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Pasta is traditionally manufactured using only durum wheat semolina, but it is possible to incorporate other flours or ingredients into pasta in order to increase its nutritional value to the consumer, compared to conventional pasta. For this reason, pasta was prepared substituting durum wheat semolina with 15% of enriched dietary fibre flours (Glucagel, inulin Raftiline® HPX, inulin Raftiline® GR, psyllium and oat). Moreover, all dietary fibres (excluded Glucagel) were added in combination in order to evaluate their possible antagonistic or synergic effect on predicted glycaemic response. In general, all enriched dietary fibre pasta sample showed a significant decrease (except for pasta containing a combination of 7.5% inulin Raftiline® GR and 7.5% oat bran flour) in reducing sugars released and standardised AUC values compared to control pasta. However, this study showed that the combination of dietary fibres in pasta formulation led to an antagonistic effect on the predicted glycaemic response.

The production of high quality functional pasta from non-conventional raw materials represents a challenge. A partial substitution (15 g/100 g) of durum wheat semolina with long-chain inulin (HPX) and short-chain inulin (GR), Glucagel, psyllium and oat material (added individually and in combinations) was performed in order to increase the level of dietary fibre intake. The cooking, textural and colour characteristics of the pastas were evaluated and compared to control sample containing exclusively durum wheat semolina. Generally, material addition to the durum wheat pasta increased cooking losses, swelling index and water absorption, whilst reduced firmness and resistance to uniaxial extension of pastas. Raw spaghetti samples resulted significantly darker ( L *) and more redness ( a *) than control pasta. In the cooked pasta, all inulin enriched samples were brighter than semolina pasta. Pasta prepared with 15 g/100 g semolina of oat flour showed the best performance (except for the colour) compared to the other experimental pasta samples, but was significantly different to control durum wheat sample. Combinations of fibre rich additions were studied with the inclusion of inulin GR having a less deteriorating effect when added in combination with oat flour. This illustrates that some fibre rich sources may act better in combinations than separately.

International audience; Different types of PLA films treated by corona are currently available in the market for coating or printing applications. However, data relative to its impact on PLA film properties are scarce and do not generally consider industrial scale production. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of corona treatment on the surface, structure and barrier properties of bi-oriented PLA films produced at industrial scale. Thus, a comparative study between corona treated (CT) and non-corona treated (NCT) PLA films was conducted.The surface of films was studied using Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and goniometry measurements. The structure of films was analyzed with thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and uniaxial tensile analysis. The barrier properties of films to three gases (He, O-2, CO2) were also determined.This study unambiguously revealed that corona treatment led to modifications in both surface and bulk of PIA films. In particular, surface analysis displayed the well-known capability of corona treatment to chemically and physically modify the surface of PLA films at the nanometer scale by increasing polarity and roughness. The structural analysis displayed a slight increase in the crystallinity degree and slight modifications in mechanical properties of films. This probably originated from temperature increase associated to corona treatment, which favored physical changes (e.g. relaxation, crystallization) of a part of the bi-orientated PIA chains, and therefore highlights the importance of such an industrial step on the film properties for packaging applications. As a result of these modifications, the barrier properties of films to three gases (He, O-2, CO2) are also slightly improved.

The experience of food can be affected by visual perception and the context in which food is presented. In this study, we investigated the effect of specific emotional contexts on food desirability. To this purpose, we selected a highly familiar Italian food, Pizza Margherita, whose sauce color was digitally manipulated to create different desirability levels. The participants rated the pizza desirability on the basis of its visual features alone (no-context condition) and, most critically, after viewing images representing facial expressions of happiness, anger and neutrality. Anger was selected, as opposed to disgust, as a food-unrelated emotion to assess whether influential effects on food desirability evoked by the observed individual’s emotion state needs to be necessarily related to the eating context. Confirming previous results, we found an effect of the social context (facial expressions) on food desirability. Similarly to the no-context condition, happiness evoked the highest desirability ratings for all items compared to neutral and angry expressions, whereas the neutral and angry faces negatively affected food desirability relative to no-context and happy face conditions. These findings show that happiness is commensurate with a situation in which food is presented alone, suggesting that approach to food in healthy individuals is intrinsically related to positive emotions. Additionally, we show that food perception can be also affected by emotions, which are not necessarily related to food, but which nevertheless frame food delivery. We argue that this emotion-related effect may be grounded on resonance ‘mirror’ mechanisms allowing people to spontaneously tune to others’ emotions.

