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Article: Prediction of pH in Complex Foods.
- Article from:
- Food Trade Review
- Article date:
- April 1, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Food Trade Press Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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As readers will appreciate, the acidity of foods is important for a number of reasons. It affects the flavour, structure and often the colour, and can be one of the determinants in the microbiological stability of products. Micro-organisms, especially food poisoning ones, grow less well in acidic foods and many preservatives used to extend shelf-life work better against bacteria at a low pH.
The pH of a food system is related to the concentrations of protons or hydrogen ions, and these protons come from the 'acid' ingredients that release them in the presence of water. The difficulty in predicting pH is due to the fact that most of the protons in food come from ...