Reducing salt in Parmigiano Reggiano cheese might not negatively affect its flavor
2021-02-24
(Press-News.org) Aged cheeses pack a punch of nutty, sharp flavor. Before they're fully mature, aged cheeses are either waxed or placed in brine for weeks to create a natural rind. However, the high salt content in brined cheeses deters some consumers. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Food Science & Technology present a shortened brining time for Parmigiano Reggiano that results in a less salty product, while still potentially maintaining the cheese's distinctive texture and flavor compounds.
Parmigiano Reggiano is a lactose-free, crumbly and hard cheese. Manufactured in select provinces in Italy, its protected designation of origin status requires that certain production processes, such as a minimum 12-month ripening period, be performed. Ripening or maturing imparts the cheese's recognizable taste as milk solids are converted to flavor compounds. But before that, cheese wheels are placed in a saturated brine solution for weeks. The added salt plays a key role in the ripening process by modulating microbial growth, enzyme activity and the separation of solids from liquids, hardening the final product. One enzyme-mediated reaction is lipolysis, in which triglyceride fats in milk break down into their key components -- free fatty acids and diacylglycerides. Free fatty acids not only contribute to the taste of the cheese but are also precursors to other flavor molecules. So, Silvia Marzocchi and colleagues wanted to test the impact of brining time on the lipolysis reactions responsible for the free fatty acids involved in Parmigiano Reggiano's flavor profile and distinctive characteristics.
The researchers had five Parmigiano Reggiano dairies brine several cheese wheels by immersing them in a saturated salt solution for either 18 days or a shorter 12-day period. Then the wheels were ripened for 15 months under conditions typical for this type of cheese. Salt content in fully ripened cheese was 9% lower in the samples brined for a shorter time than the group with the longer procedure. Unexpectedly, the researchers found no difference in the moisture level, cholesterol and total fat in the two sets of cheeses. The team also observed no major variations in compounds involved in the flavor profile, as most of the 32 free fatty acids had overlapping concentration ranges between the two groups. Yet in the cheeses with the shorter salting time, overall, the total free fatty acids and the total diacylglycerides concentration ranges were 260% and 100% higher, respectively, than the traditionally brined version, suggesting the lower salt to moisture ratio resulted in more water available to lipolysis reactions and more rapid enzymatic activity breaking down triglycerides. The researchers say a reduced brining time for Parmigiano Reggiano could result in a product appealing to salt-conscious consumers, but sensory tests are still needed to indicate if they can detect differences to the overall taste and texture.
INFORMATION:
The authors acknowledge funding from the PARENT Project, the European Regional Development Fund to the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientifi? cas y Te?cnicas.
The paper is freely available as an ACS AuthorChoice article here.
For more of the latest research news, register for our upcoming meeting, ACS Spring 2021. Journalists and public information officers are encouraged to apply for complimentary press registration by emailing us at newsroom@acs.org.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS' mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and its people. The Society is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a specialist in scientific information solutions (including SciFinder® and STN®), its CAS division powers global research, discovery and innovation. ACS' main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.
Follow us: Twitter | Facebook
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-02-24
Scientists have made a pivotal breakthrough in the quest to understand how single-cell green algae are able to keep track of the light as they swim.
A team of researchers from the University of Exeter's flagship Living Systems Institute has discovered how the model alga Chlamydomonas is seemingly able to scan the environment by constantly spinning around its own body axis in a corkscrewing movement. This helps it respond to light, which it needs for photosynthesis.
The tiny alga, which is found abundantly in fresh-water ponds across the world, swims by beating its two flagella, hair-like structures that adopt a whip-like movement to move the cell. These flagella beat in much the same way as the cilia in the human respiratory ...
2021-02-24
NEW YORK (February 24, 2021) -- Nearly half of women with uncomplicated urinary tract infections received the wrong antibiotics and almost three-quarters received prescriptions for longer than necessary, with inappropriately long treatment durations more common in rural areas, according to a study of private insurance claims data published today in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.
"Inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions for uncomplicated urinary tract infections are prevalent and come with serious patient- and society-level consequences," said Anne Mobley Butler, PhD, lead author of the study and assistant professor ...
