Ammonia caramels: Specifications and analysis

Abstract

Twenty three UK commercially produced ammonia caramels and eight experimentally produced ammonia caramels have been analysed by a range of physical and chemical tests, which include solids content, nitrogen levels, colour intensity and pH. A statistical treatment of the results is reported.

Assessment of 4-(5-)methylimidazole in soft drinks and dark beer

“…neurotoxic effects (Patey et al, 1985;Delgado-Vargas and Paredes-Ló pez, 2003). This fact assumes particular importance taking in consideration the steady rise of soft drink consumption in the recent last years worldwide.…”

“…4-MeI is a neurotoxic agent (Patey et al, 1985) and some in vitro studies have shown its capability to inhibit the cytochrome P450 isoenzyme which catalyses the oxidation of many known or suspected carcinogens of low molecular mass in the human liver (Hargreaves et al, 1994). Furthermore, a recent toxicological study conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of USA (Chan et al, 2008) showed that 4-MI can induce alveolar/bronchiolar adenoma and carcinoma in male and female mice.…”

Development and use of a gas Chromatographic method of analysis for low molecular weight compounds in glucose syrups and caramel colourings

“…Caramels/starting sugars UK manufacturer 1 provided samples of six ammonia caramels, three being of AC2 specification (Patey et al 1985) and three of AC3 specification. Samples of starting sugars used to make one of the AC2 caramels and one of the AC3 caramels were also provided.…”

“…Wall coated open tubular chromatography is well known to give improved resolution over packed column and has been used (Yamaguchi et al 1979) to Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 06:51 30 December 2015 analyse for low molecular weight components present in model systems where sugars have been heated with reactants which have included ammonia: high resolution of complex browning mixtures was achieved with over 100 components, substituted nitrogen-containing heterocycles, generally being resolved. The use of open tubular gas chromatography to analyse caramel components has not previously been reported, most of the recent literature dealing with either simple physical and chemical testing and ultrafiltration (Patey et al 1985) or gel permeation chromatography (Hellwig et al 1981, Frischenschlager et al 1982. Bearing in mind the increased resolution that open tubular columns give, we investigated this technique on dichloromethane extracts of caramels and their starting sugars, but were not satisfied regarding the effectiveness of this particular solvent.…”

“…Analysis of certain caramel food colours by a range of physical and chemical tests (E150) has been described in this Journal (Patey et al 1985). There is a lack of published information on the composition of caramels and to remedy this, our previous work dealt with general analysis on the widely used 'ammonia' caramels.…”