Alessio Cimini1, Matteo Cibelli1, Mauro Moresi1. 1. Department for Innovation in the Biological, Agrofood and Forestry Systems, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: During daily pasta cooking, the general consumer pays little attention to water and energy issues. The present study aimed to measure the cooking quality and environmental impact of a standard format of dry pasta by varying the water-to-dried pasta ratio (WPR) from 12 to 2 L kg-1 . RESULTS: In the above WPR range, the cooked pasta water uptake (1.3 ± 0.1 g g-1 ), cooking loss (0.037 ± 0.009 g g-1 ) and degree of starch gelatinization (11.2 ± 0.8%) were approximately constant, whereas the main Texture Analysis parameters (eg, cooked pasta hardness at 30% and 90% deformation, and resilience) showed no statistically significant difference. As the WPR was reduced from 12 to 2 L kg-1 , the specific electric energy consumption linearly decreased from 1.93 to 0.39 Wh g-1 and the carbon footprint and eutrophication potential of pasta cooking lessened by approximately 80% and 50%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Cooking dry pasta in a large excess of water (ie, 10 L kg-1 ), as commonly suggested by the great majority of pasta manufacturers, might be pointless. Such a great mitigation with respect to the environmental impact of pasta cooking should be checked further for other commercial pasta formats and would highlight the need for novel and more suitable pasta cookers than those currently in use.
BACKGROUND: During daily pasta cooking, the general consumer pays little attention to water and energy issues. The present study aimed to measure the cooking quality and environmental impact of a standard format of dry pasta by varying the water-to-dried pasta ratio (WPR) from 12 to 2 L kg-1 . RESULTS: In the above WPR range, the cooked pastawater uptake (1.3 ± 0.1 g g-1 ), cooking loss (0.037 ± 0.009 g g-1 ) and degree of starch gelatinization (11.2 ± 0.8%) were approximately constant, whereas the main Texture Analysis parameters (eg, cooked pasta hardness at 30% and 90% deformation, and resilience) showed no statistically significant difference. As the WPR was reduced from 12 to 2 L kg-1 , the specific electric energy consumption linearly decreased from 1.93 to 0.39 Wh g-1 and the carbon footprint and eutrophication potential of pasta cooking lessened by approximately 80% and 50%, respectively. CONCLUSION:Cooking dry pasta in a large excess of water (ie, 10 L kg-1 ), as commonly suggested by the great majority of pasta manufacturers, might be pointless. Such a great mitigation with respect to the environmental impact of pasta cooking should be checked further for other commercial pasta formats and would highlight the need for novel and more suitable pasta cookers than those currently in use.
Keywords:
carbon footprint and eutrophication potential; cooking loss and starch gelatinization degree; cooking water-to-dried pasta ratio; energy consumption; texture analysis