Chitosan the Ultimate Nutrition

Chitosan is a linear polysaccharide with a composition of glucosamine (composed of randomly distributed β-(1-4)-linked D-glucosamine (deacetylated unit) and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (acetylated unit)). Chitosan is widely used in commercial biomedical world. Chitosan is actually derived from the polysaccharide fibers of shellfish, shrimp, crabs and others. Chitosan has the capacity to bind lipids and fats. Most importantly, because chitosan is not digestible in its consumption, the chitosan itself does not contain calories. When drunk, chitosan attaches itself to the intestinal tract, and binds the fat that passes in the gut until absorbed by blood, because the fat that is not tied into the bloodstream, the fat is considered "can not be digested" by the body, so the fat will be excreted through digestive tract. Fibre needed as one who has played an important substance to clean the digestive tract, especially colon. Chitosan is a fiber that is useful to clean the intestines, stimulates the digestive process, and make healthy gut and helps reduce fat absorption.

Chitosan is produced commercially by deacetylation  of chitin  , which is the structural element in the exoskeleton  of crustaceans (crabs, shrimp, etc.) and cell walls of fungi. The degree of deacetylation (%DD) can be determined by NMR spectroscopy, and the %DD in commercial chitosans is in the range 60-100 %.

In agriculture, chitosan is used primarily as a plant growth enhancer, and as a substance that boosts the ability of plants to defend against fungal infections. It is approved for use outdoors and indoors on many plants grown commercially and by consumers. The active ingredient is found in the shells of crustaceans, such as lobsters, crabs, and shrimp, and in certain other organisms. Given its low potential for toxicity and its abundance in the natural environment, chitosan is not expected to harm people, pets, wildlife, or the environment when used according to label directions. Chitosan can also be used in water processing engineering as a part of a filtration process. Chitosan causes the fine sediment particles to bind together and is subsequently removed with the sediment during sand filtration. Chitosan also removes phosphorus, heavy minerals, and oils from the water. Chitosan is an important additive in the filtration process. Sand filtration apparently can remove up to 50% of the turbidity alone while the chitosan with sand filtration removes up to 99% turbidity

Usage

Chitosan supplements are used to manage and maintain weight with the workings of chitosan to absorb as much fat 3-6 times its own weight before the fat is absorbed in the body to be excreted through the process of defecation. Pure chitosan in the diet can also burn 30 calories a day. Chitosan also has the effect of changing or eliminating ineffective minerals in the food that keeps your body healthy. In the world of biomedical, chitosan is used in wound dressings for blood clotting and has anti-bacterial properties.

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Properties, Production and Uses of Carrageenan

Carrageenans are commercially important hydrophilic colloids (water-soluble gums) which occur as matrix material in numerous species of red seaweeds (Rhodophyta) wherein they serve a structural function analogous to that of cellulose in land plants. Chemically they are highly sulfated galactans. Due to their half-eater sulfate moieties they are strongly anionic polymers.

Carrageenan is a collective term for polysaccharides prepared by alkaline extraction (and modification) from red seaweed (Rhodophycae), mostly of genus Chondrus, Eucheuma, Gigartina and Iridaea. Different seaweeds produce different carrageenans.

Carrageenans are sulfated polymers made up of galactose units. Several fractions have been determined, but a common backbone can be defined. Carrageenan consists of a main chain of D-galactose residues linked alternately α - (1 → 3) and β - (1 → 4).

The differences between the fractions are due to the number and to the position of the sulfate groups and to the possible presence of a 3.6 anhydro-bridge on the galactose linked through the 1 - and 4 -positions.

Carrageenan consists of alternating 3-linked-b-D-galactopyranose

and 4-linked-a-D-galactopyranose units

Carrageenans are linear polymers of about 25,000 galactose derivatives with regular but imprecise structures, dependent on the source and extraction conditions. Idealized structures are given below and k-carrageenan, for example, has been found to contain a small proportion of the dimer associated with i-carrageenan.

