%0 Journal Article
%T Fat and Moisture Content in Chinese Fried Bread Sticks: Assessment and Rapid Near-Infrared Spectroscopic Method Development
%A Zhuqing Xiao
%A Keqiang Lai
%A Rui Du
%A Yungang Shen
%A Xiaohua Sun
%A Yun Pan
%A Barbara A. Rasco
%A Yiqun Huang
%J Journal of Spectroscopy
%D 2013
%R 10.1155/2013/973623
%X Fried bread sticks (FBS) are one of the most widely consumed deep fried food products in China. Understanding the fat and moisture content in FBS will help consumers make healthy food choices as well as assist food processors to provide FBS with desirable quality. Rapid Fourier transform near-infrared methods (FT-NIR) were developed for determining fat and moisture content in FBS collected from 123 different vendors in Shanghai, China. FBS samples with minimum sample preparation (either finely or coarsely ground) were used for NIR analyses. Spectra of FBS were treated with different mathematic pretreatments before being used to build models between the spectral information and fat (7.71%¨C30.89%) or moisture (17.39%¨C32.65%) content in FBS. Finely ground samples may lead to slightly more robust PLS models, but the particle sizes of ground FBS samples did not seriously affect the predictability of the models with appropriate mathematical treatments. The fat and moisture content in FBS predicted by FT-NIR methods had very good correlation with their values determined via traditional methods (fat, ; moisture, ), which clearly indicated that FT-NIR methods could be used as an effective tool for rapid determination of fat and moisture content in FBS. 1. Introduction Chinese fried bread sticks (FBS), also known as youtiao or Chinese crullers, are very popular Chinese breakfast foods. Made from deep frying dough with leavening agents, FBS have delicious flavor and unique texture. FBS are chewy and crispy outside, but moist, light, and very porous inside. As a traditional Chinese breakfast food, each morning freshly made FBS are available from street vendors everywhere across the nation. Even fast-food giants, such as KFC, offer FBS in China to win over its local customers. Because of their desirable flavor, being easy-to-make, and of affordable price, FBS are probably the most widely consumed deep fried food in China [1]. One of the consumers¡¯ major concerns over FBS is their high fat content, a common issue associated with deep fried foods. Though fat is essential to a healthy diet and is important to provide food with desirable flavor and textural properties, but a high intake of fat may lead to an increase of health risks, such as obesity and chronic heart diseases [2]. With China¡¯s rapid economic development, Chinese consumers become increasingly aware of the health risks of high fat diets. Understanding the fat content of traditional Chinese foods like FBS will help consumers make healthy food choices. In addition, fat together with moisture content in FBS
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jspec/2013/973623/