cylindrical gel (∼1.0 g) was placed on a disc of Whatman # 1 filter paper (Whatman, UK) and positioned in the middle of a 50 mL centrifuge tube. The water loss was determined by weighing the gel before and after centrifugation at 4000 g for 10 min at 15 °C ( Kocher & Foegeding, 1993) in a Sorvall RC5 Plus centrifuge using a SS-34 rotor (Dupont, UK). The WHC values were expressed as the percent of the ratio of the amount of water remaining to the initial amount of water present in the gel.