Journal of Food Processing and Preservation最新文献

Bitter apricot belongs to the genus Prunus and family Rosaceae and possesses bioactive compounds including oil with medicinal potential. A study was designed to investigate the food preservation and shelf-life extension potency of bitter apricot seed kernel oil (BASKO). It was used as a coating material independently or pure oil coating (OC) and integrated with a film-forming solution (FFS) for the extension of shelf-life. It was also used in a challenge study against fungal and bacterial species. The FFS coating was found effective, as the coated apples remained relatively fresh (internally and externally), whereas the OC applied was found partially shrunk compared to the completely spoiled uncoated (control) apples, after 20 weeks of incubation with a weight loss of 35 ± 2% for uncoated, 11 ± 1% for OC, and 5 ± 1% for FFS coated. The nutritional status of the apples during shelf-life studies showed that the carbohydrates (28.16 ± 0.91 and 34.14 ± 1.04 μg/mL) and protein (3.704 ± 0.30 and 3.549 ± 0.53 μg/mL) amount decreased in both oil and FFS coated apples compared to the fresh apple samples calculated at initial stage of the experiments 39.01 ± 1.02 μg/mL (carbohydrates) and 3.34 ± 0.58 μg/mL (protein), respectively. The BASKO coating reduced the fungal (Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus) and bacterial (Salmonella typhi and Escherichia coli) number during the challenge studies and prevented the spoilage of apples in the inoculated apples during the 16-week incubation. It was concluded in the study that BASKO can be used as a strong preservative for fresh fruit preservation and can be a good choice for food industry applications.

There is a lack of dietary fiber and some essential amino acids in instant noodles. Enriching this popular food with protein- and fiber-rich sources is important to improve the nutritional quality of noodles. The current study is aimed at enriching instant noodles by substituting wheat flour with lentil flour (7%–35%: L7%, L21%, and L35%), soy-protein isolate (1%–5%: S1%, S3% and S5%), egg-white protein (1–5: E1%, E3%, and E5%) and Spirulina platensis (1%–5%: S.p1%, S.p3% and S.p5%). The physicochemical, microbial, textural, and sensorial properties of noodle samples were investigated. The spatial relationship between parameters was also evaluated based on principal component analysis (PCA) to select the suitable noodle formulation. The highest protein (17.06%) and lowest carbohydrate contents (76.44%) were for L35%. The lowest (1.69%) and highest fat contents (2.04%) were for S5% and S.p5%m, respectively (p > 0.05). Energy values varied from 394.83 (E5%) to 396.37 kcal/100 g (S.p5%). There was no significant difference between the microbial quality of noodle samples (p > 0.05). The hardness of noodles with 1%–5% soy protein, 21% or more lentil flour, and 3% or more egg-white/Spirulina was higher than the control/unenriched group (p < 0.05). The color difference of E1 and E3% with the control sample was not obvious (ΔE^∗ < 3). Although all the ingredients improved the nutritional value of the noodles, the overall acceptance of samples with 3% or more of Spirulina was lower than the acceptable limit (a score of 3). According to PCA, when the nutritional value and sensory acceptance are important, the L35% may be a better choice. E1%, E3%, S1%, S5%, and L7% noodles received almost the same sensory score as the control sample, while they had more nutritional values. A combination of animal, plant, and microalgae protein sources may provide a noodle with high nutritional value, containing a wide range of essential amino acids and bioactive compounds. More research is needed to optimize such a formulation.

The present work deals with the chemical properties of vegetable oils commonly used for deep-frying, for example, sunflower, corn, cotton, canola, and olive oils. Ten deep-frying cycles were carried out for 20 min each. Oil degradation was measured by peroxide values (PVs) and was highly correlated with the presence of conjugated-diene and conjugated-triene structures. Frying cycles caused two alternative reactions, which both impacted the PV. In one reaction, there was an increase in PV with the oxidation of the unsaturated bonds, and in the second stage, there was a decrease in the cleavage of the double-bond oxide. Additionally, the point of returns (PRs) and activation energy (Ea) were determined for the two stages. The PRs were eight cycles for olive and corn, five cycles for canola, four cycles for sunflower, and three cycles for cotton oil. In terms of ER, the olive and cotton oils had the highest ER and were most resistant to decomposition, and the associated activation energy formation of peroxide decomposition products. The corn oil was the least resistant to decomposition. In addition, this work demonstrated a novel analytical technique that showed the correlation between the total value of conjugated diene-triene structures and PV, using a titration method. The correlation was high confidence for the regression, recovery, and U⁹⁵. This significant correlation is useful for measuring the PV of oils subjected to other processes.

