Flavor enhancers are substances that supplement or enhance the original flavor of food, and there are currently 9 kinds of flavor enhancers approved for use in the national standard GB 2760-2014, namely L-alanine, disodium succinate, glycine, capsicum oleoresin, sodium saccharin, disodium 5'-flavored nucleotide, disodium 5'-inosinate, disodium 5'-guanylate and sodium glutamate.
Glycine has a sweet taste, can reconcile sour and salty taste, basically eliminate the bitter taste of food added saccharin, but the amount of glycine is limited, the national standard stipulates that the addition limit in condiments and beverage products is ≤0.1%, as a non-essential amino acid, excessive intake of the human body is not easy to be absorbed and utilized, but will destroy the absorption and metabolic balance of amino acids in the body, resulting in nutritional disorders and damage to health.
Capsicum oleoresin has a strong spicy taste and has a moxibustion heat feeling, which can increase the spicy taste of food and cannot be used to reconcile the taste of food.
The remaining several flavor enhancers, except for L-alanine, are sodium salts, and when used too much, they run counter to the "low sodium" life currently advocated, so the unique advantages of L-alanine as a flavor enhancer are gradually highlighted.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" >01, L-alanine in food application advantages</h1>
L-Alanine is an amino acid with a special umami and sweet taste, which can improve the nutritional value of food and improve the flavor of food, and is widely used in various foods and compound seasonings. L-Alanine has natural advantages over the rest of the flavor enhancers:
(1) Does not contain sodium ions, is in line with the concept of "low sodium" healthy life, and will not bring disadvantages to the human body due to excessive intake, inducing diseases such as hypertension and atherosclerosis;
(2) Can be added on demand, the national standard strictly stipulates the dosage of flavor enhancers such as glycine, and the excessive use of other flavor enhancers may disturb the metabolic balance of the body, but alanine can be added as needed;
(3) It can improve the quality of food and stimulate the flavor of the ingredients themselves.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" >02, L-alanine flavor enhancers</h1>
First, the obvious taste
L-Alanine is mainly umami and sweet, the two are stronger than the sweetness, in the use of food, compared with the role of increasing food sweetness, give food umami while reconciling the taste of food, stimulate the taste of the ingredients themselves more. In addition, L-alanine can also reconcile the salty and sour taste of food, alleviate the taste of spicy, bitter, astringent and other tastes, and has a good effect on maintaining the overall taste of food.
Second, enhance the role of umami
L-Alanine was first used in synthetic wines to increase the rich flavor and sweetness of wine. When L-alanine is used in combination with other seasonings, it can present a more advanced taste, and at the same time, it can mask the astringency of other seasonings themselves, making the ingredients more delicious. If you increase the concentration of alanine in the yeast essence, you can significantly reconcile the astringency, make it fragrant, and even trigger the flavor that was originally hidden in the yeast essence.
Image source: Qiantu network members
Third, ease the salty and sour taste
L-Alanine has the characteristics of alleviating saltiness, which can reduce the bad saltiness of the pickled product itself, and trigger the umami taste of the food while adjusting the salty taste, making a more delicious food. L-alanine for vinegar, citric acid and other sour taste, in the case of little change in its pH value, has the characteristics of neutralizing acid factors and reconciling food sourness, which is to eliminate the sour taste through the mild effect of L-alanine, which is generally called "alleviating the sourness effect".
Fourth, the effect on sweet substances
L-Alanine is a very sweet amino acid with a sweetness of 1.2 times that of sucrose. L-Alanine and sweet substances are also mutual reaction, in the bean paste cake and other pastries, alanine can give these foods a strong sweetness, making it a soft, sweet and refreshing food, in addition, alanine can enhance the flavoring effect of chemical seasonings, alleviate the bad taste of artificial sweeteners, can effectively improve the bitter taste of high-power sweeteners.
Fifth, improve the durability of the taste
As people's attention to health increases, society is also promoting a light diet. Adding L-alanine to these light-flavored foods improves taste persistence, so that food is not as dull and tasteless as water, making it a delicious food with a mature taste. Alanine, with a critical value of 0.06%, has a longer-lasting taste than 0.5% sugar and 0.2% table salt.
6. Dilute the unpleasant taste in food
L-Alanine has the effect of eliminating bad odors. Adding 0.2%-1% alanine to soy milk or vegetable juice can significantly reduce the unpleasant taste, making the taste better and more acceptable.
In addition, L-alanine can also prevent the aging of sparkling wine, reduce the odor of yeast, make the flavor of foaming and fermented wine more mellow, effectively alleviate the astringency and astringent taste of chitosan, tannins, catechins, etc., as well as alkaline unique irritating tastes such as sodium carbonate and shell calcium. In addition, it can also reduce the bitterness of citrus drinks such as grapefruit juice and orange juice, and the bitterness of divergent amino acids such as L-valine and L-isoleucine.