Carrageenan extraction Procedure

Uses of Carrageenan

There are some general uses of carrageenan :

1. Gelling Agent (Hot water, milk)
2. dairy desserts (milk-gels, flans, custards) 
3. chocolate milks 
4. ices, ice creams and related products 
5. meat preserves 
6. petfoods 
7. air-fresheners 
8. enzyme 
9. in vitro meristem culture 

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Sugarcane and How its Made

Other Agroindustry product that have an added value is Sugarcane. Sugarcane, is any of six to thirty-seven species (depending on taxonomic system) of tall perennial grasses of the genus Saccharum (family Poaceae, tribe Andropogoneae). Native to warm temperate to tropical regions of Asia, they have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar, and measure two to six meters (six to nineteen feet) tall. All sugar cane species interbreed, and the major commercial cultivars are complex hybrids. Brazil produces about one-third of the world's sugarcane.

The uses of sugarcane

Sugar cane is grown in over 110 countries with an estimated total production of 1,591 million metric tons in 2007, more than six times the output of sugar beet. In 2005, the world's largest producer of sugar cane was Brazil, followed by India. Sugar cane products include table sugar, Falernum, molasses, rum, cachaça (the national spirit of Brazil), and ethanol. The bagasse that remains after sugar cane crushing may be burned to provide heat and electricity. It may also, because of its high cellulose content, serve as raw material for paper, cardboard, and eating utensils that, because they are by-products, may be branded as "environmentally friendly."

Making the Sugarcane

threre are basic way to create or making a sugarcane. in this section, will be explained about how to make a sugarcane with the traditional processing.

1. Growing the Cane
Sugar cane is a sub-tropical and tropical crop that prefers lots of sun and lots of water - provided that its roots are not waterlogged. It typically takes about 12 months to reach maturity although the time varies widely around the world from as short as six months in Louisiana to 24 months in some places. Where it differs from many crops is that it re-grows from the roots so the plant lasts many cycles [or 'ratoons', a word derived from the Spanish to sprout] before it is worn out
2. Harvesting
Sugar cane is harvested by chopping down the stems but leaving the roots so that it re-grows in time for the next crop. Harvest times tend to be during the dry season and the length of the harvest ranges from as little as 2 ½ months up to 11 months. The cane is taken to the factory: often by truck or rail wagon but sometimes on a cart pulled by a bullock or a donkey!
3. Extraction
The first stage of processing is the extraction of the cane juice. In many factories the cane is crushed in a series of large roller mills: similar to a mangle [wringer] which was used to squeeze the water out of clean washing a century ago. The sweet juice comes gushing out and the cane fibre is carried away for use in the boilers. In other factories a diffuser is used as is described for beet sugar manufacture. Either way the juice is pretty dirty: the soil from the fields, some small fibres and the green extracts from the plant are all mixed in with the sugar.
4. Evaporation
The factory can clean up the juice quite easily with slaked lime (a relative of chalk) which settles out a lot of the dirt so that it can be sent back to the fields. Once this is done, the juice is thickened up into a syrup by boiling off the water using steam in a process called evaporation. Sometimes the syrup is cleaned up again but more often it just goes on to the crystal-making step without any more cleaning. The evaporation is undertaken in order to improve the energy efficiency of the factory.
5. Boiling
The syrup is placed into a very large pan for boiling, the last stage. In the pan even more water is boiled off until conditions are right for sugar crystals to grow. You may have done something like this at school but probably not with sugar because it is difficult to get the crystals to grow well. In the factory the workers usually have to throw in some sugar dust to initiate crystal formation. Once the crystals have grown the resulting mixture of crystals and mother liquor is spun in centrifuges to separate the two, rather like washing is spin dried. The crystals are then given a final dry with hot air before being stored ready for despatch.
6. Storage
The final raw sugar forms a sticky brown mountain in the store and looks rather like the soft brown sugar found in domestic kitchens. It could be used like that but usually it gets dirty in storage and has a distinctive taste which most people don't want. That is why it is refined when it gets to the country where it will be used. Additionally, because one cannot get all the sugar out of the juice, there is a sweet by-product made: molasses. This is usually turned into a cattle food or is sent to a distillery where alcohol is made.