Date press cake (DPC) is a by-product of date syrup (also known Dips) production with high nutritional content. However, it is still underutilized owing to the lack of knowledge about its health benefits and possible food applications. Therefore, the aim of the study was to prepare low-calorie fibre-rich functional cookies fortified with DPC. Different additions of DPC (5% and 10% on wheat flour basis) were added while sugar was reduced by 25% and 50% and replaced by 0.39 and 0.65 g Stevia, respectively. Cookies were analysed for their physicochemical and sensory attributes. The obtained results showed that moisture content, ash, and dietary fibre content significantly (p < 0.05) increased with increasing DPC amount, while sucrose content decreased significantly in treatments compared to the control. In addition, the hardness of 10% DPC-enriched cookies with 50% sugar reduction was slightly significantly higher than the control, while other treatments were not significantly different. The addition of DPC significantly decreased both L^∗ and b^∗, while increasing a^∗ of cookies. The results also revealed that the diameter, thickness, and spread ratio of the DPC-enriched cookies did not significantly differ from those of the control sample. On the other hand, the inclusion of DPC and Stevia significantly lowered the weight before baking of cookies, while the baking loss did not significantly change, apart from cookies with 5% DPC and 50% sugar reduction which showed a slight significant increase. The sensory evaluation results showed that cookies with 10% DPC inclusion and 25% sugar reduction received the highest appearance, texture, flavour, and overall acceptability scores compared to the control. However, the differences were not significant. These results indicate that the incorporation of DPC as a low-cost fibre-rich ingredient in cookies, along with the sugar reduction and Stevia substitution, improved the fibre content and nutritional value of cookies without compromising their physical or sensory attributes.

In this study, five drying methods (hot air drying [HD], light wave drying [LD], far infrared drying [FID], freeze drying [FD], and heat pump drying [HPD]) were applied to dry Sargassum fusiforme. The color, rehydration rate (RR), and volatile flavor substances of dried S. fusiforme were compared and analyzed, and the content, molecular weight (Mw), monosaccharide composition, and antioxidant activity of dried S. fusiforme crude polysaccharides (SFCPs) were analyzed. The results showed that S. fusiforme dried by different drying methods showed different colors. FD produced S. fusiforme with better RR (p < 0.05). The Mw of the SFCPs were 624.06, 534.86, 683.00, 1077.13, and 981.91 kDa, respectively, for HD, LD, FID, FD, and HPD. The Mw and DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging rates of SFCP-FD were greater than those of the remaining four drying methods; however, the ABTS (2,2 ^′-azobis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) and OH (hydroxyl) radical scavenging rates were highest in the SFCP-HPD. GC-IMS analysis showed that the drying method affected the content and composition of volatile flavor compounds. Principal component analysis (PCA) analysis indicated that the flavors of dried S. fusiforme were quite different from that of fresh S. fusiforme, and the flavors of HD, LD, and FID were similar, while the flavors of FD and HPD were similar.

This research was aimed at investigating the effect of edible coatings based on the combination of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and soy protein isolate (SPI) containing 0.0%, 1.0%, 2.0%, and 3.0% w/v of nanoencapsulated pistachio green peel extract (PGPE) on the chemical and microbiological properties of raw pistachio of Kale Ghoochi variety during 18 weeks of storage at 27 ± 1°C. Moisture content (MC), acid value (AV), peroxide value (PV), total phenol content (TPC), total viable count (TVC), and total fungi count (TFC) were tested at 21-day intervals. PGPE contains phenolic compounds (48.73 mg GAE/g) with antioxidant activity (IC₅₀ = 10.83) which increased MC (19.51%) and TPC (75.62%) of coated samples with 3% PGPE compared with control, whereas AV (41.12%), PV (53.16%), TVC (44.64%), and TFC (35.01%) reduced (p < 0.05). The results of this research suggested that the edible coatings based on the combination of CMC and SPI containing nanoencapsulated PGPE have the ability to reduce the oil oxidation reactions and microbial growth in raw pistachio. Therefore, the concentration of 2.0% nanoencapsulated PGPE due to its better properties can be used to extend the shelf life of raw pistachio.

