Modeling deep-fat frying for control of acrylamide reaction in plantain Joseph Bassama a , Pierre Brat a , Renaud Boulanger a , Ziya Günata b , Philippe Bohuon c,⇑ a CIRAD, UMR QualiSud 40/15, 73 rue J.-F. Breton, 34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, France b Université Montpellier II, UMR Qualisud, place E. Bataillon, 34095 Montpellier Cedex 5, France c Montpellier SupAgro, UMR QualiSud, 1101 avenue Agropolis, CS 24501, 34093 Montpellier Cedex 5, France article info Article history: Received 22 July 2011 Received in revised form 6 April 2012 Accepted 17 April 2012 Available online xxxx Keywords: Frying Heat and mass transfer Maillard reaction Modeling Process optimization abstract This paper discusses the possibility of controlling acrylamide formation/elimination reactions in plantain during frying. A 2D model including heat and vapor transfer and acrylamide reactions was developed. The model was validated against experimental data, consisting of the plantain core temperature and average water and acrylamide contents. Validations were made on two different typical plantain-based foods, i.e. ‘‘tajadas’’ (thick product) and ‘‘tostones’’ (thin product), in which the acrylamide contents were found to be 0.24 and 0.44 mg kg 1 (fat-free dry basis), respectively. The simulations highlighted that non-isother- mal heat treatment is a good strategy to reduce the acrylamide content (up to 50% reduction). However, controlling the asparagine content in the raw material through maturity stage selection or by implement- ing immersion pretreatments is an easier way to mitigate the acrylamide net amount in plantain products. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Acrylamide, a potential human carcinogen, is formed in food through Maillard reactions (Elmore et al., 2005). Since 2002, many studies have focused on acrylamide contents in frequently consumed heat treated food products (Brunton et al., 2007; Pedreschi et al., 2007a; Tareke et al., 2002). However, the presence of acrylamide in typical tropical foods remains poorly investigated. Acrylamide contents in different tropical foods were estimated through correlations with non-enzymatic browning values and ranged from 0.02 to 1.04 mg kg 1 (Quayson and Ayernor, 2007). To our knowledge, no studies have focused on the analytical quan- tification of acrylamide in plantain-based food. Plantain is a sub- group of cooking bananas and widely consumed in tropical countries. In 2006, world plantain production represented 18% of the world banana production with 18 million tons (Lescot, 2008). Due to the high native starch content in plantain (close to that of potato), the foodstuff must be cooked (gelatinized) before it is edi- ble. Plantain-based products are mainly prepared by deep-fat fry- ing and plantain crisps are more consumed, in terms of volume, than potato or banana crisps (Vitrac and Raoult-Wack, 2002). Deep-fat frying is defined as the process of cooking foods by soaking them in edible fat or oil at a temperature above the boiling point of water, usually 120–180 °C(Farkas et al., 1996a). Frying is often chosen because of its ability to create unique flavors and textures in processed foods. It is also a very fast food processing method among conventional heat transfer methods. A proper understanding of the mechanisms of deep-fat frying is important for the development of predictive models, which save experimen- tation time and cost. Since the studies of Farkas et al. (1996a), during the frying process the material is often described as being a two-region model with a sharp boundary separating the core and the crust region. Frying is considered as a moving boundary problem where the interface between crust and core moves. This formulation is also called a front-tracking model. Farkas et al. (1996a,b) provided a detailed model of heat and water transport in deep-fat frying of potato slices. Separate equa- tions were used for each region (crust and core), while pressure- driven flow was included in the crust for the vapor phase. However, diffusion flow in the crust region and pressure-driven flow of liquid and vapor in the core region were overlooked. More- over, the model did not include the oil phase or the effect of chang- ing porosity on heat and mass transfer. Moving boundary models that just solve the heat transfer equation have also been reported (Bouchon and Pyle, 2005; Farid and Chen, 1998). In contrast to sharp boundary models, distributed evaporation models were developed which consider evaporation to be distributed over a zone (Ni and Datta, 1999; Yamsaengsung and Moreira, 2002). For a given frying situation, it is possible that the real evaporation zone is very narrow, closer to the sharp interface, and the distributed evaporation formulation would actually predict such narrow evap- oration zone. At high internal evaporation rates, significant pres- sure-driven flows can be present for all phases and throughout the material. Therefore, a set of empirical equations describing the water–vapor equilibrium relation for specific food materials 0260-8774/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2012.04.004 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 4 67 615726; fax: +33 4 67 615728. E-mail address: philippe.bohuon@supagro.inra.fr (P. Bohuon). Journal of Food Engineering xxx (2012) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Food Engineering journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng Please cite this article in press as: Bassama, J., et al. Modeling deep-fat frying for control of acrylamide reaction in plantain. Journal of Food Engineering (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2012.04.004