of rod-like macromolecules can dictate thermodynamic activity of an enzyme in the mixed solution. Thermodynamic incompatibility is typical of food macromolecules, whose denaturation, association, complexing, and chemical modification reduce their mimicry and co-solubility. Foods are normally phase-separated systems with highly volume-occupied phases. The phase-separated nature of the gel-like chyme is important to the efficiency of digestion of mixed diets. Phase separation of biopolymer mixtures, presumably, underlies mechanisms of nonspecific immune defense. The phase behavior-functionality relationships is presented through concrete examples of some foods (such as milk products, low-fat spreads, ice cream, wheat and rye doughs, thermoplastic extrudates, etc.), beverages (tea and coffee), and chyme.

Starch as a functional component of food systems

Starch and other carbohydrates of D-glucose series bind sodium ions but don't bind calcium ones. The affinity of beta-glucosides to sodium ions is much stronger than the affinity of D-glucose and of alpha-glucosides. Some other interrelations between the components of starch-containing food systems are briefly discussed.

[Rheological properties of a calcium alginate-potato starch hydrolysate-water system]

The rheological properties of liquid solutions and gels of sodium alginate, calcium gluconate and gelling maltodextrin were investigated and compared with the behaviour of pastes and gels of non-degraded potato starch. The dependence of the rheological properties upon the calcium gluconate concentration is extreme. A marked increase in the viscosity of the liquid solutions and maximal values for the hardness and the breaking strength of the gels are obtained at a calcium gluconate/sodium alginate ratio of 0.3. As to breaking strength, elasticity and hardness, the maltodextrin-based gels are many times inferior to the potato starch-based gels. The breaking strength, hardness and elasticity of maltodextrin gels are increased by the addition of sodium alginate and calcium gluconate, which increases their effectiveness when used in foods.

[Artificial food. 2. Possibilities of production of artificial foods]

The research program elaborated in the Institute of Element-Organic Compounds of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (INEOS) for the processing of proteins to liquid multi component-food-systems and their transformation into a gel-like condition became a kind of an independent scientific discipline. Thus production processes for different forms of artificial food on the basis of proteins of different origin could be developed.