Papain is widely used in food, the following are some details of its specific applications:
1. Improve the taste and texture of food
Tenderize meat: papain can cleave the collagen and muscle fibers in meat, making the structure of meat loose and the meat become tender. This not only simplifies the protein structure, making it easy for the body to digest and absorb, but also enhances the consumer’s eating experience. In meat processing, the addition of papain can make meat more tender and reduce cooking time.
Bakery: In the baking industry, papain improves dough extensibility and handling. It degrades gluten and softens dough, making it easier to work with. At the same time, papain can also improve the taste and quality of cookies and bread, so that the baked food is more fluffy and delicious.
2. Improve the nutritional value of food
Papain can effectively hydrolyze large molecules of protein into small molecules of peptides or amino acids, thus improving the utilization of protein and the nutritional value of food. This hydrolysis not only helps the human body on the absorption and utilization of proteins, but also for the food to add more kinds of amino acids and the number of food nutrients.
3. As a food additive
Papain is often used as a variety of additives in the food processing industry, such as meat tenderizer, wine clarifier, cookie fluffing agent, noodle stabilizer and so on. The application of these additives not only improves the taste and texture of food, but also improves the stability and shelf life of food.
Wine clarification: Papain can be used as a clarifying agent in the brewing process of beer and other wines. It removes suspended particles and impurities from wine and improves the clarity and stability of wine.
Cookie fluffing: In cookie making, papain can reduce the wet gluten of dough, improve the plasticity and physicochemical properties of dough. At the same time, it can also make protein macromolecules hydrolyzed into short peptides and amino acids, which is conducive to the complex Meladic reaction of sugars and aminos, thus making the cookies fast coloring, pleasing color and crispy texture.
Other applications
In addition to the above applications, papain has some other applications in the food industry. For example, it can be used to hydrolyze soybean, pearl protein, etc., to make high-level oral liquid, health food and so on. In addition, papain can also be used for the decomposition of proteins in the cheese manufacturing process, thus improving the texture and flavor of cheese.