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Multi-scale analysis of brown seaweed fortified pasta on structural, functional, nutraceutical, sensorial and
Zu Jia Lee1, Cundong Xie1, Shujun Ye1
1School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia.
Abstract:
Brown seaweed is an underutilised marine ingredient for cereal product fortification despite its nutritional and functional properties. In this study, we studied the multi-scale effect of brown seaweed fortification in pasta from structural to sensorial attributes. MixoLab analysis showed brown seaweed addition dose dependently increased gluten network strength by 19-22%. Seaweed fortified pasta exhibited increased hardness and chewiness by 32.8% and 41.0% of pasta along with reduced SDS extractability and increased gluten hydrophobicity. This indicates an enhanced gluten network, supported by increased starch order and β sheets content of up to 6.9% in FTIR as well as a more compact gluten network observed in microstructure analysis. Nutritionally, the total phenolic content and antioxidant activity increased dose dependently with the highest values observed at 2.5% seaweed inclusion level. Volatile profiling of cooked pasta showed increased presence marine or earthy odour compounds which caused decrease in sensory acceptance.
