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Silkworm (Bombyx mori) pupae are recognized as novel nutritionally valuable food. Their use in pasta-making was considered with the intention of repositioning spaghetti shaped pasta supplemented with silkworm derivatives (10%

Background Ultrasound-assisted extraction of the intermediate product from the mechanical expression of hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) seed oil was investigated to improve the overall expression yield without compromising oil quality. Complementary ultrasound technology was used as an out-of-line treatment carried out at 20 kHz frequency and optimized with respect to amplitude (80 and 152 μm), sonication time (2, 10, 20 min) and to the hemp paste properties, in particular its particle size and hydration, which drive the compressibility of the press cake. Results Under the conditions evaluated, the optimal ultrasound treatment was found to be the one applied on the hydrated press cake for 2 min at 152 μm, which resulted in an oil yield of 13.4%, with an increase in extraction efficiency equal to 73% with respect to the control (untreated press cake). Sonication had a positive effect on the press cake texture and on the extracted oil antioxidant activity. Soaked samples treated for 2 min at 152 μm yielded the lowest hardness. Oil recovered from soaked samples treated at 80 μm and 152 μm ultrasound for 2 min had the highest antioxidant capacity. Conclusions The technological results gathered in the present investigation are preliminary to the design and engineering of scaled-up equipment that combines the mechanical screw expression and the in-line ultrasound unit. © 2021 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

Oilseed-matrix consolidation is a crucial factor when talking about oil expression because, as the cake consolidates, the coefficient of permeability inevitably decreases. Thus, any treatment that extensively ruptures cell walls reduces rigidity and hardness of the oilseed press-cake, while improving the oil expression. Such process intensification was investigated in the present study through the introduction of the ultrasound (US) technology. Screw pressing of Cannabis sativa L. seeds was operated using a pilot scale equipment set at three different pressures (low, medium and high) to understand the correlation with the ultrasound effectiveness. Samples of non-exhausted press-cakes were tested for objective instrumental indices of compressibility and oil expression yields prior and after the US treatment.US led to a drag resistance reduction within press-cakes, improving oil flowability through a decrease in the material cohesiveness and adhesiveness. Consistently, sonication favoured oil extraction yields and oil antioxidant capacities, which increased with respect to the untreated samples, respectively equal to +19.2% and + 29.4% for the press-cake screwed at low pressure, to +21.8% and + 49.3% at medium pressure, and to +15.4% and + 0.5% at high pressure. Overall, US highest effectiveness was accounted for samples screwed at medium pressure.Press-cake compressibility can be well described by macroscopic texture parameters; indeed, their decrease is linked to higher oil expression efficiencies. Sonication can help boosting oil extraction yields reducing drag resistance within the mechanical screwing equipment. These outcomes offer good potentials for US application in the hempseed technology and, more extensively, in the oil seed industry. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.

The effect of ultrasound pre-treatment (for 5, 15, and 30 min) on tomato pomace methane yield was evaluated. With respect to the control (238.0 m3CH4/tVS), no improvement was recorded for the substrates pre-treated at 80 µm (0.6 W/mL). 18.9% and 5% higher methane yields were, instead, recorded from the substrate pre-treated for 15 min with an ultrasound wave’s amplitude of 152 µm (0.9 W/mL) after 4 and 22 days of AD, respectively. However, the main achievement arising from the ultrasound application at 152 µm amplitude was the degradation kinetics speed up (89.7% faster maximum methane production rate after 15 min US). Nonetheless, the methane yield increase was not high enough as to compensate the electricity requirement of ultrasonication (between 3.3 and 19.5 MJ/kgVS) as verified through the energy assessment. The dataset that has been presented and discussed lead to preliminary considerations that may be useful in view of a possible scale-up of the process. When equipoising higher quantities of treated biomass and recovered methane, the process might turn economically convenient; however a new energy feasibility assessment and capex–opex evaluation would be required.

A systemic approach was proposed to analyse a complex system such that of food value chains. Typical management methodologies were applied to a citrus derivatives industry and, based on the survey outcomes, a sustainable optimisation plan was formulated integrating the critical domains of the water-food-energy nexus. The overall process was mapped in detail. The SWOT analysis was applied to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to each step of the production chain of the citrus derived products. To prioritize its critical output factors, the Impact-Feasibility Map tool was defined. Critical issues characterised by the highest impact and easiest feasibility were the un-optimized fertilization and irrigation, non-objective human inspections, lack of production standardization and accumulation of organic waste. Structured interviews to the company managers were conducted to identify the most relevant company's needs. With a view on process and product sustainability, suggestions based on good manufacturing practices and on literature were scheduled within a 10-years industrial development plan accomplishing a circular economy scheme. The performed analysis is preliminary to optimisation actions in view of process sustainability that will be carried out according to the classic engineering approach. The present actual goal is to contextualize the engineering interventions in relation to the needs of the producers. Indeed, empirical contextualised research will be necessary to assess whether the sustainable actions and measures identified in this study can be validated in actual practice with conventional chemical engineering optimisation procedures.

