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Effects of Inorganic Phosphates on the Thermodynamic, Pasting, and Asian Noodle-Making Properties of Whole Wheat Flour

¹State Engineering Laboratory for Cereal Fermentation Technology, Jiangnan University, 1800 Lihu Avenue, Wuxi 214122, Jiangsu Province, China. ²Wheat Marketing Center, Inc., 1200 N.W. Naito Parkway, Suite 230, Portland, OR 97209, U.S.A. ³School of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, 1800 Lihu Avenue, Wuxi 214122, Jiangsu Province, China. ⁴Corresponding authors. Phone: (503) 295-0823. Fax: (503) 2952735. E-mail: ghou@wmcinc.org (G. Hou). Fax: +86 510 85867273 (Z. Chen).

The effects of four inorganic phosphates on the thermodynamic and pasting properties of whole wheat flour as well as color, cooking quality, textural properties, and structural characteristics of whole wheat noodles were studied. The addition of phosphates increased the gelatinization temperature and enthalpy of melting of starch in whole wheat flour. Rapid visco analysis showed that all phosphates significantly increased whole wheat flour peak viscosity and final viscosity. Moreover, the whole wheat noodles prepared with disodium phosphate, trisodium phosphate, and sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP) exhibited brighter appearance, and the use of STPP and sodium hexametaphosphate reduced the cooking loss of whole wheat noodles. Texture profile analysis of cooked noodles revealed that the addition of phosphates significantly decreased the hardness and slightly increased the springiness, cohesiveness, and resilience. The microstructure of whole wheat noodles showed a larger degree of connectivity of the protein network and coverage of starch granules in the presence of inorganic phosphates. The results suggested that inorganic phosphates exhibited substantial effects on improving the quality of whole wheat noodles. Of the four phosphates studied, STPP appeared to be the most effective one in improving the overall properties of whole wheat noodles when they were normalized to constant phosphate content.