This study investigates the effect of different types of surfactant (glycerol monostearate, Tween 60, and Tween 80) on water vapor permeability (WVP), tensile strength (TS), percentage elongation at breaking (E), and structure of an emulsified edible film composed of cornstarch, methylcellulose, and cocoa butter or soybean oil. Factorial designs at two levels were used to analyze the effect of emulsifier (EM) and lipid content on the functional properties of film. Results showed that the effects of independent variables on WVP, TS, and E depend on surfactant and lipid type. The presence of EM significantly decreased the WVP of cocoa butter films but did not improve the barrier or mechanical properties of soybean oil-based film.

The optimum combination of high-pressure (HP), mild temperature application and holding time on pigskin-derived, gelatin-based, film-forming solutions to improve the barrier properties of packaging films was determined using response surface methodology. Results showed that the variable response oxygen transmission rate (OTR) decreased significantly using a combination of temperature, time, and the interaction between pressure and time. The determined optimum conditions to minimize the OTR were high pressure treatment (600 MPa) and holding time (30 min), while maintaining the temperature at 20.5 °C. In parallel, films obtained at the optimum conditions (OPT) were characterized for structural, thermal, mechanical, water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) and color properties. OPT films were significantly affected by mechanical (TS), thermal (Tm), WVTR properties and redness a* values compared to untreated control samples. Overall, a combination of HP, mild temperature and holding time on film-forming solutions showed interesting potential in altering film characteristics, especially in the enhancement of barrier properties. Industrial relevance Results obtained in this study are of considerable importance for the film development and the shelf-life of food products packaged in films treated with the methodology used in the current work. The oxygen permeation through the film packaging can lead to a degradation of the quality attributes of the food products influencing microbial development as well chemical and enzymatic degradation pathways. Oxygen is responsible for oxidative rancidity of unsaturated fats with the development of undesirable flavors and aromas and a loss in vitamin C. The package oxygen permeability plays a key role in affecting the internal partial pressure of a packaging system and for this reason the oxygen permeability is probably the property mostly tested for the different packaging materials. Within this contest, the industrial relevance of this study is significant, since the results showed a potential application of a combination of high-pressure, mild treatment and holding time to increase barrier properties in bio-sourced packaging films thus extending the shelf-life of foodstuffs.

Cereal products are consumed daily by the majority of the population. Popular belief is that these cereal products, rich in carbohydrates, produce a high glycaemic response and may not be a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic throughout the world. Recently the food industry has investigated ways of improving the overall nutritional balance of carbohydrate rich foods and focused on increasing their dietary fibre (DF) contents at the expense of readily digestible carbohydrates. It is well documented that dietary fibre is involved in disease prevention and enhanced health of consumers. Moreover, the food industry can take advantage of the physicochemical properties of fibre to improve the viscosity, texture, sensory characteristics and shelf-life of their products. The focus of this review paper is on the influence of DFs (inulin, fructo-oligofructose, β-glucans, arabinoxylans and resistant starch) supplementation on the quality and nutritional aspects of common foods containing cereals- pasta, bread, muffins/cakes and extruded snacks. This review reports on the evidence regarding fibre enrichment of cereal foods and looks at the advances and future trends in enriched dietary fibre cereal products.

The generation of a chain-breaking antioxidant capacity has been analyzed in butter cookies, as a function of the cooking time. A kinetics approach was used, by which the antioxidant capacity of aqueous extracts of cookies was measured in terms of equivalence by weight of a reference antioxidant. A diazo compound was used to generate at constant rate peroxyl radicals, and the reporting reaction was the bleaching of crocin in the presence of these radicals. Results indicated that during the first 20−30 min of cooking, when browning takes place, an antioxidant capacity accounting for up to 5 g of Trolox is produced in 100 g of dried aqueous extracts of the cookies. This result supports the concept that functionally relevant antioxidants are generated by Maillard reaction. Keywords: Maillard reaction; lipid oxidation; free radical scavenger; bakery product