Amino acids

Amino acids, peptides and proteins are important constituent of food. They supply the required building blocks for protein biosynthesis.

In another word proteins are polymers of amino acids. Amino acids contain an amino group (-NH2) and an acid group (-COOH). There are twenty amino acid that are found in proteins.

Protein molecules join resemble linked chains, with the links being amino acids joined by peptide bonds.

A peptide bond in formed by the condensation of the amino group (-NH2) or the amino acid with the acid group (-COOH) of another amino acid resulting in the loss of water.

Condensation reactions involve the removal of water (H2O) and formation of a bond. The reversal of this is hydrolysis, which involves the addition of water.

All amino acids have the same basic structure – a carbon with three groups attached to it: an amine group –NH2, and acid group –COOH, and a hydrogen atom H.

Peptide bonds are not easily broken, Cooking would not normally results in the breaking of peptide bonds to yield amino acids from proteins.

The amino acids form proteins due to the reaction between the amino group of one amino acid and the carboxyl group of another.

Of the 22 amino cods, only about half are essential for human nutrition, the amounts of these essential amino acids present in a protein and their availability determine the nutritional quality of the protein.

High quality proteins provide enough of all of the essential amino acids needed by the body to create its own working proteins, whereas low quality proteins don’t.

Protein contributes significantly to the physical properties of food through their ability to build or stabilize gels, foams, emulsion and fibrillar structure.
Amino acids