Food Browning

Foods may develop a variety of browncolors, from yellowbrown to red-brown to black-brown, during handling, processing, and storage. These colors are desirable in certain foods (e.g., coffee, beer, bread, maple syrup). In other foods, such as most dehydrated fruits and vegetables, dried eggs, and canned or dried milk, browning is detrimental. Even when desirable, browning should not be excessive, as in potato chips, french fries, and apple juice. Numerous reactions lead to browning in foods. Some of these may also generate flavors and/or alter the nutritional properties of foods. Conventionally, browning is discussed as enzymatic and nonenzymatic browning.