Resumen
The main purpose of this research is to develop, industrialize and commercialize a new food thickener, with better efficiency and taste, for patients with post-stroke dysphagia based on Tremella fuciformis. The aging of world population leads to demand of various functional food additives for the elders. In the Greater China Region, around 3.4 to 7.4 million of the population suffers from dysphagia and the related swallowing difficulties, among which food thickener helps to ease the symptom in a significant way. Tremella fuciformis appears to be a good resource for food thickener. It contains large amount of polysaccharide that is believed to have influence on viscosity of liquid once dissolved in it. A series of laboratory processes including pre-treatment, extraction, filtration and drying were conducted to get the crude product. Three physical characteristics of the crude product were tested: dissolution rate, thickening efficiency and sensory indicators and the performance was found to be better than commercial product in the market in all aspects. The use of industrial residues was also considered to improve the environmental friendliness of the production process. Feasibility of the change was verified by testing the dissolving speed and thickening efficiency comparing to the previous product. No significant difference was observed, which leads to the conclusion that recycled residue of Tremella is also capable for the production. Last but not the least, to determine the main functioning composition in Tremella, analyzing experiments were conducted on both protein and polysaccharide. Bradford Assay was used to standardize protein and Anthrone-Sulfuric Acid method was used to measure the polysaccharide concentration. Result shows the viscosity of mixture is strongly related to the concentration of the polysaccharide and this allows for the standardization of product in the industrial setting. In the last part, industrialization and commercialization analysis were carried out.