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Probiotics have become increasingly recognized for their potential health-promoting properties; however, the viability of probiotics can be affected by storage and transportation processes as well as the stressful environment of the human digestive tract, preventing them from achieving effective concentration (107 CFU/mL). In this regard, the embedding technology of probiotics provides an effective protection method. Dextran-based water in water (W/W) emulsion loaded with Lactobacillus plantarum was used as spinning solution to prepare Lactobacillus plantarum-loaded electrospun fibers. The structure of the W/W emulsion and the electrospun fibers was charactered. Lactobacillus plantarum were uniformly embedded in the internal phase of the W/W emulsion and the loading efficiency was 9.70 ± 0.40 log CFU/g. After 240 min digestion in the gastrointestinal tract, and temperature treatment in 65 °C and 72 °C, the loaded probiotics maintained high activity. Even after 5 days of storage in room temperature and 4 °C, the loaded probiotic activity levels remained high, with counts >8 log CFU/g. These results suggest that probiotics encapsulated by emulsion electrospinning could be potentially delivered in a novel food delivery system used in the future food industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using non-amphiphilic polysaccharide to stabilize oil-in-water emulsions is still a challenge in food industry. Polysaccharide microgels showed emulsifying capacity, however, the stability of the formed emulsions is far from the requirements of the food industry. In this work, agarose microgel/Tween-20 suspensions were prepared and further employed in oil-in-water emulsion stabilization. Focuses were taken on the impact of Tween-20 on the emulsifying properties of agarose microgels. Results suggested that Tween-20 could complex with agarose microgels, and microamounts of Tween-20 (0.02 wt%) could apparently improve the emulsifying performance of microgels. Dynamic interfacial pressure and interfacial adsorption of microgels indicated that appropriate amount of Tween-20 (≤0.04 wt%) could benefit the interfacial adsorption of agarose microgels, while excessive Tween-20 (≥0.08 wt%) could compete with agarose microgels for adsorption sites on oil/water interface. Results of this work supporting that surfactant complexing could be a promising solution to prepare polysaccharides based Mickering emulsions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To obtain rapeseed protein with low phytic acid (PA), soy protein isolate (SPI) was used to investigate the interactions between SPI and PA. The influence of pretreatment (soaking using salt solution and dialysis) of the defatted rapeseed meal on the PA and protein content in the final rapeseed proteins was also studied. The results showed that electrostatic interactions dominated the protein–PA interaction, which was affected by pH and ionic strength. Accordingly, the pH and ionic strength in the soaking medium also influenced the PA remained in the rapeseed proteins. The PA content decreased with the ionic strength (400–800 mM) and relatively low PA was obtained at pH 6.0 (soaking environment). Finally, 52.8 % of the PA have been removed and PA content remained in rapeseed protein isolate (RPI) reached about 0.84 mg/g, at the same time, the protein content was maintained around 86.70 %. Overall, soaking using salt solution and dialysis could be an effective method to achieve high quality rapeseed protein with low PA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degradation of sodium alginate by human gut microbiota was found to be retarded via calcium cross-linking in our previous study. We hypothesized that the guluronic acid block (GB) on the alginate molecule might be the key structural region affecting alginate degradation by the gut microbiota when cross-linked with calcium. This study aims to prove this hypothesis by studying the structural features of the cross-linked GB on its in vitro fecal fermentation behaviors concerning the aspects of total carbohydrate contents, monosaccharide contents, short-chain fatty acids production, calcium state variations, and structural variations. Herein, GB isolated from sodium alginate was cross-linked under ranges of molar ratios of [Ca 2+ ]/[-COOH] that further restricted the degradation by gut microbiota similar to the cross-linked alginates. First, total carbohydrate contents, short-chain fatty acids production, monosaccharides contents, and calcium state analyses confirmed that the degradation of GB by gut microbiota was restricted by calcium cross-linking. Furthermore, the tracking analysis of structural variations during in vitro fermentation revealed that the "granules" structure could further restrict degradation by the gut microbiota, leaving more cross-linked GB fragments surviving in comparison to the "networks" structure. In addition, Bacteroides xylanisolvens showed a significant positive correlation to the "cross-linking porosity ( R = 0.825, p < 0.001), which supported our previous findings on fermentation behaviors of cross-linked alginate. Together, guluronic acid blocks are the key structural regions that retard the degradation of sodium alginate by the gut microbiota when cross-linked with calcium.

Traditional fresh produce washing systems mainly rely on mechanical forces and usage of chlorine bleach solutions to aid in removal and sanitization of microorganisms attached on surfaces of fresh produce during washing processes. Frequent outbreaks of foodborne diseases from ready-to-eat produce indicate insufficient sanitization of the washing processes. Herein, we present a scalable methodology for creating antimicrobial and chlorine rechargeable hydrogel beads using an in situ formed network of polyacrylamide and natural polysaccharide alginate through an emulsion polymerization. The resulting hydrogel beads exhibited robust mechanical strength, rechargeable chlorination capability, rapid up to 99.99% bacterial killing efficiency, and high produce sanitizaiton efficiency, enabling the hydrogel beads as a promising additive in chlorine sanitization to effectively sanitize the produce and automatically being recharged and reused.