Alleviate Effect of Hydrocolloids on Heterocyclic Amines in Fried Meatball and Potential Mechanistic Revealed by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance and Quantum Chemical Computation

This study explored the effects of alginic acid, chitosan, and carrageenan on the content of free and bound heterocyclic amines (HAs) in fried meatballs. The resulted shows that all three hydrocolloids can effectively inhibit the generation of HAs. Furthermore, this study measured the production of intermediates of HAs. It was found that three aldehydes, phenylacetaldehyde, glyoxal and methyl glyoxal, were significantly inhibited, indicating that hydrocolloids could alleviate the production of total HAs by inhibiting the generation of intermediates. The generation of free radicals in the system was measured by electron paramagnetic resonance, and it was found that the three hydrocolloids could effectively inhibit the generation of total free radicals. Frontier orbital and density functional theory analysis revealed that carrageenan had the lowest HOMO-LUMO energy gaps, ionization potential, highest nucleophilic index, chemical potential, and was more likely to react with free radicals.