Inulin
Introduction
Inulin is a kind of reserved polysaccharide, mainly extracted from plants. There’s very rich inulin contained in jerusalem artichoke tuber, peony tuber and thistle tuber and other plants. Inulin existed in the cell protoplasm with colloidal form. It’s easy to be dissolved in hot water, and will be seperated out from water if adding ethyl alcohol; and it will not react with iodine. Inulin is easy to be hydrolyzed to fructose in diluted acid condition, which is the common characteristic of fructosan.
Specification
| Items | Standards | Results |
| Physical Analysis | ||
| Description | White fine powder | Complies |
| Assay | ||
| Mesh Size | 100 % pass 80 mesh | Complies |
| Ash | ≤ 5.0% | 2.85% |
| Loss on Drying | ≤ 5.0% | 2.82% |
| Chemical Analysis | ||
| Heavy Metal | ≤ 10.0 mg/kg | Complies |
| Pb | ≤ 2.0 mg/kg | Complies |
| As | ≤ 1.0 mg/kg | Complies |
| Hg | ≤ 0.1 mg/kg | Complies |
| Microbiological Analysis | ||
| Residue of Pesticide | Negative | Negative |
| Total Plate Count | ≤ 1000cfu/g | Complies |
| Yeast&Mold | ≤ 100cfu/g | Complies |
| E.coil | Negative | Negative |
| Salmonella | Negative | Negative |
Application
Inulin could be used by beneficial bacteria in human intestine tract, especially could multiple bifidobacteria 5 to 10 times. At the same time,the harmful bacteria will be significantly reduced. Inulin could improve the bacterial flora distribution, promote the health, and be regarded as important multipication factor for bifidobacteria. Inulin is widely used in dairy supplement, bakery food,low-fat food, pharmaceutic coating and feed field. In China we could not find the infant milk powder with inulin added, but more and more infant milk powder with inulin added from abroad was imported to China. Undoubted, inulin is harmless to infant. We believe with deep knowledge of inulin, it will be a new star soon in food raw material.
