Journal of Food Science最新文献

Infant formulas are constantly being updated and upgraded, and N-glycans are functional glycans that have not been fully exploited to date. Commercial whey protein materials are often used as basic ingredients in infant formulas. Therefore, it is important to study N-glycans in commercial whey protein materials. We used matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) and ion chromatography to analyze N-glycans in bovine lactoferrin (Lf), whey protein isolate (WPI), whey protein concentrate 70 (WPC 70), goat whey protein powder 50, demineralized whey powder 90 (D90), and desalted goat whey powder. The results showed that 30, 6, 28, 16, 8, and 9 N-glycans were found in Lf, D90, desalted goat whey powder, WPI, WPC 70, and goat whey protein powder 50, respectively. A total of four structures of N-glycans were detected in this study. Only bovine Lf and WPC 70 contained fucosylated and sialylated binding (SFN-type) glycan structures. Regarding content, WPC 70 showed the highest yield of 14.5 mg/g, and the degree of sialylation was higher than fucosylation. This study provides a potential basis for the future use of commercial whey protein materials in dairy products such as infant formula.

This study aimed to investigate the potential hypoglycemic mechanism of red ginseng acidic polysaccharides (RGAP) from the perspective of fatty acid (FA) regulation. A high-glucose/high-fat diet in conjunction with streptozotocin administration was employed to establish type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) rat models, and their fecal FAs were detected using the liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) method. RGAP treatment alleviated the polyphagia, polydipsia, weight loss, and hyperglycemia observed in T2DM rats. FA profile was disturbed by T2DM modeling, and 11 marker FAs were selected from statistical analysis, whose intensities were reversely changed by RGAP administration. Among these marker FAs, short-chain FAs were negatively correlated with the fasting blood glucose (FBG) level, while positive correlations were observed between long-chain FA and the FBG level. Combined with the metabolite-enzyme-gene network analysis, we inferred that the mechanistic mechanism RGAP on T2DM may be associated with the regulation of FA metabolism and inflammation-related signaling pathways. This study confirmed the regulatory effect of RGAP on fecal FA, which can provide a scientific basis and new ideas for developing red ginseng as a functional food for supplementary treatment of T2DM.

This study was intended to provide a novel process that fills a knowledge gap in relation to the enhancement of pulses utilization. The primary goal was to develop an experimental framework for using a high-pressure supercritical fluid extruder (SCFX) as a continuous bioreactor to produce off-flavor reduced and functionally superior pulse flours and protein concentrates in a single step. The current study focused on using SCFX processing to remove off-flavor from pulse flour and protein concentrates, enhancing the quality, acceptability, and marketability of pulse-based products. Supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO₂), a well-known green solvent, was employed in combination with an extrusion system to achieve off-flavor reduction at larger scale. Using various methods such as headspace solid-phase microextraction-gas chromatography mass-spectroscopy (HS-SPME-GC-MS) and sensory evaluation, this study demonstrated that SCFX significantly reduced the off-flavor in pea flour (PF) and pea protein concentrate (PPC). HS-SPME-GC-MS analyses identified major off-flavor compounds in unextruded PF and PPC, including 1-hexanol, 1-octanol, 1-nonanol, nonanal, and 2-alkyl methoxypyrazines. Following SCFX treatment, all these compounds except nonanal were removed. Total off-flavor compound concentration dropped from 923 to 126.5 ng/g in PF, and from 571.7 to 65.9 ng/g in pea protein concentrate PPC after SCFX treatment. Sensory evaluation corroborated these HS-SPME-GC-MS findings, showing that over 80% of the participants could accurately distinguish the extruded samples from the unextruded ones, perceiving the treated samples as having the least beany flavor. These findings highlight the efficacy of SCFX processing in enhancing the sensory profile of pulse-based products by removing off-flavor compounds.

