Colour Change: An Indicator of the Extent of Maillard Browning Reaction in Food System

The extent of Maillard browning reactions in cooking banana- and legumes-based weaning food as influenced by its storage environment was investigated, by measuring the intensity of browning of product using Gardner XL 800 tristimulus colorimeter equipped with a yellow standard tile (L* = 83.47, a* = -2.35, b* = 28.37). Sample was stored in glass jars and zip-loc bags at 20, 30 and 40 degrees C, respectively for 3 months. The zip-loc bag samples were stored at 75 % relative humidity (RH) to simulate the relative humidity in tropical regions of West Africa. Increased moisture content and water activity, decreased pH, protein and sugar contents of sample stored in the zip-loc bags at 40 degrees C for 12 weeks resulted in significantly darker product, with least L* value of 76.79 and highest b*(yellow) value of 24.58 and significantly higher value of a* (2.21) while samples stored in the jars had significantly different L*, a*, b*, hue and D E values at the end of the study. Results suggest that colour saturation intensified during storage for samples stored in the water permeable zip-loc bags at high temperatures may as a result of increased reactant mobility. Vapor barrier package (glass jar) was observed to significantly control Maillard reaction thus extending the shelf-life of the novel food.