Journal of Food Quality最新文献

The objective of this study was to examine the macronutrient content in the shoots, leaves, and culms of bamboo species across various seasons within the habitats of wild giant pandas and in the cultivated regions for captive giant pandas. Results showed that crude protein (CP), fat, ash, and primary moisture (PM) contents of bamboo shoots were elevated, while there was a reduction in fiber content when compared to the leaves and culms (p < 0.05). Nutritional composition varied among bamboo sources, with wild bamboo leaves exhibiting higher CP concentrations and lower fiber content (p < 0.05), and higher CP and lower fiber in the bamboo of Xiangling mountains were observed. Almost all species exhibited greater concentrations of CP and PM and lower level of ash in annual bamboo leaves compared to the biennial and perennial (p < 0.05). Moreover, as the bamboo culms matured, there was an increase in acid detergent lignin (ADL), soluble sugar (SS), starch, and gross energy (GE) (p < 0.05). The ash, fiber, and GE contents were increased while the CP and SS were decreased both in leaves and culms among different bamboo species from spring to summer and fall. Moreover, Fargesia displayed lower PM, fiber, and ash levels compared to other species studied, and especially over 20% CP concentration was found in the annual leaves of Bashania spanostachya. These results indicated that macronutrient values of bamboo leaves and culms varied among species and were significantly influenced by the age of growth and seasonal changes.

Strawberries produce undesirable aromas because of chemical reactions and microbial growth during deterioration. An electronic nose can identify the changes in these aromas. This study aimed to analyze the quality indexes and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) profile changes in strawberries at constant temperatures during a specific storage period. Correlation and principal component analyses (PCAs) were also employed to determine the partial least squares regression (PLSR) for predicting the screened quality indexes using the VOC data. The results showed a high correlation of quality indexes as a function of time, including weight loss, total yeast and mold growth, total color differences, and texture (firmness). PCA revealed the contribution of VOCs in the sample, suggesting that propyl nonanoate, linalool, 2-propanol, and (Z)-3-hexen-1-ol were freshness indicators of strawberries. PLSR appropriately predicted weight loss, total yeast and mold growth, total color differences, and texture (firmness) between the observed and predicted data, which were expressed as R² = 81%–96%, RMSE = 21%–97%, and MAE = 15%–75%; however, the model with nonlinearity performed poorly. This finding provides important information for future development in the storage of strawberries during distribution from farm to retail at other constant temperatures or in fluctuating temperatures.

As a significant research component in nutritional assessment, vision-based food calorie estimation has been studied and applied due to its higher accuracy and efficiency. In this paper, a lightweight network for food calorie estimation is designed, called MeLL-cal. Firstly, a feature extraction module is proposed based on meta-learning ideas to generate informative representations, such as color, texture, and edge features, for unseen foods. Secondly, within the feature extraction module, a large convolutional kernel is proposed to provide a larger receptive field, which aims to capture more shape and semantic information and minimize information loss. Then, to achieve efficient calorie estimation with lower computational complexity, the calorie estimation module employs query-based inference to achieve optimal feature expression. Additionally, an adaptive fine-tuning module is also designed to refine estimation accuracy according to different datasets. The extensive experiments demonstrate the superiority of the MeLL-cal in terms of a PMAE of 18.7% and 31.1%, respectively, with only 2.313K parameters and 1.036 ms inference time on the Menu match dataset and the Calo world dataset.

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of psyllium husk powder, as a dietary fiber and carbohydrate substitute, on the physicochemical, colorimetric, structural quality, and consumer preference of sausages during storage. The potato starch was replaced by psyllium husk powder in 20%–40%–60%–80%–100% to improve the technological and sensory properties of the new product. Physicochemical analyses revealed that fiber substitution did not affect protein or fat values but reduced carbohydrate and moisture values. Carbohydrate decrease in psyllium husk samples varied between 39.29% and 71.42% and was detected the most in T5 sample. Moisture reduction varied between 2.46% and 6.01% and decreased as the addition rate increased. Cooking loss and total expressible fluid (TEF) during storage increased with the addition of psyllium husk (especially T2). Cooking loss increased the most in the control sample (4.8%) at the end of storage, while the least loss was in the T3 (3.4%) and T1 (3.5%) samples. Furthermore, during storage, there was a slight decrease in brightness in parallel with the psyllium husk replacement rate, but yellowing indexes increased. Instrumental textural analyses showed that 20%–40% of substituted samples (T1, T2) had similar properties to the control. Changes generally occurred in springiness, stickiness, and chewiness properties when substituting up to 60% psyllium husk. In psyllium husk–substituted samples, adhesiveness, resilience, and hardness decreased during storage, while chewiness increased. Consumer acceptance tests showed that panelists preferred sausages produced from white meat more than others, and sensory acceptability was rated above general liking on a hedonic scale of 6–8. When the technological and sensory properties of the products were evaluated together, it was determined that the acceptability of the 40% substituted (T2) sausage sample showed similar characteristics to the control sample, while the 100% substituted (T5) sample had low acceptance. Overall, the findings indicate that psyllium husk substitution has provided functional properties such as low carbohydrate and fibrousness to chicken sausages without affecting the sensory and textural properties. Psyllium husk powder–contained sausage has the potential to be an alternative meat product for individuals who need particular nutritional purposes.

