Dissecting grilled red and white meat flavor: Its characteristics, production mechanisms, influencing factors and chemical hazards

This paper discusses the importance of the Maillard reaction for food quality and focuses on flavour compound formation. The most important classes of Maillard flavour compounds are indicated and it is shown where they are formed in the Maillard reaction. Some emphasis is given on the kinetics of formation of flavour compounds. It is concluded that the essential elements for predicting the formation of flavour compounds in the Maillard reaction are now established but much more work needs to be done on specific effects such as the amino acid type, the pH, water content and interactions in the food matrix. It is also concluded that most work is done on free amino acids but hardly anything on peptides and proteins, which could generate peptide- or protein-specific flavour compounds.

The reaction of reducing carbohydrates with amino compounds described in 1912 by Louis-Camille Maillard is responsible for the aroma, taste, and appearance of thermally processed food. The discovery that non-enzymatic conversions also occur in organisms led to intensive investigation of the pathophysiological significance of the Maillard reaction in diabetes and ageing processes. Dietary Maillard products are discussed as "glycotoxins" and thus as a nutritional risk, but also increasingly with regard to positive effects in the human body. In this Review we give an overview of the most important discoveries in Maillard research since it was first described and show that the complex reaction, even after over one hundred years, has lost none of its interdisciplinary actuality.