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Inulin
Inulins are a group of naturally occurring polysaccharides produced by many types of plants, industrially most often extracted from chicory. The inulins belong to a class of dietary fibers known as fructans. Inulin is used by some plants as a means of storing energy and is typically found in roots or rhizomes. Most plants that synthesize and store inulin do not store other forms of carbohydrate such as starch. In 2018, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved inulin as a dietary fiber ingredient used to improve the nutritional value of manufactured food products. Using inulin to measure kidney function is the "gold standard" for comparison with other means of estimating glomerular filtration rate. Origin and history Inulin is a natural storage carbohydrate present in more than 36,000 species of plants, including agave, wheat, onion, bananas, garlic, asparagus, Jerusalem artichoke, and chicory. For these plants, inulin is used as an energy reserve a ...
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Dietary Fiber
Dietary fiber (fibre in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or roughage is the portion of plant-derived food that cannot be completely broken down by human digestive enzymes. Dietary fibers are diverse in chemical composition and can be grouped generally by their solubility, viscosity and Fermentation#Biological role, fermentability which affect how fibers are processed in the body. Dietary fiber has two main subtypes: soluble fiber and insoluble fiber which are components of plant-based foods such as legumes, whole grains, cereals, vegetables, fruits, and nut (fruit), nuts or seeds. A diet high in regular fiber consumption is generally associated with supporting health and lowering the risk of several diseases. Dietary fiber consists of non-starch polysaccharides and other plant components such as cellulose, resistant starch, resistant dextrins, inulins, lignins, chitins, pectins, beta-glucans, and oligosaccharides. Food sources of dietary fiber have ...
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Polysaccharide
Polysaccharides (), or polycarbohydrates, are the most abundant carbohydrates found in food. They are long-chain polymeric carbohydrates composed of monosaccharide units bound together by glycosidic linkages. This carbohydrate can react with water (hydrolysis) using amylase enzymes as catalyst, which produces constituent sugars (monosaccharides or oligosaccharides). They range in structure from linear to highly branched. Examples include storage polysaccharides such as starch, glycogen and galactogen and structural polysaccharides such as hemicellulose and chitin. Polysaccharides are often quite heterogeneous, containing slight modifications of the repeating unit. Depending on the structure, these macromolecules can have distinct properties from their monosaccharide building blocks. They may be amorphous or even insoluble in water. When all the monosaccharides in a polysaccharide are the same type, the polysaccharide is called a homopolysaccharide or homoglycan, but when more t ...
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Chicory
Common chicory (''Cichorium intybus'') is a somewhat woody, perennial herbaceous plant of the family Asteraceae, usually with bright blue flowers, rarely white or pink. Native to Europe, it has been introduced to the Americas and Australia. Many varieties are cultivated for salad leaves, chicons ( blanched buds), or roots (var. ''sativum''), which are baked, ground, and used as a coffee substitute and food additive. In the 21st century, inulin, an extract from chicory root, has been used in food manufacturing as a sweetener and source of dietary fiber. Chicory is also grown as a forage crop for livestock. Description When flowering, chicory has a tough, grooved, and more or less hairy stem. It can grow to tall. The leaves are stalked, lanceolate and unlobed; they range from in length (smallest near the top) and wide. The flower heads are wide, and usually light blue or lavender; it has also rarely been described as white or pink. Of the two rows of involucral bracts, the ...
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Fructan
A fructan is a polymer of fructose molecules. Fructans with a short chain length are known as fructooligosaccharides. Fructans can be found in over 12% of the angiosperms including both monocots and dicotyledon, dicots such as agave, artichokes, asparagus, leek (vegetable), leeks, garlic, onions (including spring onions), yacón, jícama, barley and wheat. Fructans also appear in grass, with Laminitis, dietary implications for horses and other grazing animals (Equidae). Types Fructans are built up of fructose residues, normally with a sucrose unit (i.e. a glucose–fructose disaccharide) at what would otherwise be the reducing terminus. The linkage position of the fructose residues determine the type of the fructan. There are five types of fructans. Linkage normally occurs at one of the two primary hydroxyls (OH-1 (compound), OH-1 or OH-6 (compound), OH-6), and there are two basic types of simple fructan: * 1-linked: in inulin, the fructosyl residues are linked by β-2,1-linkage ...
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Jerusalem Artichoke
The Jerusalem artichoke (''Helianthus tuberosus''), also called sunroot, sunchoke, wild sunflower, topinambur, or earth apple, is a species of Helianthus, sunflower native to central North America. It is cultivated widely across the temperate zone for its tuber, which is used as a root vegetable.Purdue University Center for New Crops & Plants Products''Helianthus tuberosus''/ref> Description ''Helianthus tuberosus'' is a herbaceous perennial plant growing to tall with opposite leaf, leaves on the lower part of the stem but alternate towards the top. The leaves have a rough, hairy texture. Larger leaves on the lower stem are Leaf shape, broad ovoid-acute and can be up to long. Leaves higher on the stem are smaller and narrower. The flowers are yellow and produced in capitate inflorescence, flowerheads, which are in diameter, with 10–20 ray florets and 60 or more small disc florets. The flowers are briefly fragrant, giving off a light, vanilla-chocolate perfume. The tubers ...
