Enzymatic analysis in foods: applications in food industry

Did you know that the degree of bacterial contamination of foods or freshness of food, particularly, meat etc. can be determined through a simple enzymatic analysis in foods. Besides these, the other uses of enzymatic analysis are many. 

In the food industry, the activity of certain enzymes may be determined before and after pasteurization/sterilization procedures to ascertain the efficient completion of the process.

For e.g. alkaline phosphatase and invertase present in milk are inactivated within the same temperature range as is required for  pasteurization, so the activities of these enzymes at the end of the process gives an indication of  its effectiveness.

Similarly, the degree of bacterial contamination of foods can be estimated by the assay of microbial enzymes not normally present in foods, for e.g. milk should contain small amounts of reductases, but bacteria produce  large amounts of reductases.  Reductases may be easily assayed, because they catalyze the reduction of methylene blue to colourless leuco-methylene blue under anaerobic conditions. A test strip (Bacto-strip) incorporating 2,3,4-triphenyl tetrazolium salts provides a convenient way of testing for the presence of bacteria, a red formazan dye being produced as a result of the action of reductase.