Role of fungal enzymes in food processing

Abstract

At present many microbial, particularly fungal enzymes have been found to play a vital role in food processing industries and their impact is going to be felt much more in coming years. Many fungal enzymes are used either for enhancing the overall process or to generate additional flavors. Besides this, enzyme mediated processes are preferred due to their high specifictiy and least by-products. The food processed in this way is close to the natural products and are thus categorised as ‘Green’. The applications of enzymes in food processing industry has been known for ages and the oldest known enzyme-mediated process is alcoholic fermentation involving yeasts. Today, enzymes are used in bakery, brewing, dairy, meat, sugar, fruit processing and other food industries. Various enzymes used are amylases, proteases, lipases, gluco-oxidases, pectinases and tannases and many others. The world wide application of these will increase by developing tailor-made enzymes through recombinant DNA technology which could enhance the yields and modify their specificity to meet consumer's requirement in terms of cost, calorie and taste. In this chapter, a comprehensive attempt has been made to elaborate the usage and present status of the applications of fungal enzymes in various food industries.