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“[Trehalose is] a disaccharide made up of two glucose molecules linked with a sturdy α,α-1,1-glucoside bond, and it’s naturally found in low levels in some bact

“[Trehalose is] a disaccharide made up of two glucose molecules linked with a sturdy α,α-1,1-glucoside bond, and it’s naturally found in low levels in some bacteria, fungi, plants, and invertebrates.” Oops.

mirimir 9y ago
Sure, but who eats enough of those things to get enough to be problematic? Virtually all of the trehalose in food products is synthetic.
- mikeash 9y ago
  My point is that synthetic versus natural is not a particularly useful line to draw here. If someone had figured out how to get tons of this stuff from bacteria, we’d be in the exact same situation.
  - otempomores 9y ago
    Natural does not refer in this context to origin but to a pre industrialization diet?
  - bklaasen 9y ago
    Originally, they'd been getting the sugar from yeast, but they borrowed enzymes from a soil bacterium to radically reduce the cost of manufacture. From the article: "...making it in large quantities was expensive—about $700 per kilogram. With tinkering, syrup scientists at Japan’s Hayashibara chemistry company finally figured out a novel enzymatic method to make it on the cheap from starch. The method brought costs down to just $3 per kilogram." From the paper linked in the article: "Although its usefulness was recognized, trehalose was not produced on an industrial scale until 1994. The conventional method for production, for example, extraction from yeast, had too low a yield andtoo high a cost to be used. In order to implement industrial production of trehalose, we have researchednew enzyme systems and have succeeded in isolating a novel enzyme system from a bacterial strainbelonging to the genus Arthrobacter sp. Q36 that was obtained from soil [1]. The system has been found to consist of two novel enzymes: malto-oligosyltrehalose synthase (or MTSase) and malto-oligosyltre-halose trehalohydorolase (or MTHase). In the first step, MTSase catalyzes the intramolecular transglycosylation of glucose residue at the reducing end of malto-oligosaccharide from α-1, 4 bond to α-1, 1 bond, then malto-oligosyltrehalose is produced. This contains trehalose residue at the end of the saccharide chain. Next, trehalose is liberated from malto-oligosyltrehalose by MTHase. This pathway needs no high-energy sugar derivative such as sugar phosphate or sugar nucleotide. And those enzymes can repeatedly act on α-1, 4 glucan to produce trehalose up to 80 % yield (Fig. 1). The trehalose production scheme that has been developed in our company is shown in Fig. 2. Starch is liquefied by a thermostable α-amylase and is debranched by isoamylase. The formed amylose is converted into trehalose by this system. The system involves two novel enzymes, MTSase and MTHase, which act on amylose or starch to produce trehalose efficiently. By this process, we have succeeded in reducing the production cost of trehalose to approximately one hundredth of its initial cost. The cost was reduced enough to permit a widespread application to many foods such as sweeteners and stabilizers. In addition, trehalose is also expected to be used for various applications in the fields of medicine and cosmetics."
  - mirimir 9y ago
    I agree. It was confusing to say "synthetic". What I meant was something like "food ingredients that would otherwise be present only in trace quantities". What's problematic is how "Generally Recognized as Safe" (GRAS) has been redefined. Instead of "something that's historically been in food, and hasn't injured people", it's become "anything that isn't clearly toxic in short-term testing".
    - mikeash 9y ago
      If you're ultimately just looking for stricter standards before introducing something new (regardless of source) to the food supply, I could totally go for that. It's a tough question. I'm not sure if we can really call something "safe" with less than a century of testing, but I'm not sure if it's reasonable to require that. Maybe it is, do we really need new stuff in our food?
      - mirimir 9y ago
        Yes, that was my point :) Because it's very hard to prove negatives like "not harmful". In that there are just too many ways in which stuff can be harmful. So at best, FDA excludes the obviously-toxic stuff, and the rest is assumed safe, until there's evidence that it's not. And yes, I don't want new stuff in my food. I avoid processed food, and prefer local "organic" (hate the word, but whatever) sources.

mirimir 9y ago

Sure, but who eats enough of those things to get enough to be problematic? Virtually all of the trehalose in food products is synthetic.

mikeash 9y ago
My point is that synthetic versus natural is not a particularly useful line to draw here. If someone had figured out how to get tons of this stuff from bacteria, we’d be in the exact same situation.
- otempomores 9y ago
  Natural does not refer in this context to origin but to a pre industrialization diet?
- bklaasen 9y ago
  Originally, they'd been getting the sugar from yeast, but they borrowed enzymes from a soil bacterium to radically reduce the cost of manufacture. From the article: "...making it in large quantities was expensive—about $700 per kilogram. With tinkering, syrup scientists at Japan’s Hayashibara chemistry company finally figured out a novel enzymatic method to make it on the cheap from starch. The method brought costs down to just $3 per kilogram." From the paper linked in the article: "Although its usefulness was recognized, trehalose was not produced on an industrial scale until 1994. The conventional method for production, for example, extraction from yeast, had too low a yield andtoo high a cost to be used. In order to implement industrial production of trehalose, we have researchednew enzyme systems and have succeeded in isolating a novel enzyme system from a bacterial strainbelonging to the genus Arthrobacter sp. Q36 that was obtained from soil [1]. The system has been found to consist of two novel enzymes: malto-oligosyltrehalose synthase (or MTSase) and malto-oligosyltre-halose trehalohydorolase (or MTHase). In the first step, MTSase catalyzes the intramolecular transglycosylation of glucose residue at the reducing end of malto-oligosaccharide from α-1, 4 bond to α-1, 1 bond, then malto-oligosyltrehalose is produced. This contains trehalose residue at the end of the saccharide chain. Next, trehalose is liberated from malto-oligosyltrehalose by MTHase. This pathway needs no high-energy sugar derivative such as sugar phosphate or sugar nucleotide. And those enzymes can repeatedly act on α-1, 4 glucan to produce trehalose up to 80 % yield (Fig. 1). The trehalose production scheme that has been developed in our company is shown in Fig. 2. Starch is liquefied by a thermostable α-amylase and is debranched by isoamylase. The formed amylose is converted into trehalose by this system. The system involves two novel enzymes, MTSase and MTHase, which act on amylose or starch to produce trehalose efficiently. By this process, we have succeeded in reducing the production cost of trehalose to approximately one hundredth of its initial cost. The cost was reduced enough to permit a widespread application to many foods such as sweeteners and stabilizers. In addition, trehalose is also expected to be used for various applications in the fields of medicine and cosmetics."
- mirimir 9y ago
  I agree. It was confusing to say "synthetic". What I meant was something like "food ingredients that would otherwise be present only in trace quantities". What's problematic is how "Generally Recognized as Safe" (GRAS) has been redefined. Instead of "something that's historically been in food, and hasn't injured people", it's become "anything that isn't clearly toxic in short-term testing".
  - mikeash 9y ago
    If you're ultimately just looking for stricter standards before introducing something new (regardless of source) to the food supply, I could totally go for that. It's a tough question. I'm not sure if we can really call something "safe" with less than a century of testing, but I'm not sure if it's reasonable to require that. Maybe it is, do we really need new stuff in our food?
    - mirimir 9y ago
      Yes, that was my point :) Because it's very hard to prove negatives like "not harmful". In that there are just too many ways in which stuff can be harmful. So at best, FDA excludes the obviously-toxic stuff, and the rest is assumed safe, until there's evidence that it's not. And yes, I don't want new stuff in my food. I avoid processed food, and prefer local "organic" (hate the word, but whatever) sources.