What are different analytical tools to find the chemical composition of potato snacks? Explain in detail
Answers
Answer:
Franco Pedreschi, ... Thierry Marique, in Computer Vision Technology for Food Quality Evaluation, 2008
1 Introduction
Potato chips have been popular salty snacks for 150 years, and retail sales in the US are worth about $6 billion/year, representing 33 percent of the total sales of this market (Garayo and Moreira, 2002; Clark, 2003). In 2001 about 50 percent of the US potato crop was processed to produce 11 300 million kg of processed potatoes, of which 21.6 percent were made into chips. The worldwide trade over recent years indicates that about 7.4 × 107 kg of potato chips were exported, with a value of ∼$165 million annually (Economic Research Service, 2004).
Frying in hot oil at temperatures between 160° and 180°C is characterized by very high drying velocities, which are critical to improve not only the mechanical but also the structural properties of the potato chips (Baumann and Escher, 1995). Potato chips are thin slices whose moisture content decreases from around 80 percent to almost 2 percent when they are fried. However, the drying in oil inevitably leads to a considerable oil uptake of around 35 percent, most of which is located on the surface of the chip (there is almost no penetration during frying) and adheres to the surface at the end of frying. Therefore, a high proportion of oil penetrates into the food microstructure during the post-frying cooling stage (Ufheil and Escher, 1996; Aguilera and Gloria, 2000; Bouchon et al., 2003).
In the potato chip industry, the quality of each batch of potato tubers must be tested before processing, and of the various quality criteria the visual aspect, especially the color, is of great importance (Marique et al., 2005). Color of potato chips is the first quality parameter evaluated by consumers, and is critical in the acceptance of the product (Pedreschi et al., 2006). Consumers tend to associate color with flavor, safety, storage time, nutrition, and level of satisfaction, due to the fact that color correlates well with physical, chemical, and sensorial evaluations of food quality. The color of potato chips changes during frying, as the components of potatoes are restructured. Consequently, the surface color reflects not only the heterogeneous surface formed as a result of frying but also the non-homogeneous oil distribution. Visual aspects, such as surface color and appearance, can be studied using computer vision techniques in order to determine the potato chip.