Gluten Destoryed At High Temps?

[jenvan]

I was reading an article in "Living Without" from last fall and someone from PF Chang's mentioned that traces of gluten are destroyed in a wok, b/c the heat gets up to 600 degrees. Anyone have more info on when gluten can be "destroyed", so to speak ? I haven't heard much about this...

[Guest Viola]

I really wish that some certified scientist would test this out for us and post it! Don't we have one in this forum somewhere ??

It would make eating out so much easier and less of a worry. Pretty please find one!

[Carriefaith]

I really wish that some certified scientist would test this out for us and post it! Don't we have one in this forum somewhere ??

lol

[Emme999]

I have no idea. I did, however, find this page about the chemical makeup of gluten.

If I knew anything about the scientific business, I might even be able to interpret the following:

When glutenin was heated above 50°C there was a dramatic increase in viscosity and G’ (Schofield et al., 1983), which led to network formation by protein-protein aggregation at temperatures > 80°C. At 90°C, glutenin gelled (crosslinked) through the formation of disulphide bonds, reaching a maximum structure build-up at 135°C, with a maximum G’ value and a minimum G" value. As the temperature increased further, G" increased, reaching a maximum at 150°C, at which point G’ dropped drastically, suggesting softening of the glutenin crosslinked network.

( Open Original Shared Link )

Where is Tarnalberry? She's a scientist isn't she? Tiffany we need you!! The secrets of our universe may be in your hands!!

Perhaps the "softening of the glutenin crosslinked network means that its structure is destroyed - but - Probably just means that when it reaches such high temperatures.. it's really hot

Who knows!

- Michelle

[tarnalberry]

I'm afraid it doesn't mean that "softening of the glutenin crosslinked network" means the structure is destroyed. Let me see if I can come up with a good analogy...

Earrings! Yes, let's go with hook earrings.

If you get them moving around (analogous to heating) enough, you can start catching the hooks on each other, and form a network of earrings. If you get them moving really fast (analogous to further heating), they won't be able to stay stuck together. The earrings are still the same, but their crosslinks are broken down. Basically, it's similar, in some senses, to saying that the gluten is forming a crystal and the higher temperatures breaks apart the crystal, but leaves the elements of the crystal intact. (Of course, there are important connotations to calling something a crystal, and gluten doesn't form a true crystal, I'm just trying to get at the idea of a repeating set of the same thing forming a cohesive structure.)

But 150C is only 300F, lower than most baking even. 600F (315C) is significantly higher, however. My guess is that 600F is enough kinetic energy to start breaking apart the gluten molecule, but I'm not sure. (Temperature is really a measure of kinetic energy - how fast the molecules in a substance are flying around.)

My thought here is that 600F is a LOT of kinetic energy, but proteins can be pretty stable things, even on their own when they're not crosslinked. Not only do they consist of a chain of amino acids (primary structure), but they they spiral or pleat into a secondary structure, fold into a tertiary structure, and further contort into a quaternary structure. All of these later structures are held together by various forces that are not as strong as the bonds holding the primary structure together. So the added energy, causing the molecule to move, vibrate, and rotate can bread these weaker forces, allowing it unfold to a degree (depends on the protein itself), but it can (and will most times, depending on the situation) refold when the heat source is taken away.

Given that it is a combination of the proline rich amino acid sequence, and the secondary/tertiary structures that is causing the reaction with the antibodies in our guts, the important question is whether or not 600F is enough to break down the quaternary, tertiary, secondary AND primary structure of the protein. It's possible that simply breaking down, for instance, the secondary structure would be enough to permanently denature the protein, but there's no way to know without testing it out in a lab.

[jenvan]

Hey- Thank you Ms. Scientist Tiffany At least I can now go back to someone who claims they know the temperature at which gluten is destroyed and say 'well, actually....I don't think that's been proven...'