Structuration of lipid bases zero-trans and palm oil-free for food applications.

This work evaluated structured lipids (SLs) through chemical and enzymatic interesterification (CSLs and ESLs). Blends of soybean oil and peanut oil 1:1 wt% were used, with gradual addition of fully hydrogenated crambe to obtain a final behenic acid concentration of 6, 12, 18, and 24 %. Chemical catalysis used sodium methoxide (0.4 wt%) at 100 °C for 30 min, while enzymatic catalysis used Lipozyme TL IM (5 wt%) at 60 °C for 6 h. Major fatty acids identified were C16:0, C18:0, and C22:0. It was observed that with gradual increase of hard fat, the CSLs showed high concentrations of reaction intermediates, indicating further a steric hindrance, unlike ESLs. Increased hard fat also altered crystallization profile and triacylglycerols composition and ESLs showed lower solid fat, unlike CSLs. Both methods effectively produced SLs as an alternative to trans and palm fats, view to potential future applications in food products.

Sustainable production of naturally colored extruded breakfast cereals from blends of broken rice and vegetable flours.

There is a growing demand for practical and healthy food products. Obtaining naturally colored breakfast cereals with the incorporation of functional ingredients is a promising alternative for consumers that are looking for healthiness. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of using vegetable flours, rich in pigments, to obtain naturally colored breakfast cereals through thermoplastic extrusion. Vegetables considered "unsuitable for the retail market", classified as "type B", were used to prepare different flours from carrot (CF), spinach (SF) and beetroot (BF). Extrudates were produced from a mixture of 90% broken rice (BR) and 10% vegetable flour (CF, SF or BF). Besides giving the extrudates a natural color, the use of vegetable flours also provided nutritional and functional enrichment due to increased mineral, protein, lipid, fiber and phenolic compound contents, and greater antioxidant capacity. However, some of these components, such as fibers, affect extrudate physical structure and technological characteristics, evidenced by reduced expansion, hardness, paste viscosity and greater interaction with water present in milk under consumption conditions. In general, the evaluated flours proved to be an alternative for imparting a natural color to extruded breakfast cereals, in addition to positively contributing to their nutritional and functional value.

Effect of enzymatic treatment of citrus by-products on bacterial growth, adhesion and cytokine production by Caco-2 cells.

Citrus by-products are inexpensive sources of polyphenols, important bioactive compounds with wide pharmaceutical and food applications. This study aimed to investigate the effect of enzymatic treatment of citrus by-products on the polyphenolic profile of extracts and assess the influence of extracts on the growth and adhesion of probiotics and foodborne pathogenic bacteria and on the inflammatory response of epithelial cells. Enzyme-assisted extraction altered the polyphenolic profile (as assessed by HPLC-DAD), increasing the content of aglycone flavanones (naringenin and hesperetin). Enzymatic extracts and aglycone flavanones exhibited higher antibacterial and prebiotic activities than non-enzymatic extracts and glycoside flavanones. However, a higher content of aglycones was not associated with higher anti-adhesion activity. Citrus extracts significantly (P ≤ 0.05) decreased the inflammatory response of Caco-2 cells to Salmonella Typhimurium adhesion. These results support the sustainable reuse of citrus agroindustrial wastes and indicate the potential of citrus extracts in preventing infection by foodborne pathogenic bacteria and inducing proliferation of probiotics in foods and the gut environment.

Antioxidant Potential and Modulatory Effects of Restructured Lipids from the Amazonian Palms on Liver Cells.

Enzymatic interesterification is used to manipulate oil and fat in order to obtain improved restructured lipids with desired technological properties. However, with raw materials containing significant amounts of bioactive compounds, the influence of this enzymatic process on the bioactivity of the final product is still not clear. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate the antioxidant potential and modulatory effects of two raw materials from the Amazonian area, buriti oil and murumuru fat, before and after lipase interesterification, on human hepatoma cells (HepG2). The results indicate that minor bioactive compounds naturally found in the raw materials and their antioxidant capacity are preserved after enzymatic interesterification, and that the restructured lipids modulate HepG2 endogenous antioxidant enzyme.

Medium composition influence on Biotin and Riboflavin production by newly isolated Candida sp

Complex B vitamins as Biotin and Riboflavin are required by living organisms, not only for growth but also for metabolite production, and the feed market classifies them as growth promoters. Since Brazil will soon be one of the world's biggest animal protein producers, feed production is a large consumer of vitamins and micronutrients. The industry requires 10 mg riboflavin/0.2 mg biotin per kilogram of feed; a ratio of 40 ~ 50:1. Although few studies have been conducted specifically on riboflavin production using factorial design and surface response method as an optimization strategy, it is a common practice in biotechnology with many research reports available. However, there are no reports on the use of statistical design for biotin production. This study set out to evaluate medium composition influence on biotin and riboflavin production using a statistical design. There are no studies relating biotin and riboflavin production by Candida sp LEB 130. In this preliminary study to improve the simultaneous production of biotin and riboflavin, the maximum riboflavin/biotin ratio of 8.3 µg/mL was achieved with medium component concentrations of: sucrose 30 g/L, KH2PO4 2 g/L, MgSO4 1 g/L and ZnSO4 0.5mL/L.