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Current dietary guidelines advocate more plant-based, sustainable diets on the basis of scientific evidence about diet–health relations but also to address environmental concerns. Here, we critically review the effects of plant-based diets on the prevalence of obesity and other health outcomes. Plant-based diets per se have limited efficacy for the prevention and treatment of obesity, but most have beneficial effects in terms of chronic disease risk. However, with the considerable possibilities of translating plant-based diets into various types of dietary patterns, our analysis suggests that potential adverse health effects should also be considered in relation to vulnerable groups of the population. A transition to more plant-based diets may exert beneficial effects on the environment, but is unlikely to affect obesity, and may also have adverse health effects if this change is made without careful consideration of the nutritional needs of the individual relative to the adequacy of the dietary intake.

Five conversion routes in winter wheat to first and secondgeneration ethanol production systems under north European conditions are analyzed subject to energy efficiency, feed energy production, feed protein production and land use. The impact of integrating a bioethanol plant with combined heat and power generation, taking advantage of excess heat available, is analyzed for the same five scenarios. They are based on empirical data from largescale processing of starch and lignocellulose to ethanol. We show that integrating technologies can improve the system energy efficiency by more than 30 percentage points. A technologyintegrated wheattoethanol system may exhibit energy efficiencies almost comparable to those seen for conversion of petroleum into gasoline. We also show that it is possible to utilize crops for energy purposes without substantially changing the global appropriation of land for agriculture. © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

The economic dependency on fossil fuels and the resulting effects on climate and environment have put tremendous focus on utilizing fermentable sugars from lignocellulose, the largest known renewable carbohydrate source. The fermentable sugars in lignocellulose are derived from cellulose and hemicelluloses but these are not readily accessible to enzymatic hydrolysis and require a pretreatment, which causes an extensive modification of the lignocellulosic structure. A number of pretreatment technologies are under development and being tested in pilot scale. Hydrolysis of lignocellulose carbohydrates into fermentable sugars requires a number of different cellulases and hemicellulases. The hydrolysis of cellulose is a sequential breakdown of the linear glucose chains, whereas hemicellulases must be capable of hydrolysing branched chains containing different sugars and functional groups. The technology for pretreatment and hydrolysis has been developed to an extent that is close to a commercially viable level. It has become possible to process lignocellulose at high substrate levels and the enzyme performance has been improved. Also the cost of enzymes has been reduced. Still a number of technical and scientific issues within pretreatment and hydrolysis remain to be solved. However, significant improvements in yield and cost reductions are expected, thus making large‐scale fermentation of lignocellulosic substrates possible. © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Lignin radicals are crucial intermediates for lignin biosynthesis in the cell wall of vascular plants. In this work they were for the first time, to our knowledge, selectively observed in wood cell walls by laser-based Kerr-gated resonance Raman spectroscopy, and the observations were supported by density functional theory prediction of their vibrational properties. For dry wood cells a lignin radical Raman band is observed at 1570cm−1irrespective of species. For wet beech cells they were generated in situ and observed at 1606cm−1. DFT/B3LYP/6-31+G(d) modeling results support that in beech they are formed from syringyl (S) phenolic moieties and in spruce from guaiacyl (G) phenolic moieties. The observed lignin radical band is predicted as G is ∼1597cm−1and S is ∼1599cm−1, respectively, and is assigned the (Wilson notation) ν8aphenyl ring mode. The RR band probes lignin radical properties, e.g., spin density distribution, and these respond to charge polarization or hydrogen bonding to proximate water molecules. These observations can be crucial for an understanding of the factors that control cell wall structure during biosynthesis of vascular plants and demonstrate the unique potential of RR spectroscopy of lignin radicals.

Spruce thermomechanical pulp (TMP) was oxidized by the 2,29′-azinobis-3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonate cation radical (ABTS•+) in the presence and absence of oxygen. The pulp modification was monitored by Fourier transform (FT) Raman difference spectroscopy and other nondestructive spectroscopic methods. The ABTS•+ oxidative system resulted in modifications very similar to the laccase–ABTS–oxygen system, except for the FT-Raman results, which showed a difference in mechanisms attributed to a difference in produced Raman bands. Oxygen resulted in no oxygen-derived products, but only enhanced the production of a specific Raman band of several oxidation-produced bands. Detailed information on lignin reactions can be obtained from FT-Raman signals.

Wiley‐Blackwell, Chichester, 2008. 528 pp., hardcover US$ 180.00—ISBN 978‐1‐4051‐6360‐6

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Biofools" published in the April 11, 2009 issue.