7. Other roles
Alanine also has chelating (metal-blocking effect). It can make kelp, jam and other foods moderately softened, through this effect, make the original very hard kelp easy to eat, so that the long-term preservation of jam food will not become hard, bread can also be simply stretched. In addition, the addition of an aqueous solution of alanine to the edamame not only improves the umami taste, but also keeps the edamame fresh and green when preserved.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="28" >03, L-alanine in some commercially available products</h1>
L-Alanine is widely used in condiments to make condiments richer and more delicious. While harmonizing the taste, it can also improve the nutritional value and safety of condiments, and meet the public's consumption concept.
First, the application in condiments
(1) Soy sauce
After adding 4% L-alanine, 3% sodium L-glutamate and 4% glycine to a compound soy sauce product sold on the market and unconcosted soy sauce crude oil, respectively, the results of sensory evaluation of all samples are shown in Table 2.
The results show that the addition of an appropriate amount of L-alanine has a good flavor improvement effect on both processed soy sauce and crude oil, which can reduce the saltiness of soy sauce, increase sweetness, increase the durability of taste, and the overall taste becomes soft, especially for soy sauce crude oil with high salinity, sodium L-glutamate, I+G and yeast extract.
(2) Edible salt
With the deepening of consumers' concept of light taste, a low-sodium diet will become a healthy way to eat. The main ingredients of low sodium salt launched abroad are 60%-70% sodium chloride and 20%-30% potassium chloride, about 10% L-alanine, yeast extract and I+G, which can achieve salt reduction without salt reduction, help the human body's sodium and potassium balance, increase umami taste, especially can reduce the amount of MONOS glutamate, which has played a positive role in preventing and reducing hypertension.
(3) Chicken essence
In order to enhance the flavor of chicken essence, in addition to increasing the amount of chicken powder, some manufacturers give priority to adding L-alanine to their chicken essence formula, using the umami taste of L-alanine and the role of inducing food flavor to enhance the taste of chicken essence seasonings, which not only plays a role in coordinating freshness, but also reduces the intake of sodium in the human body. After dividing chicken essence prepared under the same conditions into two parts and adding an appropriate amount of L-alanine to one of the parts, the results of the determination of organoleptic indicators are shown in Table 3.
From Table 3, it can be seen that after the addition of L-alanine to chicken essence, its chicken flavor is more mellow and the umami taste is enhanced, indicating that L-alanine helps to improve the taste of chicken essence.
(4) Sauce
Sauces have odors from the fermentation process, such as bitterness and sourness, due to the use of fermented sauce ingredients. L-Alanine can significantly enhance the umami flavor intensity of the sauce, enhance the fullness of the taste, and alleviate the bad tastes such as acidity, astringency and bitterness of the fermented raw sauce itself in the sauce.
(5) Hot pot base
Studies have shown that 0.3%-1% L-alanine can improve the persistence of the umami and thick taste of the hot pot base soup base; it can coordinate the flavor and taste of the hot pot soup base, so that the salty, spicy, fresh, fragrant and other flavors of the hot pot soup base are more integrated and full.
2. Pickled products
Studies have shown that most of the color, aroma and taste of pickled products are derived from L-alanine and other flavored amino acids, and the richer the amino acid content, the stronger the umami, sweetness and aroma. L-alanine is added to pickled foods such as pickles, pickled radishes, cured meats, rice bran and other pickled foods according to 0.2%-0.3%, which can play a role in increasing flavor and flavor, and can also buffer the high-salt taste of pickled foods.
Third, the effect on refreshing drinks
L-alanine is an amphoteric electrolyte, which is alkaline in a strong acid environment and acidic in a strong alkali environment, so L-alanine can not only supplement the amino acid content in the beverage, but also use its own alkalinity and sweetness to reduce acidity and harmonize the flavor of the drink. After adding L-alanine to strong acidic beverages such as orange juice, grapefruit juice, and black acid drinks, alanine can neutralize acidity, increase its sweetness and aroma, and make it a delicious beverage.
Fourth, the effect on wine
The earliest application of alanine as a flavor enhancer was to add it to synthetic wine, increasing the rich flavor and sweetness of synthetic wine. L-Alanine can increase the sweetness of the wine, make the wine more mellow, prevent the browning of amino acids in beer and sparkling wine, and reduce yeast odor.
It is not difficult to find that at present, in some brands of products on the market, there is already a figure of L-alanine. L-Alanine is a health-enhancing flavor enhancer with a unique flavor that can strengthen nutrition, and alanine is also one of the non-essential amino acids that make up human proteins, which has important application value and great development potential.
Source: Food R&D and production, reprint must indicate this source. Cover image source: Qiantu network members
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