Freezing extends the shelf life of foods but often leads to structural damage due to ice crystal formation, negatively impacting quality attributes. Oscillating magnetic field (OMF)-assisted supercooling has emerged as a potential technique to overcome these limitations by inhibiting ice nucleation and maintaining foods in a supercooled state. Despite its potential, the effectiveness and underlying mechanisms of OMF-assisted supercooling remain subjects of debate. In this study, the effects of OMF on the supercooling behavior of an agar-based food model system containing iron(III)-oxide nanoparticles (IONP) were investigated. Agar samples containing IONPs at various concentrations (3, 6, 12 and 15 mg per 100 mL) were prepared to simulate the presence of ferric materials responsive to OMF. The samples were exposed to an external OMF (10 mT, 10 Hz) at −8°C for 24 h. Higher supercooling probabilities were achieved in the IONP-containing samples, with probabilities of 75%, 75%, and 90% for the 3 mg, 6 mg, and 12 mg concentrations, respectively. In contrast, lower supercooling probabilities of 60% and 55% were exhibited by the control samples (without nanoparticles) and samples containing zinc nanoparticles (ZNPs), respectively. It is suggested that the enhanced supercooling stability in IONP samples is due to the interaction between the magnetic nanoparticles and the OMF, inhibiting ice nucleation possibly through the magneto-mechanical motion affecting water molecule orientation and hydrogen bonding networks.

This study aimed to investigate the impact of dietary soybean oil and probiotics on goat meat quality, total conjugated linoleic acids (TCLA) concentration, and nutritional quality indicators of goats. Thirty-six male crossbred goats (Anglo-Nubian♂× Thai native♀), weighing 18.3 ± 2.7 kg, were selected and randomly assigned to six groups in a 2 × 3 factorial design, with six replicates per group. The soybean oil supplementation levels were 25 and 50 g/kg, while the probiotic supplementation levels were 0, 2.5, and 5.0 g/h/day. The results showed that supplementing the diet with 50 g/kg soybean oil significantly improved the average daily gain (ADG) (p = 0.02) and carcass yield (p = 0.05), while reducing the feed conversion ratio (p = 0.05). Additionally, the addition of 2.5 g/h/day of probiotics significantly increased dry matter intake (p(L) = 0.05, p(Q) = 0.03). Notably, supplementation with 50 g/kg soybean oil reduced the Warner–Bratzler shear force (p = 0.05) and a* (p = 0.01) values of the Longissimus thoracis et lumborum. However, 2.5 g/h/day of probiotics significantly improved (p(L) = 0.01, p(Q) = 0.04) the a* value of Longissimus thoracis et lumborum. Soybean oil supplementation at 50 g/kg increased the ether extract composition of Biceps brachii (p = 0.05) and Semimembranosus (p = 0.05). Additionally, it significantly increased TCLA content (p < 0.01) and reduced the n−6/n−3 ratio (p < 0.01). Interestingly, the supplementation of 5.0 g/h/day probiotics significantly reduced the thrombogenic index (p = 0.03). Moreover, supplementing with 50 g/kg soybean oil (p = 0.03) and 5.0 g/h/day probiotics significantly improved the nutritive value index of goat muscle. Collectively, the findings suggest that the optimal supplementation levels of probiotics and soybean oil are 2.5 g/h/day and 50 g/kg, respectively. These levels have a more pronounced effect on improving the growth performance of growing goats, increasing CLA content, and enhancing meat quality.

Bruises can affect the appearance and nutritional value of apples and cause economic losses. Therefore, the accurate detection of bruise levels and bruise time of apples is crucial. In this paper, we proposed a method that combines a self-designed multispectral imaging system with deep learning to accurately detect the level and time of bruising on apples. To enhance the accuracy of extracting bruised regions with subtle features and irregular edges, an improved DeepLabV3+ was proposed. More specifically, depthwise separable convolution and efficient channel attention were employed, and the loss function was replaced with a focal loss. With these improvements, DeepLabV3+ achieved the maximum intersection over union of 95.5% and 91.0% for segmenting bruises on two types of apples in the test set, as well as maximum F1-score of 97.5% and 95.2%. In addition, the spectral data of the bruised regions were extracted. After spectral preprocessing, EfficientNetV2, DenseNet121, and ShuffleNetV2 were utilized to identify the bruise levels and times and DenseNet121 exhibited the best performance. To improve the identification accuracy, an improved DenseNet121 was proposed. The learning rate was adjusted using the cosine annealing algorithm, and squeeze-and-excitation attention mechanism and the Gaussian error linear unit activation function were utilized. Test set results demonstrated that the accuracies of the bruising levels were 99.5% and 99.1%, and those of the bruise time were 99.0% and 99.3%, respectively. This provides a new method for detecting bruise levels and bruised time on apples.