Annual review of food science and technology最新文献

Bacteriophages (or phages) represent one of the most persistent threats to food fermentations, particularly large-scale commercial dairy fermentations. Phages infecting lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that are used as starter cultures in dairy fermentations are well studied, and in recent years there have been significant advances in defining the driving forces of LAB-phage coevolution. The means by which different starter bacterial species defend themselves against phage predation and the chromosomal or plasmid location of the genes encoding these defense mechanisms have dictated the technological approaches for the development of robust starter cultures. In this review, we highlight recent advances in defining phage-host interactions and how phage resistance occurs in different bacterial species. Furthermore, we discuss how these insights continue to transform the dairy fermentation industry and how they also are anticipated to guide food fermentations involving plant-based alternatives in the future.

Inadequate dietary fiber consumption has become common across industrialized nations, accompanied by changes in gut microbial composition and a dramatic increase in chronic metabolic diseases. The human gut microbiome harbors genes that are required for the digestion of fiber, resulting in the production of end products that mediate gastrointestinal and systemic benefits to the host. Thus, the use of fiber interventions has attracted increasing interest as a strategy to modulate the gut microbiome and improve human health. However, considerable interindividual differences in gut microbial composition have resulted in variable responses toward fiber interventions. This variability has led to observed nonresponder individuals and highlights the need for personalized approaches to effectively redirect the gut ecosystem. In this review, we summarize strategies used to address the responder and nonresponder phenomenon in dietary fiber interventions and propose a targeted approach to identify predictive features based on knowledge of fiber metabolism and machine learning approaches.

Lipids are a large group of essential nutrients in daily diets that provide energy and maintain various physiological functions. As the global population is rapidly expanding, there is an urgent need to enhance the production and quality of food lipids. The development of modern biotechnology allows the manipulation of oil production in plants and microorganisms and the improvement of the nutritional value of food lipids. Various metabolic engineering strategies have been exploited to increase oil production and produce value-added oils in traditional oil crops and other novel lipid sources (e.g., plant vegetative tissues, microalgae, and oleaginous microorganisms). Furthermore, natural lipid structures can be modified by lipases to prepare functional lipids, e.g., diacylglycerols, medium-long-medium-type structured triacylglycerols, human milk-fat substitutes, and structuralphospholipids, for specific nutritional demands. In this review, we focus on the recent advances in metabolic engineering of lipid production in plants and microorganisms, and the preparation of functional lipids via biocatalysis.

Ferritins represent a class of iron storage proteins with detoxification functions. The importance of these proteins is reflected by their wide distribution throughout the animal and plant kingdoms. Ferritin has two forms: holo and apo. Holo ferritin can act as an efficient and safe factor for iron supplementation, whereas apo ferritin is able to serve as a promising delivery nanovehicle for nutrients and bioactive compounds. So far, the dual functions of ferritins from animal and plant sources have been extensively studied in several fields, such as food, nutrition, medicine, and materials. This review outlines the structure of animal and plant ferritin, the iron supplementation function of holo ferritin, and the delivery function of apo ferritin. Recent advances in iron supplementation and nutrient encapsulation and delivery are highlighted. Finally, the current challenges and future developments for multifunctional applications of ferritins are discussed.

Despite the almost universal acceptance of the phrase "you are what you eat," investment in understanding diet-based nutrition to address human health has been dwarfed compared to that for medicine-based interventions. Moreover, traditional breeding has focused on yield to the detriment of nutritional quality, meaning that although caloric content has remained high, the incidence of nutritional deficiencies and accompanying diseases (so-called hidden hunger) has risen dramatically. We review how genome sequencing coupled with metabolomics can facilitate the screening of genebank collections in the search for superior alleles related to the nutritional quality of crops. We argue that the first examples are very promising, suggesting that this approach could benefit broader ranges of crops and compounds with known relevance for human health. We argue that this represents anapproach complementary to metabolic engineering by transgenesis or gene editing that could be used to reverse some of the losses incurred through a recent focus on breeding for yield, although we caution that ensuring such approaches are not (re)introducing antinutrients is also necessary.

Mechano-bactericidal (MB) nanopatterns have the ability to inactivate bacterial cells by rupturing cellular envelopes. Such biocide-free, physicomechanical mechanisms may confer lasting biofilm mitigation capability to various materials encountered in food processing, packaging, and food preparation environments. In this review, we first discuss recent progress on elucidating MB mechanisms, unraveling property-activity relationships, and developing cost-effective and scalable nanofabrication technologies. Next, we evaluate the potential challenges that MB surfaces may face in food-related applications and provide our perspective on the critical research needs and opportunities to facilitate their adoption in the food industry.

Microgreens are edible young plants that have recently attracted interest because of their color and flavor diversity, phytonutrient abundance, short growth cycle, and minimal space and nutrient requirements. They can be cultivated in a variety of systems from simple home gardens to sophisticated vertical farms with automated irrigation, fertilizer delivery, and lighting controls. Microgreens have also attracted attention from space agencies hoping that their sensory qualities can contribute to the diet of astronauts in microgravity and their cultivation might help maintain crew physical and psychological health on long-duration spaceflight missions. However, many technical challenges and data gaps for growing microgreensboth on and off Earth remain unaddressed. This review summarizes recent studies on multiple aspects of microgreens, including nutritional and socioeconomic benefits, cultivation systems, operative conditions, innovative treatments, autonomous facilities, and potential space applications. It also provides the authors' perspectives on the challenges to stimulating more extensive interdisciplinary research.

Microbubbles are largely unused in the food industry yet have promising capabilities as environmentally friendly cleaning and supporting agents within products and production lines due to their unique physical behaviors. Their small diameters increase their dispersion throughout liquid materials, promote reactivity because of their high specific surface area, enhance dissolution of gases into the surrounding liquid phase, and promote the generation of reactive chemical species. This article reviews techniques to generate microbubbles, their modes of action to enhance cleaning and disinfection, their contributions to functional and mechanical properties of food materials, and their use in supporting the growth of living organisms in hydroponics or bioreactors. The utility and diverse applications of microbubbles, combined with their low intrinsic ingredient cost, strongly encourage their increased adoption within the food industry in coming years.

Consumers and social movement activists have been the driving force to create alternative, sustainable food systems over the past 100 years. Although larger agribusiness market players and the state were at first reluctant to respond to these concerns, as organic food products (the most prominent example of alternative food) became a viable economic market, these market players embraced them. The international trade of organic food has developed into a major agricultural and retail sector, but with this growth many of the varied original critiques of conventional, industrial farming practices have yet to be adequately addressed. Every major advancement in sustainable agriculture has raised new issues of equity and access for producers, laborers, and consumers. Although consumers often believe that they are contributing to a project of larger social change with every market transaction they make, the continued success of the organic food system has spurred calls for more explicit forms of collective behavior to promote the larger goals of the original sustainable agriculture movements.

This article reviews what is presently known about the biological roles of the diet-derived compound ergothioneine (ET). ET seems important to humans because it is rapidly taken up from the diet by a transporter largely or completely specific for ET, and once taken up it is retained within the body for weeks or months. The various possible functions of ET in vivo are explored. Much emphasis has been placed on the antioxidant properties of ET, but although these are well established in vitro, the evidence that antioxidant activity is the principal function of ET in vivo is weak. ET is not unique in this: The evidence for the antioxidant roles of vitamin C and polyphenols such as the flavonoids in vivo is also weak. By contrast, α-tocopherol has demonstrated in vivo antioxidant effects in humans.