Influence of ozone treatment on functional and rheological characteristics of food products: an updated review.

In this milieu, ozone technology has emerged as an avant-garde non-thermal mode of disinfection with potential applications in the food industry. This eco-friendly technology has a comprehendible adeptness in replacing alternative chemical sanitizers and is recognized as a generally safe disinfectant for fruits and vegetables. Several researchers have been focusing on the biochemical impacts of ozone on different quantitative and qualitative aspects of fruits and vegetables. A collection of those works is presented in this review highlighting the effect of ozone on the functional, antioxidant, and rheological properties of food. This can be a benevolent tool for discovering the processing states of ozone applications and ensuing influence on safety and quality attributes of previously studied foods and opening further research areas. It extends shelf life and never leaves any harmful residues on the product since it decomposes to form oxygen. It was seen that the impact on a specific property of food was dependent on the ozone concentration and treatment time, and the adverse effects of ozone exposure can be alleviated once the processing conditions are optimized. The present review can be used as a baseline for designing different food processing operations involving ozone.

Contemporary Developments and Emerging Trends in the Application of Spectroscopy Techniques: A Particular Reference to Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.).

The number of food frauds in coconut-based products is increasing due to higher consumer demands for these products. Rising health consciousness, public awareness and increased concerns about food safety and quality have made authorities and various other certifying agencies focus more on the authentication of coconut products. As the conventional techniques for determining the quality attributes of coconut are destructive and time-consuming, non-destructive testing methods which are accurate, rapid, and easy to perform with no detrimental sampling methods are currently gaining importance. Spectroscopic methods such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), infrared (IR)spectroscopy, mid-infrared (MIR)spectroscopy, near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible (UV-VIS) spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and Raman spectroscopy (RS) are gaining in importance for determining the oxidative stability of coconut oil, the adulteration of oils, and the detection of harmful additives, pathogens, and toxins in coconut products and are also employed in deducing the interactions in food constituents, and microbial contaminations. The objective of this review is to provide a comprehensive analysis on the various spectroscopic techniques along with different chemometric approaches for the successful authentication and quality determination of coconut products. The manuscript was prepared by analyzing and compiling the articles that were collected from various databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus and ScienceDirect. The spectroscopic techniques in combination with chemometrics were shown to be successful in the authentication of coconut products. RS and NMR spectroscopy techniques proved their utility and accuracy in assessing the changes in coconut oil's chemical and viscosity profile. FTIR spectroscopy was successfully utilized to analyze the oxidation levels and determine the authenticity of coconut oils. An FT-NIR-based analysis of various coconut samples confirmed the acceptable levels of accuracy in prediction. These non-destructive methods of spectroscopy offer a broad spectrum of applications in food processing industries to detect adulterants. Moreover, the combined chemometrics and spectroscopy detection method is a versatile and accurate measurement for adulterant identification.

Aqueous ozone: Chemistry, physiochemical properties, microbial inactivation, factors influencing antimicrobial effectiveness, and application in food.

The need for sustainable food production and the demand for fresh and minimally processed foods have prompted remarkable research in novel food processing technologies that ensure safe and shelf-stable food for a large population. Long-established techniques such as heating, drying, and freezing have been associated with nutrient loss and high energy consumption. This trend has drawn attention to the practice of employing ozone in several food applications owing to its significant disinfectant and antimicrobial efficiency. The aqueous form of ozone has been found to show greater efficacy than its gaseous form, with faster decomposition rates leaving no harmful residues. The current study presents an overview of the latest scientific literature on the properties, chemistry, and generation of aqueous ozone, emphasizing the factors affecting process efficiency. The review scrupulously focuses on food decontamination, starch modification, pesticide degradation, and seed germination effects of aqueous ozone, highlighting the optimum processing parameters and salient findings of some major studies. A brief insight into the limitations and future trends has also been presented. Aqueous ozone has been acclaimed to have the potential to cause significant changes in the food matrix that could result in constructive modifications with outcomes entirely dependent on the processing conditions. Indirect and direct reactions involving hydroxyl radical and molecular oxygen atoms, respectively, form the basis of the ozone reaction in aqueous media, providing a distinctive kind of advanced oxidation process that offers certain crucial benefits. With a shorter half-life in water as compared to air, the rapid decomposition of aqueous ozone to oxygen, leaving no harmful residues, adds to its advantages.

Formulation of a Synergistic Enzyme Cocktail for Controlled Degradation of Sorghum Grain Pericarp.

Sorghum is one of the major grains produced worldwide for food and fodder, owing to its nutritional profile advantages. However, the utilisation of whole grain sorghum as an ingredient in conventional food formulations is limited due to its poor digestibility, which requires the removal of the outer fibrous layers. Grain breakage and loss of essential nutrients also disadvantage traditional milling practices. Using carbohydrate degrading enzymes to hydrolyse the grain pericarp is a novel approach to biopolishing, where selective degradation of the pericarp layers occurs without adversely affecting the nutrient profile. A collective synergism of enzymes has been proven to cause effective hydrolysis compared to individual enzymes due to the complex presence of non-starch polysaccharides in the grain's outer layers, which comprise a variety of sugars that show specific degradation with respect to each enzyme. The present study aimed to formulate such an enzyme cocktail with xylanase, cellulase, and pectinase in different proportions for hydrolysing sorghum grain pericarp by determining the yield of specific sugars in the pericarp extract after a certain period of incubation. The results showed that the xylanase enzyme has a major effect on the grain bran composition compared to cellulase and pectinase; however, a synergistic mixture yielded more hydrolysed sugars and anti-nutrients in the extract compared to each of the enzymes individually. The results were confirmed by morphological and crystallinity studies of the soaked grain. Compared to conventional water-soaked samples, grains soaked in a cocktail with 66.7% xylanase, 16.7% cellulase, and 16.7% pectinase had visibly thinner and more degraded fibre layers.

