1,721,033 research outputs found
PLASMAFOOD – Italian Project on the Study and Optimization of Cold Atmospheric Plasma Treatment for Food Safety and Quality Improvement: Results and Future Perspectives
No full textAcrylamide in coffee: formation and possible mitigation strategies – a review
Full text linkIt is widely known that acrylamide, present in some different heat-treated foods, is an important toxic compound to humans. Coffee beverage is one of the most important sources of acrylamide, because the raw bean contains the reaction substrates and it is processed at very high temperature during roasting. Due to its high consumption all over the world, it is necessary to find applicable solutions to decrease the concentration of this undesired Maillard reaction product. The present review summarizes the advance made in understanding the acrylamide formation and describes the potential acrylamide reduction strategies along all coffee production steps, from raw material to coffee brew preparation with a dominant focus on roasting stage. Currently, it is quite established that the selection of the highest quality Arabica green coffee variety, high roasting thermal input and shortest brewing techniques lead to low final acrylamide levels. There are also few innovative interventions proposed for acrylamide control in coffee such as enzymatic treatments of raw material, vacuum or steam roasting, roasted beans supercritical fluid extraction, final beverage treatments like yeast fermentation and amino acids/additive additions. However, for these strategies the impact on the desired sensorial and nutritional coffee brew properties must be evaluated and some proposed procedures are still difficult to be applied at real industrial scale. Furthermore, in-depth studies are needed in order to find appropriate and practical solutions for acrylamide mitigation in coffee with a holistic risk/benefit approach
Safety, quality, and processing of fruits and vegetables
Full text linkNowadays, one of the main objectives of the fruit and vegetable industry is to develop innovative novel products with high quality, safety, and optimal nutritional characteristics in order to respond with efficiency to the increasing consumer expectations. Various emerging, unconventional technologies (e.g., pulsed electric field, pulsed light, ultrasound, high pressure, and microwave drying) enable the processing of fruits and vegetables, increasing their stability while preserving their thermolabile nutrients, flavour, texture, and overall quality. Some of these technologies can also be used for waste and by-product valorisation. The application of fast noninvasive methods for process control is of great importance for the fruit and vegetable industry. The following Special Issue “Safety, Quality, and Processing of Fruits and Vegetables” consists of 11 papers, which provide a high-value contribution to the existing knowledge on safety aspects, quality evaluation, and emerging processing technologies for fruits and vegetables
Food engineering strategies for sustainable food supply chains: Interdisciplinarity is the key
Full text linkFood supply chains are the backbone of our global food systems. Ensuring that these supply chains are robust and can withstand disruptions such as climate change and pandemics is vital for all societies. Just as important is the supply chains’ sustainability, given that they are a major emitter of greenhouse gasses (GHG). To meet this dual challenge requires new, interdisciplinary strategies that draw on scientific, technical and social innovations right across the disciplinary spectrum. Addressing this challenge was the main motivation for this special issue
Effect of nonthermal technologies on functional food compounds
No full textAs the demand for functional food increases, intense research efforts have been devoted to the development of new processing technologies (e.g., pulsed electric fields, ultrasound, high hydrostatic pressure, and cold plasma, among others) as alternative to the traditional thermal processing to obtain safe products with sensory and nutritional attributes similar to those of fresh product. These technologies allow the sustainable food production by cost and energy reduction, better use of resources, and minimizing waste. Moreover, these technologies generally allow a better retention of functional components and antioxidant properties of foods compared with the traditional thermal treatments.This chapter will discuss the impact of processing conditions of different nonthermal technologies on the sustainability of food processing in relation to extraction and stability of the main functional components in food products. The provided information will be beneficial for further commercialization and exploration of these novel technologies
