Grains are nutritious foods that richly contain fiber, vitamins and minerals but it would be difficult to chew for some elderly people with weakened chewing ability. This study was aimed to find the appropriate conditions for reducing hardness of grains by enzyme treatment. To select appropriate enzyme, each grain (white rice, brown rice, barely, sorghum, and job’s tears) was soaked for one hour in enzyme solution at optimum activation temperature. Grains were soaked for one hour in selected enzyme solution at different concentration (0.1, 0.3, 0.5 and 0.7%) under warming condition of cooker at 70℃, steamed in electric rice pressure cooker, rapidly cooled at -18℃ for one hour, placed at 20℃ for another hour, and then hardness was measured by texture analyzer. The initial hardness of white rice, brown rice, barely, sorghum, and job’s tears were 6.5 × 104, 7.1 × 104, 7.0 × 104, 7.8 × 104 and 7.7 × 104 N/m 2 , respectively. The lowest hardness of grains, 4.0 × 104, 5.0 × 104, 4.6 × 104, 5.7 × 104 and 4.7 × 104 N/m 2 were obtained with 0.3% of enzyme D solution while the hardness was not changed significantly with higher concentration. These results suggest that some hard grains treated with enzyme would become softer than white rice, and thus these grains may be used to prepare a healthier meal for elderly people having mastication problem.

• Jae Gyeong Sun(Department of Food Science and Technology, Chung-Ang University)
• Hyun Taek Jang(Department of Food Science and Technology, Chung-Ang University)
• Gyiae Yun(Department of Food Science and Technology, Chung-Ang University)
• Ki-Hwan Park(Department of Food Science and Technology, Chung-Ang University)