Bleaching treatment of fish jelly products with hydrogen peroxide (H
2O
2) has been widely practiced after heat processing of these products. And, in addition, excessive uses of H
2O
2 by the industry frequently draws the attention of public health authorities and consequently raises an urgent need for survey of residual amounts of H
2O
2 in the products to control whether the treatments are adequately performed in the commercial preparations.
A modification of H
2O
2 determination method was firstly proposed in this paper, since a simple iodometry using sodium thiosulfate (Na
2S
2O
3) titration is apt to give some erroneous results in these particular products to which potassium hypobromide (KBrO
3) may have been added as a jelly texture improver.
Repeated experiments indicated that an use of catalase preparation to the aqueous extract of “Kamaboko” products before iodometric titration was found feasible to eliminate the effect of KBrO
3, where the titers of Na
3S
2O
3 represented only the concentration of hypobromide. Therefore, the difference in the titers between nontreated extract and catalasetreated one can be used as the basis of true H
2O
2 determination.
Most samples of “Kamaboko” and “Chikuwa” (baked bamboo-shaped products) purchased from Tokyo Central Fish Wholesale Market showed a small or negligible quantity of H
2O
2, except the samples manufactured in particular regions which contained considerable amounts of the chemical. “Hanpen” and “Naruto-maki” products examined revealed comparatively higher content of H
2O
2 and taste panels noted some off-flavour possibly due to the use of H
2O
2.
A sharp decrease of residual H
2O
2 was observed in the experimentally prepared “Kamaboko” during a storage period of several days after the bleaching treatment. The disappearance rate of H
2O
2 slackened thereafter for about ten days, when certain amounts of H
2O
2 still remained in the “Kamaboko”. And, higher residual content was noticed when either high H
2O
2 concentration or long time dipping in the bleaching solution was employed.
It was concluded from these examinations that a large amount of residual H
2O
2 in commercial fish jelly products should be attributed to the over-use of H
2O
2 and a reduced cocentration of H
2O
2 or shortened time of immersion in the bleaching solution was suggested.
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