Dynamic changes of texture profiles of noodle from wheat infected by main boring pests

The texture changes of the cooked noodle from wheat infected by main boring pests such as Sitophilus zeamais Motschulsky, Sitophilus oryzae (linnaeus) and Rhyzopertha dominica (Fabricius) in different damaging levels and their influence were investigated to offer a scientific guidance for the cooking quality evaluation of pest damaged wheat, the safe storage and the quality ensuring of the end products, The commercial wheat harvested in Henan province with two-year storage period were taken as a test sample, and each testing group was infected by each kind of borers in different pest density levels. The protein content and wet gluten content of wheat after a given period of infesting time, and the maximum shearing force, tensile force and extending distance and hardness, springiness, cohesiveness, chewiness and resilience of the cooked noodles were measured. The results showed that the maximum shearing force increased slightly at the beginning of the pest infestation in all different pest density levels, but decreased greatly at the end. The tensile force and the extending distance had a decrease tendency during the whole insect infestation process. The hardness and springiness of the cooked noodles had no great changes at the beginning, then the springiness increased rapidly, but the hardness decreased rapidly. The cohesiveness and chewiness at the end were larger than that at beginning stage. The resilience increased rapidly during the whole insect infestation process. The infection time and population density of the lesser grain borer are also the most important factors which caused the changes of noodle texture parameters by wet gluten content of wheat. Therefore the suitable and effective measures should be timely taken to prevent the enlarging of population density of the lesser grain borer, and keep wheat quality as origin.