Comparative Investigation of Barrier Effect of Basil Seed Gum, Carboxymethyl Cellulose and Guar on Mass Transfer during the Deep-Fat Frying of Potato Strips and Regression Modeling of Oil Absorption Kinetic

Regression modeling can be a simple and useful method to predict changes of mass transfer phenomena during the food frying. In the present study, the effect of coating with Basil seed gum (BSG, as a new hydrocolloid) on moisture content and oil absorption of fried potato strips was investigated. Also, the influence of BSG on mass transfer was compared to potato strips pretreated with guar and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC). Moreover, the kinetics of oil absorption were investigated by nonlinear regression modeling. Coating with hydrocolloids of Basil seed gum, guar gum and CMC were performed in the concentrations of 0.5 and 1%. The conditions for deep-fat frying of samples were temperature of 190°C and times of 90, 180, 270 and 360 seconds. Uncoated samples were considered as controls. MATLAB software was used to fit the experimental data of oil content with six empirical models. Also, the two criteria of R2 and RMSE were used to determine the best model. The results showed that all gums resulted in significant reduction in moisture loss and oil absorption (p