New Researches in Biotechnology - Facultatea de Biotehnologii ...

Proceeding of the 4 rd International Symposium“NEW RESEARCH IN BIOTECHNOLOGY” USAMV Bucharest, Romania, 2011Sugar in jellies is essential to form not only to product sweet taste, but also the productstructure and gives to product calories (Bayarri et al., 2004). Some polysaccarides can beused to replace sugar in different sweets obtaining products with lower calories.Inulin is legally classified as food or a food ingredient, and not as additive in all countrieswhere it is processed in a number of different ways for the health food market (Roberfroid,2005, Frack, 2002; Kaur et al., 2002). Inulin has been defined as a polydispersecarbohydrate consisting mainly of β – (2→1) fructosylfructose links (Roberfroid, 2005).The most common are: native inulin with an average degree of polymerization (DP) of 10–12, inulin containing short chain fractions (with DP from 2 to 10) and a high performanceinulin with an average DP no less than 23 (Roberfroid, 2005).Inulin offers technological properties for a wide scope of food applications as well asimportant nutritional benefits. At high concentrations (> 25% in water for native and > 15%for long-chain inulin) inulin has gelling properties and forms a participle gel networkingafter shearing (Kim et al. 2001, Glibowski and Wasko 2008, Glibowski, 2009; Glibowskiand Bukowska, 2011). When inulin is thoroughly mixed with water, a white creamystructure is obtained that can easily be incorporated in foods to replace fat. One of is its fatmimetic property which is used in the production of yogurts with decreased caloricity andfull fat taste (Guven et al., 2005) and in ice-cream (El-Nagar et al., 2002) production.Inulin incorporation into baked goods allows the replacement of sugar, fibre enrichmentand better moisture retention properties (Frack, 2002). Inulin has found an interestingapplication as low calorie bulk ingredient in chocolate to replace sugar. Inulin syrup alsocan be used to substitute sugar in low-sugar jelly formulations by obtaining differentproduct quality (Kronberga et al., 2011; Kronberga and Karklina, 2011).Agar has been used for many centuries as a high performance gelling agent (Armisen et al.,2000; Stanley, 2006). Agar forms one of the strongest gels. Its ability to produce clear,colourless, odourless, and natural gels without the support of other colloids has long beenexploited by the food industry not only as a stabilizer and gelling agent but also in themanufacturing of confectionery (Barrangou et al., 2006).Interactions between hydrocolloids may modify the gel characteristics. The polysaccharidediffers from other hydrocolloids in property of its high gel strength. The synergistic effectof inulin with other gelling agents constitutes additional advantage in all these applications.In several products inulin, and especially long chain version, can even (partially) replacegelatine, starch, maltodextrin, and other stabilizers. As of present jelly structure propertiesaffected by agar-agar and inulin have not been investigated decreasing the content of agarand increasing the content of inulin in jellies. The knowledge of the mixed gels as well asthe stability of such gels becomes very important for the development new products.Therefore the objective of this research work was to evaluate effect of agar-agar and inulinon the structural properties of experimental gels.2. MATERIALS AND METHODSInulin granulated powder made from chicory root (Orafti GR produced by BENEO-Orafti,Belgium) was used in the experiments. Agar powder produced by AgarNordS, Estonia (E406) was used for preparation of experimental jellies. Sugar (Dansukker, Denmark) andcitric acid (E 330) were purchased in local retailing and added to experimental gels.71