1,721,074 research outputs found
Preschooler liking of meal components: The impact of familiarity, neophobia, and sensory characteristics
No full textIn this study, 60 Italian preschoolers evaluated individual components of five multicourse sit-down meals on liking on a five-point scale by actual tasting in the natural setting of the school canteen. Descriptive Analysis quantified sensory characteristics of these items with a panel of trained assessors to illustrate differences among the dishes. Food neophobia and familiarity with the dishes were measured to test whether these traits significantly influenced liking. The results showed that liking varied (p <.001) across individual dishes. The most liked dishes were all the first course dishes, braised loin with vegetable sauce, raw carrots and all the fruit courses except red orange juice. Least liked dishes were red orange juice, stir-fried spinaches and raw fennels. Liking scores correlated (p <.001) with children's food neophobia (r = −.38), familiarity (r =.94), sweetness (r =.72), odor (r =.70), and flavor intensity (r =.75). Mother's liking (r =.79; p <.001) was more strongly associated with a child liking than father's liking of the same food (r =.38; p <.001). Therefore, controlling for innate taste responses and favoring aromatic and rich-tasting dishes may improve liking. Additional interventions may focus on lowering children food neophobia by facilitating the exposure to unfamiliar foods. Practical applications: Food likes help uncover the basis for food preference especially when hedonic responses are acquired in real life eating contexts. Direct inputs from children are essential to understanding preference formation. Understanding sensory drivers of liking helps plan more palatable dishes for school meals. Knowledge of mechanisms underlying food habits may be helpful to favoring the creation of healthy food practices throughout the population of children
Development of bakery formulation for sprayable cake preparation
Full text linkThe aim of this work was to create an innovative sprayable bakery mix for foam-style cake preparation. The main goal was to obtain a batter liquid enough to be easily and quickly dosed in a spray system but maintaining its structure during baking. A commercial liquid batter was selected, and its recipe modified to fit in a spray system. The commercial bakery mix was characterized in terms of physical-chemical, thermal, and rheological attributes. The product was then diluted with milk or whipping cream at a 3:1 (gproduct/gdiluent) ratio to modulate its viscosity to be sprayed in a nitrous oxide loaded siphon system. All the prepared samples were characterized in terms of physicochemical properties at different stages of cake production (before and after spraying, and after baking) to investigate the effect of dilution on rheology and spray-ability and on the texture of final cake. Before cooking, the dilution determined an increase of water content and activity and a remarkable difference in colour coordinates compared to the reference. However, the differences in physicochemical parameters were minimized after baking due to water content reduction and non-enzymatic browning phenomena. Despite that, the diluent type affected thermal characteristic peaks linked to fat melting and starch gelatinization phenomena, respectively. In fat melting, whipping cream addition maintained enthalpy values similar to control due to the high lipid content balancing the dilution effect. Instead, the greatest water amount in milk contributed to fat reduction and enthalpy reduction. In starch gelatinization, both milk and cream addition determined a reduction of the associated total energy due to a starch dilution effect. From a rheological point of view, a significant decrease in viscosity enabled the diluted batter to be sprayed. All samples displayed shear rate dependent and shear-thinning behaviour. When the batter was sprayed the values of apparent viscosity suddenly increased, probably due to a reduced droplet size, minor average interparticle distance and the interaction of foaming agents and proteins. After baking, sprayed samples showed firmness and springiness comparable to the control cake. However, the cakes from both the diluted batters presented some cooking defects typical of an incorrect leavening process enforced by yeast dilution and lack in aeration stability during baking
Incorporation of waste orange peels extracts into PLA films
Full text linkAn important and hot-topic field in food packaging is the development of innovative active packaging, based on the incorporation of specific components, such as antioxidant and/or antimicrobial agents, able to modify the internal atmosphere or to be absorbed directly by the food, in order to prolong the product shelf-life. However, due to the increasing concerns of consumers about the plastics and the presence of synthetic chemical compounds in consumer goods, as well as, the importance of increasing environmental sustainability of the materials, has encouraged novel developments. This study is focused on the development of innovative, biodegradable and sustainable PLA-based active packaging solutions with the incorporation of natural antioxidant compounds recovered from agri-food wastes. An antioxidant extract was recovered through hydro-alcoholic extraction from waste orange peels, purified by resin absorption process and formulated as freeze-dried extract or spray-dried with pectin or cyclodextrins as carrier material. These three different formulations were incorporated into PLA films at different concentrations to investigate the influence of extract addition on polymer thermal stability and on colour and mechanical properties of films under accelerated light storage conditions
Mathematical modelling and simulation of phenol degradation in biofilters
No full textA mathematical model consisting of mass balance equations and accounting for reaction, mass transfer and axial dispersion is presented to describe the steady-state degradation of phenol in a biofilter. The reliability of model simulations was tested using experimental data from a laboratory-scale biofilter bed column, packed with a mixture of peat and glass beads and inoculated with a pure strain of Pseudomonas putida. Comparison of model estimates with experimental concentration profiles of the pollutant along the biofilter height proves that the model is appropriate to interpret the experimental results and simulate the process. The model can therefore be used as a design tool to predict the effect of varying operating conditions (e.g. inlet pollutant concentration, gas velocity) on reactor performance (e.g. degradation capacity and efficiency). Sensitivity analysis of the model shows that parameters such as dispersion coefficient and maximum specific growth rate have to be accurately estimated for the correct prediction of reactor performance. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
Development of Hybrid Models for a Vapor-Phase Fungi Bioreactor
Full text linkThis study is aimed at the development of a model for an experimental vapour-phase fungi bioreactor, which could be derived in a simple way using the available measurements of a pilot-plant reactor, without the development of ad hoc experiments for the evaluation of fungi kinetics and the estimation of parameters related to biofilm characteristics. The proposed approach is based on hybrid models, obtained by the connection of the mass balance equation (used in traditional phenomenological models) with a feedforward neural network (used in black-box modelling), and the proper use of statistical tools for the model assessment and system understanding. Two different hybrid models were developed and compared by proper performance indexes, and their capability to predict the biological complex phenomena was demonstrated and compared to that of a first-principle model
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