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Fresh-Cut Eruca Sativa Treated with Plasma Activated Water (PAW): Evaluation of Antioxidant Capacity, Polyphenolic Profile and Redox Status in Caco2 Cells
Full text linkPlasma Activated Water (PAW) has recently emerged as a promising non-chemical and non-thermal technology for the microbial decontamination of food. However, its use as a replacement for conventional disinfection solutions needs further investigation, as the impact of reactive species generated by PAW on nutritional food quality, toxicology, and safety is still unclear. The purpose of this study is to investigate how treatment with PAW affects the health-promoting properties of fresh-cut rocket salad (Eruca sativa). Therefore, the polyphenolic profile and antioxidant activity were evaluated by a combination of UHPLC-MS/MS and in vitro assays. Moreover, the effects of polyphenolic extracts on cell viability and oxidative status in Caco2 cells were assessed. PAW caused a slight reduction in the radical scavenging activity of the amphiphilic fraction over time but produced a positive effect on the total phenolic content, of about 70% in PAW-20, and an increase in the relative percentage (about 44-50%) of glucosinolate. Interestingly, the PAW polyphenol extract did not cause any cytotoxic effect and caused a lower imbalance in the redox status compared to an untreated sample. The obtained results support the use of PAW technology for fresh-cut vegetables to preserve their nutritional properties
Combination of PEF and Aureobasidium pullulans treatment on acrylamide mitigation in potato crisps
No full textAccording to the new EU Regulation (2017/2158), which has established new “mitigation measures and benchmark levels for the reduction of acrylamide in foods”, there is the necessity to adapt different process methods in order to reduce the acrylamide formation in deep-fat fried potato-based products, and at the same time to maintain the quality of final products acceptable. Among strategies suggested for the reduction of acrylamide in potato crisps, pulsed electric fields (PEF) represent a promising innovative technology with the potentiality to remove Maillard reaction substrates, such as reducing sugars and free asparagine, in raw potato tissues. Recently, it has been reported that the strain L1 of the yeast Aureobasidium pullulans has the ability to assimilate asparagine in food systems. On the basis of this consideration, the aim of the study was to evaluate the possibility of the reduction of acrylamide content in potato crisps, pre-treating the raw material using a combination of PEF treatment to enhance the extractability of asparagine and a subsequent treatment with aqueous suspension of the aforementioned yeast.
Potato tubers (Solanum tuberosum, var. Lady Claire) were manually peeled and sliced and submitted to PEF pre-treatment using a lab-scale unit delivering rectangular shape pulses. An electric field strength of 1.5 kV/cm and 1000 pulses were used. Consequently, PEF-treated samples were soaked in 250 ml of L1 water suspension (108 cells/ml) for different times at 25 C. A commercial deep-fat fryer was used for the frying tests. Fried potato crisp samples were analysed for moisture, asparagine content, colour, texture, oil uptake and acrylamide content. Results showed a significant reduction of asparagine content and therefore of acrylamide formation after frying. PEF pre-treatment of raw potato slices allowed the cell de- compartmentalisation enhancing the sugars and asparagine availability and so their assimilability from yeasts
The influence of different pre-treatments on the quality and nutritional characteristics in dried undersized yellow Kiwifruit
Full text linkUndersized kiwifruits are considered waste; therefore, there is a need to develop sustainable processing technologies for their valorization, in order to have a positive economic impact on their entire production chain. Therefore, the aim of this study was to apply pulsed electric fields (PEF) combined with osmotic dehydration (OD) and air drying (AD) to develop a novel yellow kiwifruit dried snack with high nutritional functionality. In particular, the effect of the different pre-treatments, PEF (200 V/cm) and/or OD (trehalose at 40%), on the color, bioactive compounds content and antioxidant activity (AA) was evaluated on kiwifruit chips air-dried at three different temperatures (50, 60, 70◦C). The results showed that better color maintenance was observed at the drying temperature of 60◦C. Concerning the bioactive compounds, a good retention in total polyphenols (TP), vitamin C content and AA with the DPPH method was obtained on OD and PEF kiwifruit dried snacks, similar to that of control samples. Instead, the ABTS method showed the best AA in PEF and OD/PEF samples. In general, a shorter drying time in the OD-and PEF-treated samples could contribute to the higher sustainability of the process
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