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Compression Deformation and Structural Relationships of Medium Grain Cooked Rice

¹USDA, ARS, Western Regional Research Center, 800 Buchanan St., Albany, CA 94710. Names are necessary to report factually on available data; however, the USDA neither guarantees nor warrants the standard of the product, and the use of the name by the USDA implies no approval of the product to the exclusion of others that may also be suitable. ²Corresponding author. Phone: 510-559-5653. Fax: 510-559-5818. E-mail: wood@pw.usda.gov

Cooked rice quality is based on a number of factors including texture. Texture and structure of foods are closely related and aspects of the relationship can be explored by correlating compression measurements to structural observations of the compressed material. To obtain compression measurements, single cooked, milled rice grains were compressed in a texture analyzer to a specific percentage (% compression) of the original grain; the uncompressed grain is 0%. The experiment, using single grains in each case, was repeated multiple times. Compression percentages of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 70% were measured against a constant resistance force in the texture analyzer. Structures of cooked rice grains at the various compression levels were compared by brightfield and fluorescence microscopy. The outside of an uncompressed, intact, cooked rice grain is swollen and distorted while the interior has three or more odd-shaped holes (voids). Each void is largest in the center of the grain and decreases in size toward the peripheral edges becoming fine cracks toward the outermost portion of the void. The voids tended to increase in area up to 40% compression and then decrease in area upon further compression. Percent compression versus resistance force was a curvilinear relationship. With increasing % compression, cell shapes became increasingly more rounded, although there wasn't much effect on the integrity of cell walls with increasing % compression. The degree to which grain structure changed during the various compression tests, combined with the curvilinear behavior of resistance force versus % compression, indicates that the voids and cell walls have an effect on texture.