So what happened to all that fibre from crushing the sugar cane? It is called "bagasse" in the industry. The factory needs electricity and steam to run, both of which are generated using this fibre. 

The bagasse is burnt in large furnaces where a lot of heat is given out which can be used in turn to boil water and make high pressure steam. The steam is then used to drive a turbine in order to make electricity and create low pressure steam for the sugar making process. This is the same process that makes most of our electricity but there are several important differences.

When a large power station produces electricity it burns a fossil fuel [once used, a fuel that cannot be replaced] which contaminates the atmosphere and the station has to dump a lot of low grade heat. All this contributes to global warming. In the cane sugar factory the bagasse fuel is renewable and the gases it produces, essentially CO2, are more than used up by the new cane growing. Add to that the factory use of low grade heat [a system called co-generation] and one can see that a well run cane sugar estate is environmentally friendly.

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Essential Oils

One of agroindustrial product that common in use are Essential Oils. An essential oil is a liquid that is generally distilled (most frequently by steam or water) from the leaves, stems, flowers, bark, roots, or other elements of a plant. Essential oils, contrary to the use of the word "oil" are not really oily-feeling at all. Most essential oils are clear, but some oils such as patchouli, orange and lemongrass are amber or yellow in color.

Essential oils contain the true essence of the plant it was derived from. Essential oils are highly concentrated and a little goes a long way.

Essential oils are not the same as perfume or fragrance oils. Where essential oils are derived from the true plants, perfume oils are artificially created fragrances or contain artificial substances and do not offer the therapeutic benefits that essential oils offer.

The chemical composition and aroma of essential oils can provide valuable psychological and physical therapeutic benefits. These benefits are usually achieved through methods including inhalation and application of the diluted oil to the skin. There are over 100 kind and profiles of essential oils. 

Essential oils are often used by diluting them with a carrier oil (sweet almond oil, apricot kernel oil, grapeseed oil) and then applying this blend to the skin for absorption.Careful inhalation of the oils can also provide therapeutic benefit as the oil molecules enter the lungs and are absorbed into the bloodstream.

Essential Oils are usually sold for individual use in very small bottles. See the Storing Your Oils page for information on how to store your oils and to view pictures of essential oil bottles.

Essential oils can very greatly in quality and price. Various factors that can affect the quality and price of the oil include the rarity of the plant, country and conditions that the plant was grown, quality standards of the distiller, and how much oil is produced by the plant.

Essential oils can often be purchased as blends of several essential oils. The advantage if it is a blend of pure essential oils is that you can save from having to buy every essential oil individually. The disadvantage is that you have no control over the blend by not mixing it yourself nor can you reliably mix the blend with other oils.

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Surfactants

Surfactants are wetting agents that lower the surface tension of a liquid, allowing easier spreading, and lower the interfacial tension between two liquids. Surfactants are usually organic compounds that are amphiphilic, meaning they contain both hydrophobic groups (their "tails") and hydrophilic groups (their "heads"). Therefore, they are soluble in both organic solvents and water.

Surfactants reduce the surface tension of water by adsorbing at the liquid-gas interface. They also reduce the interfacial tension between oil and water by adsorbing at the liquid-liquid interface. Many surfactants can also assemble in the bulk solution into aggregates. Examples of such aggregates are vesicles and micelles. The concentration at which surfactants begin to form micelles is known as the critical micelle concentration or CMC. When micelles form in water, their tails form a core that can encapsulate an oil droplet, and their (ionic/polar) heads form an outer shell that maintains favorable contact with water. When surfactants assemble in oil, the aggregate is referred to as a reverse micelle. In a reverse micelle, the heads are in the core and the tails maintain favorable contact with oil. Surfactants are also often classified into four primary groups; anionic, cationic, non-ionic, and zwitterionic (dual charge).

Some surfactants are known to be toxic to animals, ecosystems and humans, and can increase the diffusion of other environmental contaminants. Despite this, they are routinely deposited in numerous ways on land and into water systems, whether as part of an intended process or as industrial and household waste. Some surfactants have proposed or voluntary restrictions on their use. For example, PFOS is a persistent organic pollutant as judged by the Stockholm Convention. 

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