Impact of selected additives on acrylamide formation in asparagine/sugar Maillard model systems

The main purpose of this paper was to study the effect of selected additives, NaCl, NaHSO3, ascorbic acid, cysteine and allicin, on acrylamide (AA) formation in asparagine/fructose (Asn/Fru) and asparagine/glucose (Asn/Glc) by microwave processing. Our results showed that NaHSO3 and cysteine had the best reduction rate on AA formation, but the browning would be influenced by the addition of these additives. Ascorbic acid is another good inhibitor for AA formation both in Asn/Fru and Asn/Glc model systems, but the browning would be inhibited by the high concentration of ascorbic acid. Natural antioxidants are attractive candidates for the development of effective inhibitors for AA formation. In the present study, allicin effectively reduced AA formation and achieved a maximum reduction rate of > 50% for the use of allicin at a concentration of 0.0375% in Asn/Fru model system. While in Asn/Glc model system, allicin did not show good reduction rate. Through RSM study, the lowest AA content was 0.181 μg/mL by the addition of allicin in Asn/Fru and 0.029 μg/mL by the addition of ascorbic acid in Asn/Glc model system, respectively. The study could be regarded as a pioneer contribution on AA reduction in Maillard model system by the addition of allicin.