Food Engineering Reviews最新文献

Non-dairy matrices represent 63% of the vehicles used for probiotication. However, their benefits to human health may be hindered by food processing, storage, and movement through the gastrointestinal tract. The microencapsulation of probiotic bacteria is an alternative to increase their resistance to such challenges. This review outlines the current advances in the encapsulation of probiotics using emulsification methods. The review also addresses the influence of encapsulating agents on the yield, the final size of microcapsules, and the survival rate of probiotic microorganisms. The main drying methods for probiotic microparticles, the kind of foods used for probiotication, and the emerging methods of emulsification are discussed. Emulsion microencapsulation has proven to be a viable technique for the production of probiotic microcapsules, while freeze-drying is the most suitable drying technique due to the mild process conditions. Emulsification through membranes and microfluidic devices are potential encapsulation techniques owing to their ability to control particle size and to work under mild conditions. The emulsion microencapsulation is thus a potential technique for ensuring the safe delivery of next-generation probiotics applied to non-dairy products.

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The augmented promotion and consumer awareness of healthy eating and lifestyle have resulted in extensive growth of the functional food market in recent years, encouraging the use of effective techniques for food fortification. Vacuum impregnation (VI) is a non-destructive technology based on hydrodynamic mechanism (HDM) to introduce a solution with a specific composition into the intercellular spaces present in food matrices, thus producing foods tailored to specific nutritional and functional needs. VI has found diverse applications in the food industry, ranging from formulation of functional foods containing specific components like vitamins, minerals and probiotics, to altering the pH and reducing water activity to improve the sensory and thermal properties of the products. However, limited knowledge on the structural characteristics and the interaction of incorporated components with the porous cells along with non-optimization of process variables have limited the wide adaptability of this technology. This review paper is intended to provide a detailed account of the potential of VI technology in improving food functionality and the role of optimized process variables in the production of high-quality end products.

The postharvest losses of agricultural and horticultural crops are high as a result of the lack of postharvest handling, storage, and processing technologies in India. Over the years, drying has been an essential food preservation strategy for reducing postharvest losses and extending the shelf life of products. Traditional drying techniques exhibit a negative impact on the flavour, colour, nutritional properties, and retention of bioactive components due to the high-temperature exposure. An alternative for traditional drying methods is required to retain quality and maintain greater nutritional content in processed foods. Refractance window drying (RWD) is a thin-film drying technique that uses high heat and mass transfer rates to accelerate the moisture removal process. This technique dries the product spread over a transparent plastic film with creation of a drying “window,” ensuring lower product temperature and rapid drying by using all modes of heat transmission. When compared to traditional drying methods such as drum, hot air, freeze, and spray drying, RWD occurs at a reduced drying temperature, time, cost, and energy usage. This review paper covers recent RWD trends, stressing their impact on process and food quality attributes, as well as the contrasts between RWD and other drying technologies.

Bioactive compounds exhibit numerous health benefits; however, they are highly sensitive to degradation under various process conditions. Applications of these compounds are limited in food and pharmaceutical products due to their quick release, low solubility, possible interactions with other ingredients, and reduced biological potential. Encapsulation in suitable carrier systems could protect their bioactivity and retain sensorial properties of products during processing and storage. Starch is a natural polysaccharide, and its physicochemical properties offer an excellent carrier system for various bioactive compounds. In this review, comprehensive discussions have been provided on the different fabrication techniques of starch-based micro, nano-carrier systems and their applications for various bioactive compounds have been discussed also. Various techniques including nano-spray drying, electrospinning, extrusion, acid hydrolysis, nanoemulsification, nanoprecipitation, microfluidization, ultrasonication, and gamma-irradiation have been employed to fabricate micro and nanocarrier systems from a starch biopolymer. Starch-based nanostructures are emerging as a novel and promising nano-vehicles for delivering bioactive compounds.

The weight loss and spoilage of post-harvest fruits and vegetables (FVS) occur as a result of physiological and biological processes, the rates of which are influenced primarily by product temperature. In order to maintain the freshness of FVS and reduce losses, it is necessary to cool the product as soon as possible after harvest. Precooling is considered such an effective technique because it quickly removes field heat from FVS, thereby preventing deterioration and senescence. With the increasing demand for fresh FVS, the optimization of precooling technology has received extensive attention, especially the research on its basic principle, that is, the heat and mass transfer (HMT) between FVS and the precooling environment. Therefore, this paper reviews the advantages and disadvantages of several main precooling techniques, their HMT processes, the research methods and detection techniques of HMT, and the simulation and application based on numerical technology. Precooling techniques include room cooling, forced-air cooling, hydrocooling, and vacuum cooling. These advanced detection techniques for HMT include magnetic resonance imaging, particle image velocimetry, infrared thermography, nuclear magnetic resonance, bioelectric impedance analysis, dilatometry, thermogravimetric analysis, and X-ray CT. HMT research mainly adopts porous media method, direct numerical simulation, cell growth simulation. Their applications focus on computational fluid dynamics and the lattice Boltzmann method. Furthermore, this paper highlights the application of the computer field in FVS precooling and provides perspectives on the directions for future research.

