Quantitation of Key Odorants in Arginine/Cysteine-Glucose Maillard Reactions

Unlike many other named reactions in organic chemistry, the Maillard reaction is not a clearly defined single pathway.  Instead, it is one of the most complex reactions in food chemistry.  Maillard reactions, studied in the literature over the last fifty years, have focused either on simple model systems or complex culinary processes.  The next step in our understanding of Maillard reactions is to bridge the gap between these simple and complex systems.  By adding more than one amino acid to a model system, we aim to better understand the different mechanisms for which certain aroma compounds are formed.  In this study, L-arginine and L-cysteine were selected as the two amino acids in the thermal reaction with glucose.  Under different conditions, the key odorants from several arginine-cysteine/glucose model studies were identified and quantified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and gas chromatography-olfactometry.