Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Who has put beach waste in my ice cream?

9^th Euro-Global Summit & Expo on Food & Beverages

July 11-13, 2016 Cologne, Germany

A Tijero, A Moral, Menta Ballesteros and R Aguado

University Complutense of Madrid, Spain
Pablo de Olavide University of Seville, Spain

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

We humans cannot break cellulose, unlike starch, into simple sugars to meet our energetic needs and yet we eat cellulose. We do it when we eat vegetables and non-peeled fruits. These small amounts of cellulose are part of what nutritionists call �??insoluble fiber�?�. That is not all. Cellulose is also used as a food additive. Cellulose (white powder) is added to sour cream, yogurt, ice cream, milkshake, fast-food cheese and some non-dairy creamers. It makes your food creamy, gelatinous with no fat, no sugar and no calories. The bad part: it usually comes from wood (when not from cotton). Its manufacturing implies harvesting woods, debarking it, reacting it with sulfurous acid, reacting it with chlorine or chlorinated compounds, generating sludge�?� not a very clean process. We propose an easier, cheaper and cleaner process to obtain cellulose. Instead of wood from pine and eucalyptus, our raw material is everywhere across the European Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines: seagrass and macroalgae. They form blooms in the shorelines, affecting the environment, biodiversity, people�??s health and tourism. This waste is collected and then disposed or burnt, but�?� what if we could re-use it? According to our results, the lignin content of Z. noltii is in the low range and easily diminished. No need to use sulfurous acid. With small amounts of hydrogen peroxide, caustic soda, anthraquinone, magnesium sulfate and an activator complex known as DTPA, working under mild conditions, the percentage of lignin becomes as low as 3.76%, not hard to be removed in further treatments.

Biography :

Email: atijero@ucm.es