Collagen peptide was identified as a prebiotic that can provide nitrogen and carbon sources for probiotics to achieve antiobesity, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and immunoregulatory effects by improving the gut microbiota. Also, obesity is a high-risk factor for psychological and cognitive diseases. This study used a commercialized collagen peptide probiotic (CPP) containing 12 strains of proprietary probiotics with collagen peptides from fish skin to evaluate weight control, fat formation, blood sugar control, and anxiety behavior effects in mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD) or high-carbohydrate diet (HCD) and compared the effects by the clinical weight loss drug orlistat (ORL). The results showed that CPP was more effective than ORL in slowing the weight gain in HCD- or HFD-fed male mice. However, the effects of CPP and ORL in female mice were slightly different. Regardless of gender, CPP significantly reduced fat formation and improved glucose tolerance caused by HCD or HFD. Blood biochemical analysis also revealed that CPP could restore HCD- and HFD-induced liver and kidney dysfunction in male but not in female mice. The total cholesterol, triglycerides, and leptin concentrations in the blood decreased with CPP compared to the ORL intervention. In addition, CPP alleviated HCD- and HFD-induced anxiety in mice and improved their gut microbiota. This study confirmed that this CPP product has more antiobesity effects and can ameliorate other related damage caused by HCD and HFD than the clinical weight loss drug ORL. Thus, CPP has a strong potential to be widely used for human health promotion and disease prevention.

The objective of this study was to determine the nutrient composition of Quasipaa spinosa eggs and evaluate their nutritional value. The findings from this study can be utilized to propose recommendations for further development of Q. spinosa. The fatty acids, amino acids, mineral elements, crude fat, crude protein, and other nutrients in Q. spinosa eggs were analyzed using the Chinese national standard methods. The composition of Q. spinosa eggs included moisture (77.97 ± 3.99%), crude protein (16.90 ± 2.24%), crude fat (2.33 ± 0.17%), and ash (0.84 ± 0.05%). The analysis identified 23 distinct fatty acids, with polyunsaturated fatty acids comprising 68.22% of the total fatty acid content, including linoleic acid (C18:2n6c, LA), α-linolenic acid (C18:3n3, ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (C20:5n3, EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (C22:6n3, DHA). Eighteen amino acids were detected in the eggs, with the total amino acid content (on a dry weight basis) being 64.45 ± 2.49%, of which essential amino acids constituted 24.27 ± 0.80%. The amino acid score analysis showed that lysine had the highest score. Among the eight commonly observed mineral elements, phosphorus and calcium had the highest levels. The abundance of unsaturated fatty acids, essential amino acids, phosphorus, and calcium in Q. spinosa eggs highlights their significant nutritional value, suggesting promising prospects for consumption and further development.

This study investigated bioactive materials and soluble sugar contents in banana fruit collected from local farmers. Banana fruit samples were collected from three potential plantation districts. Among ripening method, only the dried banana leaf wrapping technique resulted in the required ripening. Thus, analysis of parameters was conducted. Therefore, the dried banana fruit pulp was analyzed for phenols, flavonoids, antioxidants, free radical scavenging (FRS) activities, and soluble sugars. The obtained result showed the presence of significant differences between the analyzed banana fruit varieties and growing districts. Overall, the phenolic contents among the banana fruit pulp ranged from 36.28 to 45.34 GAE mg/100 g of banana fruit pulp, while the flavonoids ranged from 3.35 to 7.95 QE mg/100 g. Similarly, the antioxidant activity ranged from 12.09 to 19.56 AAE mg/100 g, while the free radical activity (DPPH) was 62.10%–94.80%. Also, the IC₅₀ value ranged from 0.04 to 0.07. The analyzed soluble sugar contents ranged from 6.10 to 11.0 g/100 g. Giant cavendish varieties have highest total phenolic content (TPC), while Dwarf Cavendish verities have highest antioxidant activity. Banana variety affect TPC, FRS, and sucrose content, while place where banana grown affect only total flavonoid content (TFC) and FRS. TACs and sugar are strongly linked. However, TFC shows moderate negative correlations with both TACs and sugar, suggesting higher TFCs mean lower TACs and sugar. TFCs show borderline differences across districts, with Debub Bench appearing to have lower TFCs, but a nonsignificant trend for higher TACs and sugar. Obtained results agree with other previously reported values. Thus, the analyzed banana fruits have appreciable amount of bioactive compound and soluble sugars.