Today in the agricultural industry, many defects affect production efficiency; this paper aims to show how the combination of machine vision (MV) and image processing (IP) helps to detect the defective areas of products. Defects generally appear due to insect damage, scarring, product decay, and so on. In this review, the importance of quality inspection in the agricultural industry and its effect on worldwide markets are highlighted and the ways which help to categorize the products by their defections. In the first step, as long as agricultural products are harvested, in a suitable condition with good illumination, they are photographed by special cameras and evaluated by the IP science. In the next step, they can be classified based on the detected defection. Many classification algorithms allow us to categorize products based on the quality and type of their defects. Using a combination of MV and IP, followed by the use of special classification algorithms, helps to have more efficiency in the detection of defects in harvested products.

Sensory satisfaction is the key to consumer acceptance which also decides the success of any food products in the market. Though different sensory parameters like appearance, odor, and texture are considered for deciding the overall acceptability of food, taste plays a major role. As sensory panels cannot be a true representation of consumer’s taste perception, industries focus on market surveys. In reality, consumers taste perception varies according to the product cost, brand, and their age and health condition. The process of food tasting starts from tongue, where different taste receptors respond to various taste stimuli and pass the signals to the cortex of the brain region. These signals cause the electric current to flow through the brain neural networks and increase oxygen-containing blood utilization in specific brain areas. Using non-invasive gadgets such as electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, functional MRI, and brain computer interface (BCI) technique, these signals can be sensed and decoded into useful sensory data. This review explains the taste recognition pathways of different taste stimuli and the basic steps involved in BCI techniques for detecting and discriminating them. In addition, it also explores the BCI-related taste-driven sensory studies and the limiting factors associated with them to emerge as a future sensory method.

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Liposomes provide protection, transport, and delivery systems for drugs and functional ingredients. This review studied liposome-based functional ingredients, effects of electric fields on lipid membranes, methods to determine the degree of electroporation, and some governing equations of the electroporation phenomenon. The objective of this review was to provide an overview of some aspects to consider when designing and manufacturing food liposomes that are stable in electric fields; this was based on studies conducted in medicine, pharmacology, and the food industry. The effects of pulsed electric fields and high voltage electrical discharge processing on phospholipid membranes were studied; these can be extrapolated to liposomes under food processing conditions using electric fields. The chemical compositions of the lipid membrane and adding layers to the liposome surface were related to higher electrical resistance. Fluorescence, impedance, conductivity, and voltage methods were defined to determine the degree of electroporation and mathematical models that can facilitate the analysis of the mechanism. Finally, the study of the electrical properties used by the different materials to manufacture liposomes remains for future research.

The use of perforations expands the applicability of modified atmosphere packaging to dynamically regulate the internal atmosphere composition and extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables, especially for highly respiring products. Quantifying the impact of the perforation profile on the package permeance is key to design a best package, and various approaches have been proposed in literature. The goal of this review is to provide a unified assessment of all these previous works by applying a meta-analysis that pools together the published data for both simple perforations in a plastic film and for plug implements. Models reviewed include lumped capacity models (application of Newton’s convection law or variations of it), diffusional models (both Fick’s diffusion corrected for end effects in different manners and Stefan-Maxwell’s equations) and hydrodynamic models (using Poiseuille’s flow equation with end corrections). It was found that all data published and reviewed could be pooled together quite coherently and that it clearly shows that the effective permeance increases significantly with decreasing diameters. The concentration gradient across the package also showed some relevance. The effective permeance of a perforated package was found to be approximately what would be expected from dimensionless correlations for convection coefficients from flat planes and therefore this approach is suggested to provide a unified, robust, yet simple, analysis to estimate gas permeance and thus permit an efficient intelligent engineering design of packages. The impact of the convection coefficients in the optimum perforation profile is shown using strawberries as a case study.

Over recent years, nanofibers have been developed to be edible materials due to their superior properties. The large-demanded nanofibers for edible applications encourage researchers to develop further various methods for producing nanofibers. One of the methods is rotary forcespinning (RFS) that offers a huge potential to yield nanofibers with large-volume capacity and low-cost productivity compared with the other ones. This review provides recent advances on rotary forcespun nanofibers with emphasizing on basic principles of the RFS method and the essential factors affecting the produced nanofibers. The prospects of rotary forcespun nanofibers for edible applications, including food encapsulation, nutraceutical and drug delivery, edible coatings or films, and food packaging, are also elaborated. Possible challenges and future directions of the utilization of RFS method to produce nanofibers for edible applications are also discussed.