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Starch
Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diets, and is contained in large amounts in staple foods such as wheat, potatoes, maize (corn), rice, and cassava (manioc). Pure starch is a white, tasteless and odorless powder that is insoluble in cold water or Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol. It consists of two types of molecules: the linear and helix, helical amylose and the branched amylopectin. Depending on the plant, starch generally contains 20 to 25% amylose and 75 to 80% amylopectin by weight. Glycogen, the energy reserve of animals, is a more highly branched version of amylopectin. In industry, starch is often converted into sugars, for example by malting. These sugars may be fermentation, fermented to produce ethanol in the manufacture of beer, whisky and biofuel. In addition, sugars ...
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Valentin Rose (pharmacologist)
Valentin Rose the Younger (30 October 1762 – 9 August 1807) was a German pharmacologist from Berlin, Margraviate of Brandenburg. Son of Valentin Rose the Elder (1736–1771). Beginning in 1778, he spent four years as a pharmacy apprentice in Frankfurt am Main, afterwards returning to Berlin, where he worked as an assistant at his late father's pharmacy. In Berlin, he attended lectures given by Johann Gottlieb Gleditsch and Martin Klaproth at the Collegium Medico-chirurgicum. In 1785, he became provisor of his father's pharmacy, of which he gained ownership of in 1791.translated biography
at ''NDB/ADB Deutsche Biographie''
He is credited with the discoveries of (1801) and

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Osmotic Potential
Osmotic pressure is the minimum pressure which needs to be applied to a solution to prevent the inward flow of its pure solvent across a semipermeable membrane. It is also defined as the measure of the tendency of a solution to take in its pure solvent by osmosis. Potential osmotic pressure is the maximum osmotic pressure that could develop in a solution if it was not separated from its pure solvent by a semipermeable membrane. Osmosis occurs when two solutions containing different concentrations of solute are separated by a selectively permeable membrane. Solvent molecules pass preferentially through the membrane from the low-concentration solution to the solution with higher solute concentration. The transfer of solvent molecules will continue until ''osmotic equilibrium'' is attained. Theory and measurement Jacobus van 't Hoff found a quantitative relationship between osmotic pressure and solute concentration, expressed in the following equation: :\Pi = icRT where \ ...
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Polymerization
In polymer chemistry, polymerization (American English), or polymerisation (British English), is a process of reacting monomer molecules together in a chemical reaction to form polymer chains or three-dimensional networks. There are many forms of polymerization and different systems exist to categorize them. In chemical compounds, polymerization can occur via a variety of reaction mechanisms that vary in complexity due to the functional groups present in the reactants and their inherent steric effects. In more straightforward polymerizations, alkenes form polymers through relatively simple radical reactions; in contrast, reactions involving substitution at a carbonyl group require more complex synthesis due to the way in which reactants polymerize. As alkenes can polymerize in somewhat straightforward radical reactions, they form useful compounds such as polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which are produced in high tonnages each year due to their usefulnes ...
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Hydrolysis
Hydrolysis (; ) is any chemical reaction in which a molecule of water breaks one or more chemical bonds. The term is used broadly for substitution reaction, substitution, elimination reaction, elimination, and solvation reactions in which water is the nucleophile. Biological hydrolysis is the cleavage of Biomolecule, biomolecules where a water molecule is consumed to effect the separation of a larger molecule into component parts. When a carbohydrate is broken into its component sugar molecules by hydrolysis (e.g., sucrose being broken down into glucose and fructose), this is recognized as saccharification. Hydrolysis reactions can be the reverse of a condensation reaction in which two molecules join into a larger one and eject a water molecule. Thus hydrolysis adds water to break down, whereas condensation builds up by removing water. Types Usually hydrolysis is a chemical process in which a molecule of water is added to a substance. Sometimes this addition causes both the su ...
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James Irvine (chemist)
Sir James Colquhoun Irvine KBE FRS FRSE FEIS (9 May 1877 – 12 June 1952) was a British organic chemist and Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews from 1921 until his death. As a research chemist, Irvine worked on the application of methylation techniques to carbohydrates, and isolated the first methylated sugars, trimethyl and tetramethyl glucose. Life Irvine was born in Glasgow to factory owner John Irvine (a manufacturer of light-castings) and Mary Paton Colquhoun. He was educated at Allan Glen's School. He then studied at the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, before taking a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry at the University of St Andrews. From there, he went to the University of Leipzig, where he studied for a PhD under Ostwald and Wislicenus. Returning to St Andrews, he was awarded a Doctor of Science degree, and taught Chemistry there. He was appointed Professor of Chemistry in 1909 and Dean of Science in 1912. In 1921, he was appointed Pri ...
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Inula Helenium
Elecampane (''Inula helenium''), pronounced and also called horse-heal or elfdock, is a widespread plant species in the sunflower family Asteraceae. It is native to Eurasia from Spain to Xinjiang province in western China, and naturalized in parts of North America.B.-E. van Wyk and M. Wink. (2004). '' Medicinal Plants of the World'', p. 181, Singapore: Times Editions. Description Elecampane is a rather rigid herb, the Plant stem, stem of which attains a height of about . The leaves are large and toothed, the lower ones stalked, the rest embracing the stem; blades egg-shaped, elliptical, or lance-shaped, as big as long and wide. Leaves are green on the upper side with light, scattered hairs, but whitish on the underside because of a thick layer of wool. The flower heads up to 5 cm (2 inches) broad, each head containing 50-100 yellow ray flowers and 100-250 yellow disc flowers. The root is thick, branching and mucilaginous, and has a bitter taste and a camphoraceous odour w ...
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