Question

What is hydrogenation? Why do food manufacturers utilize this process and what are the potential health impacts of hydrogenation?

The quality of dietary protein differs among various sources, and provide an example of a high-quality protein and a low-quality protein in your response.

Answer 1

Hydrogenation: -

Hydrogenation is the process of addition of hydrogen to achieve saturated form of a organic compound. This process is mostly done in presence of a catalyst for example palladium or at increased temperature or pressure.

Food manufacturers use hydrogenation process to increase shelf life of a product as well as to reduce it's cost. Also increased oxidative stability and proper texture of the product is achieved by this process. For example, unsaturated fatty acids are converted into saturated fatty acids to be used in baking industry.

Potential helath impacts include elevated blood sugar level, harmfulness to heart, inflammation etc.

High quality proteins are those proteins which contain all the necessary amino acids. These are also known as complete protein. We already know that amino acids are the constituents of a protein. Animal proteins are mostly high quality proteins. An example of high quality protein is fish.

Low quality proteins are those proteins in which few necessary amino acids are absent. Low quality proteins are mostly derived from plant. An example of low quality protein is beans which are low in tryptophan amino acid.