Effects of Incorporation of Porous Tapioca Starch on the Quality of White Salted (Udon) Noodles.

White salted (udon) noodles are one of the major staple foods in Asian countries, particularly in Japan. Noodle manufacturers prefer the Australian noodle wheat (ANW) varieties to produce high-quality udon noodles. However, the production of this variety has reduced significantly in recent years, thus affecting the Japanese noodle market. Noodle manufacturers often add tapioca starch to compensate for the flour scarcity; however, the noodle-eating quality and texture are significantly reduced. This study, therefore, investigated the effect of the addition of porous tapioca starch on the cooking quality and texture of udon noodles. For this, tapioca starch was initially subjected to enzyme treatment, ultrasonication, and a combination of both to produce a porous starch where a combined enzyme (0.4% alpha amylase)-ultrasound treatment (20 kHz) yielded a porous starch with increased specific surface area and better absorbent properties which are ideal for udon noodle manufacturing, Later, udon noodles were prepared using three varieties of ANW, a hard Mace variety, and commercial wheat flour by incorporating the prepared porous tapioca starch at a concentration of 5% and 10% of dry ingredients. Adding this porous starch resulted in a lower cooking time with higher water absorption and desirable lower cooking loss compared to the control sample with 5% of the porous starch chosen as the optimum formulation. Increasing the level of the porous starch reduced the hardness of the noodles whilst maintaining the desired instrumental texture. Additionally, a multivariate analysis indicated a good correlation between responses' optimum cooking time and water absorption capacity as well as turbidity and cooking loss, and a cluster analysis grouped noodle samples prepared from different varieties into the same clusters based on the porous starch added, indicating the possibility of different market strategies to improve the quality of the udon noodles produced from different wheat varieties.

Impacts of cold plasma treatment on physicochemical, functional, bioactive, textural, and sensory attributes of food: A comprehensive review.

Cold plasma processing is a technique that uses electricity and reactive carrier gases, such as oxygen, nitrogen, or helium, to inactivate enzymes, destroy microorganisms, preserve food, and maintain quality without employing chemical antimicrobial agents.The review collates the latest information on the interaction mechanism and impact of non-thermal plasma, as an emerging processing technology, on selected physical properties, low-molecular-weight functional components, and bioactive properties of food. Significant changes observed in the physicochemical and functional properties. For example, changes in pH, total soluble solids, water and oil absorption capacities, sensory properties such as color, aroma, and texture, bioactive components (e.g., polyphenols, flavonoids, and antioxidants), and food enzymes, antinutrients, and allergens were elaborated in the present manuscript. It was highlighted that the plasma reactive species result in both constructive and antagonistic outcomes on specific food components, and the associated mechanism was different in each case. However, the design's versatility, characteristic non-thermal nature, better economic standards, and safer environmental factors offer matchless benefits for cold plasma over conventional processing methods. Even so, a thorough insight on the impact of cold plasma on functional and bioactive food constituents is still a subject of imminent research and is imperative for its broad recognition as a modern non-conventional processing technique.

Impact of ultrasonication applications on color profile of foods.

Food color is a feature that provides preliminary information about their preference or consumption. There are dominant pigments that determine the color of each food; the most important pigments are anthocyanins (red-purple color), chlorophylls (green color), carotenoids (yellow-orange color), and betalains (red color). These pigments can be easily affected by temperature, light, oxygen, or pH, thereby altering their properties. Therefore, while processing, it is necessary to prevent the deterioration of these pigments to the maximum possible extent. Ultrasonication, which is one of the emerging non-thermal methods, has multidimensional applications in the food industry. The present review collates information on various aspects of ultrasonication technology, its mechanism of action, influencing factors, and the competence of different ultrasonication applications (drying, irradiation, extraction, pasteurization, cooking, tempering, etc.) in preserving the color of food. It was concluded that ultrasonication treatments provide low-temperature processing at a short time, which positively influences the color properties. However, selecting optimum ultrasonic processing conditions (frequency, power, time, etc.) is crucial for each food to obtain the best color. The key challenges and limitations of the technique and possible future applications are also covered in the paper, serving as a touchstone for further research in this area.

An overview of conventional and emerging techniques of roasting: Effect on food bioactive signatures.

Roasting is a food processingtechnique that employs the principle of heating to cook the product evenly and enhance the digestibility, palatability and sensory aspects of foods with desirable structural modifications of the food matrix. With the burgeoning demand for fortified roasted products along with the concern for food hygiene and the effects of harmful compounds, novel roasting techniques, and equipment to overcome the limitations of conventional operations are indispensable. Roasting techniques employing microwave, infrared hot-air, superheated steam, Revtech roaster, and Forced Convection Continuous Tumble (FCCT) roasting have been figuratively emerging to prominence for effectively roasting different foods without compromising the nutritional quality. The present review critically appraises various conventional and emerging roasting techniques, their advantages and limitations, and their effect on different food matrix components, functional properties, structural attributes, and sensory aspects for a wide range of products. It was seen that thermal processing at high temperatures for increased durations affected both the physicochemical and structural properties of food. Nevertheless, novel techniques caused minimum destructive impacts as compared to the traditional processes. However, further studies applying novel roasting techniques with a wide range of operating conditions on different types of products are crucial to establish the potential of these techniques in obtaining safe, quality foods.