Study on degassed water and its application to food engineering

1996 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 07556098
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 試験
• Research Field: 食品科学・栄養科学
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: YOSHIMURA Etsuro The Univ.of Tokyo, Agric.and Life Sciences, Assoc.Prof., 大学院・農学生命科学研究科, 助教授 (10130303)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): HONDA Katsuhisa Miura Kogyo., Inst.of Environ.Science, Vice-Director, 環境科学研究所, 副所長 ; OKUBO Akira The Univ.of Tokyo, Agric.and Life Sciences, Assoc.Prof., 大学院・農学生命科学研究科, 助教授 (20111479) ; YAMAZAKI Sunao The Univ.of Tokyo, Agric.and Life Sciences, Prof., 大学院・農学生命科学研究科, 教授 (00011982)
• Project Period (FY): 1995 – 1996
• Keywords: degassed water / food engineering / desolued oxygen / enzyme activity / rice cooking / heat-induced egg gel

Research Abstract

Various kinds of functional water such as electrolyzed and magnetized water are used for industries. One of them, degassed water is also applied to food production for the purpose of prevention of oxidation. Furthermore, the physicochemical effect of drinking degassed water on serum biochemical values in rats and decomposition of thymine induced by far UV in degassed aqueous solutions were examined. in this study, we paid attention to the other functions of degassed water such as penetration, and examined the application of degassed water to food processing ; cooking egg gel and boiling rice. We have a little information about the physicochemical characteristics of degassed water. Firstly, we measured the spin-lattice relaxation time (T_1) of water proton on 500Mhz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Stectrometer. Only deionized, not degassed water has short T_1 value comparing to degassed water, and nitrogen gas or argon gas substituted water. This facto shows T_1 was shortened by paramagnetic oxygen gas and that the degassed water did not have a special water structure, such as cluster structure. Then we examined the effect of degassed water on enzyme activity. Glucoamylase, alpha-amylase and alkaline phosphatase were used. We could not find the difference of enzyme activity between in degassed water and in ordinal water clearly. Only in the case that substrate was the powder form, the degassed water helped to increase the productivity of the product.
The application of degassed water to food processing was examined. Heat-induced egg gel cooked with degassed hard water had high quality and it's texture and color were similar to those of puddings on the market. The texture and the degree of geratinization of rice grains boiled with degassed water were improved. We concluded that cooking egg gel and boiling rice with degassed water may be new methods of food pocessing.