The higher rate of moisture loss from the control nuggets might be responsible for higher magnitudes of positive pressure for a longer period of time and higher magnitude of negative pressure for a longer period of time when compared with the MC-coated nuggets for all the moisture levels except for MC-coated nuggets at 65 g/100 g (Fig.10) and 55 g/100 g moisture content (Fig.11) fried at 190 C. The effective barrier property exhibited by the MC might be responsible for lower moisture loss and lower magnitudes of positive and negative pressure in MC-coated nuggets. These results may be correlated to the higher moisture retention and lower fat uptake by the MC-coated nuggets. As discussed in the literature
review, several previous studies gave much importance to oil uptake during cooling due to capillary suction and water vapor condensation. But present results indicated that the negative pressure exists in the nugget core during most of the frying process except for the first few seconds, which may be attributed to oil uptake taking place throughout the frying process.