Current Opinion in Food Science最新文献

Changing diets toward more plant-based on a large scale could provide a huge contribution to reducing humanities impact on the environment. However, behavior change is typically slow, particularly for culturally ingrained and socially dependent behaviors such as food and dietary choice. A concept suggesting potential for rapid changes, though, is ‘societal tipping points’. This review explains the background of the concept using literature from systems theory, innovation adoption, network theory, and consumer behavior. Theories as well as recent research insights suggest that short- and long-term actions are needed to move more plant-based diets from a niche across a tipping point and toward becoming a large-scale behavior.

Despite their many cultural, culinary, and health benefits, fermented foods may amplify and disseminate antimicrobial resistance in our food supply. This review summarizes our current understanding of the diversity, distribution, and potential risks of antimicrobial resistance in fermented foods and beverages. Most studies have focused on antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in lactic acid bacteria and coagulase-negative Staphylococcus species. Resistance to tetracyclines, penicillins, chloramphenicol, and macrolides is frequently reported. Several studies have demonstrated that ARGs have the potential to be transferred from fermentation microbes to pathogens. Most research has used culture-based or metagenomic surveys or ARGs at the point of production, and few studies have traced the fate of ARGs when ferments are consumed. Cases of humans being directly harmed by resistant microbes in ferments have not been reported, but these foods provide a farm-to-gut pipeline for current and future antimicrobial resistance in our food supply.

The use of Pickering emulsions (PE) as a delivery system of carotenoids and related hydrophobic compounds has arisen great interest in the scientific community due to their nontoxicity, safety, and long-term stability against different environmental conditions. In this line, designing suitable food-grade biopolymers for their use as stabilizers in carotenoid-loaded PE is an emerging research trend with many challenges. Thus, this review describes the recent advances in using proteins, polysaccharides, and protein–polysaccharide complexes as stabilizing agents of carotenoid-loaded PE. Besides that, this review provides a critical updated understanding of the effects of processing and storage on the stability of carotenoids encapsulated in PE, which are critical to support PE applications. The sustained-release behavior of PE in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) is a hot topic that was also discussed, as well as the challenges for the applications of PE in the food industry.

The cold pressing is the most widely used process in the commercial production of juices from fresh fruits, without the addition of heat, preserving all the original nutritional and sensory components, which places these juices in the premium category. Tropical fruits can be a good matrix to produce innovative juices with high amounts of bioactive compounds. These compounds can be reduced or inactivated at high temperatures, making it essential to obtain and preserve these juices through nonthermal processes to ensure maximum maintenance of nutritional quality. Recently, studies showed that a combination of emerging nonthermal technologies before or during pressing could increase the yield of cold-pressed juice, as well as improve its functional properties with a greater release of secondary compounds. The aim of this study was expanding the knowledge of alternatives to produce premium tropical juices, boosting the application of these technologies on an industrial scale.

Diabetes mellitus (DM), a serious metabolic disease, severely affects people’s health and life quality worldwide. Plants polysaccharides have been demonstrated to reduce the risks of DM. Currently, the hypoglycemic effects of plant polysaccharides have been studied through in vitro and in vivo experiments, and the beneficial influence of plant polysaccharides in treating DM needs to be validated by additional human clinical trials. Herein, the source, properties, and structure–function relationships are focused with a highlight of the results from clinical trials. The antidiabetic mechanisms of plant polysaccharides are summarized. Nevertheless, plant polysaccharides are promising food components with great potential in alleviating DM, and this review will facilitate a better understanding of DM treatment with polysaccharides.

This opinion paper discusses how process engineering can be used for food fortification. The time of food processing can be utilized to incorporate nutrients into food with low nutritional benefits. Latest works have been proposing approaches to incorporate nutrients during osmotic dehydration, hydration, and cooking. Further, other works recommended using pretreatment time to add important components into food, such as minerals, vitamins, and bioactive compounds. Emerging technologies such as ultrasound and high hydrostatic pressure were recommended to accelerate the process. All recently published works have demonstrated the increment of nutrient content in the final products, but few of them analyzed their bioavailability, stability, or nutrient location in food. Therefore, there are still requirements for further studies, which are stated in the present work.

In this review, we focus on the role of the interface in lipid oxidation in food emulsions. Mostly, results from this field are a reflection of the effects caused by reaction kinetics and mass transfer, which complicates interpretation. In general, the oil–water interface is the location of initiation of oxidation reactions, while components present there, and in the continuous phase, directly or indirectly affect the reaction. Smaller droplets are expected to oxidize faster, but this can be counteracted by components purposely positioned at the interface or added to the bulk phase. Recent simulation progress is expected to be instrumental in distinguishing these effects, and guides stable emulsion design.

Food industry aims to develop novel protein-based emulsifiers from sustainable sources (e.g. plants, seaweed/microalgae, microbial, and insects) to satisfy the clean-label demand by consumers. Enzymatic hydrolysis releases peptides with enhanced surface properties compared with the parent alternative proteins. Traditionally, a trial-and-error top-down approach, which requires extensive costs in screening analyses, has been carried out to produce emulsifying peptides. This review presents the recent advances in a novel and fundamentally orthogonal bottom-up strategy, facilitated by quantitative proteomics and bioinformatic functional prediction, to produce emulsifying peptides by targeted enzymatic hydrolysis based on in silico proteolysis. Moreover, new insights on the relation between interfacial properties of peptides and emulsifying activity, as well as impact on stability of wet and dried emulsions, are discussed.

This review aims to reflect on the impact of the aroma, flavor, and color of microalgae as a limiting element for their consumption. A review will be carried out on the main chemical compounds that are responsible for these sensory attributes. The recognition of these compounds and their activity is important for the development of mitigation strategies to be adopted. The most recent advances in the microalgae selection, cultivation, and downstreaming technologies, which may contribute to the reduction of its strong sensory attributes, namely the fishy flavor and green color characteristics of some species, will be considered. Pairing gastronomic proposals that help to promote the acceptance of microalgae-based foods in specific consumption contexts will also be reviewed.

The current needs for food in space missions are restricted to the time limits of supplying the International Space Station (ISS) and it can be covered by preparation/processing/packaging of food on earth. However, future long-duration space missions (e.g. to Mars) will require to perform cooking under space conditions. The main aspect of these conditions is reduced gravity. In the present work, at first, the ways of achieving low-gravity conditions on earth are presented. It appears that there is little possibility to use these ways effectively to perform long-enough cooking tests in low gravity, with ISS being currently the only reliable alternative. The possible problems for conventional types of cooking in low gravity are discussed at a fundamental level and potential remedies are proposed.