Here’s a strange tale of two previously unrelated food products. First: chitlins, that delicacy made of fried pig intestines. They’re well-loved throughout the South, especially during the upcoming holiday season. But the smell of them cooking inspires ___1___. Because the cooking process sometimes smells like, well, feces.
Researchers in Japan thought that cilantro could help. Because cilantro is used in a variety of cuisines around the world to ___2___, as well as to ___3___. And in a previous study, the research team had shown that cilantro can mask the cooking-chitlin stench.
In the new research, in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, they ___4___ cilantro’s volatile compounds and tested each one for its odor-fighting power. Many seemed to lessen the stink, but one in particular, according to human sniffers, entirely cancels out the odor.[Hiromi Ikeura et al., "Identification of (E,E)-2,4-Undecadienal from Coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) as a Highly Effective Deodorant Compound against the Offensive Odor of Porcine Large Intestine"]
It’s called (E,E)-2,4-Undecadienal. It works at a very low ___5___—10 parts per billion—so you can’t smell the compound. It’s not masking the chitlin odor, it’s actually neutralizing it. So it’s not just better living through chemistry. It’s better chitlins too
【視聽版科學小組榮譽出品】
significantly less affection mask smells add distinctive flavors isolated concentration
有這么兩種食物，它們看似毫不相干，卻有著微妙的聯(lián)系。一種是用油炸豬大腸做的，這種食品頗受美國南部人的歡迎，在即將到來的假期中尤其如此。但大腸烹調(diào)時散發(fā)出來的氣味實在令人作嘔，有時候聞起來就像是——(⊙o⊙)…大糞的味道…… 日本的研究人員認為芫荽有助去除這種難聞氣味。原因就是世界各地都在用芫荽輔助烹調(diào)以掩蓋怪味，當然也用它來調(diào)味。此前就有研究表明，芫荽能夠掩蓋烹飪大腸時的惡臭。 《農(nóng)業(yè)化學與食品化學雜志》上發(fā)表的一項最新研究中，研究人員將芫荽揮發(fā)物分離出來，然后逐個進行除臭能力測試。芫荽的這種揮發(fā)物化學名稱為E,E-2,4-十一烷二烯醛。這種物質(zhì)作用時濃度很低，大概在十億分之十左右（10ppb），因此人們幾乎聞不到它的味道。這種物質(zhì)并不是掩蓋大腸的臭味，而是將臭味中和了。所以說嘛，化學讓生活更美好！(⊙o⊙)…也讓豬大腸更美味啦~