This study determined whether natural preservatives, when used as substitutes for sulfur dioxide (SO₂) in Boerewors, influenced water activity (a_w), pH, and moisture content; microbial and sensory quality; and the lipid oxidative and color stability in Boerewors models. The inclusion of sulfur dioxide at 0.035% (positive control), formulation without preservatives (negative control); protective cultures (PrC1 and PrC2), containing lactic acid bacteria; and plant extract blends (KD1 and KD2), containing rosemary and acerola extracts and buffered vinegar, were evaluated. The use of KD2 increased pH on Days 0 and 6, but the increased pH did not affect the microbial preservative effect. The a_w of the treatments was stable over 6 days and therefore also did not have an influence on the microbial preservative effect of the natural preservatives. Both plant extract preservatives (KD1 and KD2) increased the oxidative stability of lipids more than any other treatment, including the positive control. The microbial stability results were inconclusive because of the protective cultures, which increased the total bacteria count. The counts of coliform and Enterobacteriaceae, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus aureus were analyzed, but significant differences between the treatments were not observed. KD1, which contained rosemary plant extract, maintained the lowest TBC at the same level as the positive control but had a slightly lower redness score. Treatments had no effect on sensory evaluation. The use of KD1 and KD2 plant preservatives proofed to be worthy as replacers of SO₂ in Boerewors. This manuscript contains research data that formed part of an M.Sc. thesis. This manuscript also contains materials and methods that were used in a Ph.D. thesis where salt reduction in South African meat products was evaluated.

Foxtail millet is a type of minor millet that has nutritional-rich characteristics. The bran layer in millets contains a considerable amount of antinutritional properties, and grain/flour/product spoilage occurs due to fat in the bran layer. Therefore, the removal of bran from millets can enhance their shelf life. Bran removal from foxtail millet is challenging because of its tiny size. Hence, the study targeted optimizing polishing process parameters for foxtail millet. The effect of process variables such as grain moisture content (8%–16% w.b.), emery roller speed (800–2400 rpm), and polishing time (1–8 min) on polishing characteristics (degree of polishing, head yield, middling yield, and broken content) and proximate composition (protein, fat, crude fiber, ash, and carbohydrate contents) of foxtail millets was studied using the central composite rotatable design (CCRD). Emery roller speed and polishing time significantly affected all responses (p < 0.01). In contrast, grain moisture content had a significant effect only on the degree of polishing (p < 0.05), head, and middling yields (p < 0.01). A numerical optimization technique was adopted to optimize the process parameters of the polisher. The optimum operating conditions were 10% grain moisture content, 1650 rpm of emery roller speed, and 2 min of polishing time. A validation study conducted at optimized conditions revealed no significant difference between the predicted and actual values of responses and considerably less broken content (9.26%). The results of the present study indicate that machinery modified and processes optimized during the study are fairly accepted and can be used to upscale the machine for industrial use.

Traditional methods of separating defective cucumbers are inherently labor-intensive and time-consuming. However, with the emergence of intelligent farming practices, deep learning (DL) algorithms, particularly in the fields of image processing and machine vision, have demonstrated significant potential to address this challenge. The main objective of this research study is to develop a DL-based algorithm capable of classifying cucumbers into three distinct categorical groups based on their visual characteristics: defective, curved, and sound (straight green). For this purpose, in addition to inspect the more accurate InceptionResNetV2 as a transfer learning method, the modified convolutional neural network (CNN) (MCNN) incorporating global average pooling (GAP) was proposed to streamline the architecture and minimize trainable parameters. The results demonstrate that the accuracy of CNN with the GAP layer outperforms the fully connected (FC) layer (FCL). The accuracies for the proposed CNN with GAP, proposed CNN with FCL, and InceptionResNetV2 were 94.14%, 92.92%, and 91.21%, respectively, highlighting the efficiency of the CNN with GAP in cucumber classification and its potential to replace conventional grading methods. The overall results indicated that the implementation of dropout did not yield any improvements for the developed models. Rather, the best performance of the CNNs was achieved when utilizing 64 neurons in the hidden layer.

The research is aimed at addressing concerns regarding the health implications of increased cola consumption by developing a healthier alternative. This was achieved by replacing phosphoric acid with organic acidulants (citric acid (CA), lactic acid (LA), and tartaric acid (TA)) and enriching the drink with calcium gluconate salt. Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed as a statistical optimization tool to ensure the formulation met predefined criteria for physicochemical and sensory parameters. The optimized cola drink formulation consisted of 0.07% CA, 0.05% TA, and 0.04% LA, along with calcium gluconate. The physicochemical analysis revealed a pH of 3.36, an acidity of 7.72%, a reducing sugar (glucose) content of 4.46%, and a Brix value of 12.7°. Sensory evaluation indicated high overall acceptability with a hedonic score of 7.08, suggesting that the optimized cola drink with improved qualitative characteristics could serve as a desirable option for consumers seeking healthier beverage choices. Further studies could explore its long-term health effects and market feasibility.