2021-02-24
In the first few months of their lives, babies cry, babble, gurgle and make a variety of other peculiar sounds. It can be difficult to imagine that they are actually laying the foundations for later speech with these utterances. However, there is a determining element that proves that even their cries can be assigned to a particular language: the speech melody - or, more accurately: prosody.
"Every language is characterised by specific musical elements, which we call prosody," says Kathleen Wermke. Prosody, in simple terms, is the combination of intonation (melody) and rhythm. Earlier studies have shown that even newborns are able to distinguish different languages, like German ...
2021-02-24
Everyone knows 2 + 2 = 4, but what about mosquitoes plus malaria? Lauren Childs, an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at Virginia Tech, says there's an equation for that too.
Childs recently co-authored a report with a team from Harvard University on the role of natural mosquito behavior on transmission of a disease that threatens half the world's population.
The study, "Multiple blood feeding in mosquitoes shortens the Plasmodium falciparum incubation period and increases malaria transmission potential," was published in the December 2020 issue of PLOS Pathogens.
"Worldwide there are about 400,000 deaths and 200 million cases each year from malaria," said Childs, a faculty member with the Virginia Tech College ...
2021-02-24
Prisons with more green space have lower levels of violence and self-harm, according to new research at the University of Birmingham and Utrecht University.
The study is the first to attempt large-scale mapping of green space within prison environments and link it to well-being in a robust, statistically significant way. The results are published in Annals of the American Association of Geographers.
The researchers used GIS mapping to identify the percentages of green space (such as trees, lawns and shrubbery) within prisons in England and Wales. They ...
2021-02-24
A new report shows that British citizens who are missing abroad were more than twice as likely to be found by UK police as police in the country of disappearance.
Research by the Centre for the Study of Missing Persons (CSMP) at the University of Portsmouth also shows they were likely to be missing for much longer than if they'd disappeared in the UK.
The study found that British people who vanish abroad tend to be missing for extended periods, on average 134 days. This compares with 88 percent of people who go missing in the UK being found within the first 48 hours.
Dr Karen Shalev-Greene, Director of the ...
2021-02-24
Extreme weather driven by climate change is making power outages more commonplace even as the need for electricity-dependent home health equipment grows. In this context, battery storage can help protect medically vulnerable households, according to researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The article is published in the journal Futures.
For the millions reliant on electricity for home medical equipment, even short-term power outages can lead to a potentially life-threatening situation. Society's most vulnerable populations--elders, ...
2021-02-24
Heads or tails? If we toss two coins into the air, the result of one coin toss has nothing to do with the result of the other. Coins are independent objects. In the world of quantum physics, things are different: quantum particles can be entangled, in which case they can no longer be regarded as independent individual objects, they can only be described as one joint system.
For years, it has been possible to produce entangled photons - pairs of light particles that move in completely different directions but still belong together. Spectacular results have been achieved, for example in the field of quantum teleportation or quantum cryptography. Now, a new method has been ...
2021-02-24
Knowing the environmental and human-related variables that characterize the favorable areas for the incidence of the West Nile virus, a flavivirus that is transmitted from birds to humans by mosquitoes, is essential to identify those places in Europe at high risk of experiencing outbreaks, even before these are registered, thus enabling preventive measures to be taken.
Researchers of the Biogeography, Diversity and Conservation Group of the University of Malaga have developed risk models for West Nile Fever, the disease caused in humans by this virus, which, based on historical incidence data, may predict areas of future outbreaks a year in advance, as well as detect their intensity.
Artificial intelligence to develop risk ...
2021-02-24
Leesburg, VA, February 24, 2021--An open-access article in ARRS' American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) describes the clinical and imaging features of axillary adenopathy detected during screening or diagnostic breast imaging after recent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination to inform the development of follow-up recommendations.
Shabnam Mortazavi of the University of California at Los Angeles reviewed electronic medical records to identify women with post-COVID-19 vaccination adenopathy found from December 2020 to February 2021. For mammography, Mortazavi considered a node abnormal when its size, shape, or density was deemed disproportionate to other axillary nodes (ipsilateral or contralateral). On ultrasound, she deemed ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Reducing salt in Parmigiano Reggiano cheese might not negatively affect its flavor
