Deep fried battered and breaded foods are popular food items
widely enjoyed by consumers. However, over-ingestion of these
products, in some cases with fat content up to one-third of the total
food product by weight, can cause obesity and various cardiovascular
diseases (Mellema, 2003). Numerous techniques for lowering
fat content in fried foods have been explored, including the creation
of an edible physical barrier (film) on deep-fat fried foods, alteration
of the surface of the foods, control of the polarity of frying oil
through frequent replacement with fresh oil, and modification of
the frying process through adjustment of frying temperature, time
or method (Brannan, Myers, & Herrick, 2013; Myers & Brannan,
2012). In particular, the formation of edible films as barriers on
deep-fat frying battered and breaded foods has been extensively
investigated because of their efficacy as inhibitors of fat absorption.
Moreover, the physical and mechanical properties of fried battered
and breaded foods can be manipulated depending on the physicochemical
nature of the film generated underneath the layer of the
breading material (Brannan et al., 2014).