The global challenge of feeding an ever-increasing world population is leading scientists’ attention towards nutritious and sustainable foods whose production should have low impacts on environment, economy and society. In case the input feedstock can be waste nutrients, the label of such productions becomes even greener. Nutrients circularity is nowadays an important circular economy practice. This mini-review focuses on the valorisation of food waste as precious biomass to grow new food and feed. In particular, three functional edibles are discussed in the present paper: mushrooms, microalgae and insects. These foods are part of people diets since ages in certain areas of the world and the original aspect of their cultivation and breeding found on waste nutrients recovery is here reviewed. Proofs of such food waste biorefinery viability are already given by several researches featuring the main traits of a suitable growing medium: optimal pool of nutrients and optimal pH. However, lot of work still needs to be done in order to assess the optimal growth and cultivation conditions and the health security of the harvested/bred edibles. A SWOT factors analysis was performed.

This study investigates the separate effect of sonication (US, carried out for 5 and 15 min) and thermal treatment (90 °C for 5 min) on nutritional and technological properties of tomato paste. US treatments did not affect the colour parameters and decreased the level of total acidity. Ascorbic acid content was slightly reduced after 5 min US but halved by pasteurization, while total carotenoids (TCC) and lycopene (LC) decreased in non-pasteurized samples after 15 min US. Neither the TCC nor the LC significantly changed in US-pasteurized samples if compared to controls. Microscopic analyses suggested a possible increased bioaccessibility of lycopene in US treated samples due to an enhancement of free lycopene clusters. Viscosity decreased as a consequence of thermal stress, although sonication contributed as well. The present findings suggest that 5 min sonication before pasteurization can enhance the nutritional characteristics of tomato paste, besides improving its texture.

The development of 3D printable hydrogels based on the crosslinking between chitosan and gelatin is proposed. Chitosan and gelatin were both functionalized with methyl furan groups. Chemical modification was performed by reductive amination with methyl furfural involving the lysine residues of gelatin and the amino groups of chitosan to generate hydrogels with tailored properties. The methyl furan residues present in both polymers were exploited for efficient crosslinking via Diels-Alder ligation with PEG-Star-maleimide under cell-compatible conditions. The obtained chitosan-gelatin hybrid was employed to formulate hydrogels and 3D printable biopolymers and its processability and biocompatibility were preliminarily investigated.

Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture (NSA) is a novel concept in agriculture that considers not only yield, but also nutritional value of produce, sustainability of production, and ecological impact of agriculture. In accordance with its goals, NSA would benefit from applying microbial-based products as they are deemed more sustainable than their synthetic counterparts. This study characterized 3 plant-beneficial bacterial strains (Paenibacillus pasadenensis strain R16, Pseudomonas syringae strain 260-02, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain CC2) on their biocontrol activity and effect on nutritional and texture quality of romaine lettuce plants (Lactuca sativa) in greenhouse. The pathogens used in the trials are Rhizoctonia solani and Pythium ultimum. The obtained results indicate that strain R16 had a significant ability to cause a statistically significant reduction in the symptoms caused by both P. ultimum (reduction of 32%) and R. solani (reduction of 42%), while the other two strains showed a less efficient biocontrol ability. Indices of the nutritional quality (content in phenols, carotenoids and chlorophyll) were unaffected by the treatments, indicating that the product was equivalent to that obtained without using the bacteria, while the texture of the leaves benefits from the biocontrol treatments. In particular, the mechanical resistance of the leaves was significantly higher in non-treated plants affected by R. solani but was restored to the values of healthy plants when the bacterial inoculants were present as well. The ecological impact was evaluated by characterizing the bacterial microbiota in bulk soil, rhizosphere, and root in the presence or absence of the inoculants. The composition of the microbiota, analyzed with a Unifrac model to describe beta-diversity, was radically different in the rhizosphere and the root endosphere among treatments, while the bulk soil formed a single cluster regardless of treatment, indicating that the use of these treatments did not have an ecological impact outside of the plant.

This work is aimed to present a method for analyzing and optimizing food production processes from the primary production until the final residue. The aim is to have a global view on the entire production chain in order to put in light, through a deep analysis, the strength and the weaknesses of the process and to propose solutions for its improvement and optimization. The solutions, of course, depend on which is the main objective of the involved production realities and consider also the location of the production. Here is reported the first case study, the citrus industry, which products are citrus juices and essential oils. In this case the authors individuated some solutions and started to develop some of them. The results will be here presented.

Nutrition-sensitive agriculture is a novel concept in the agri-food system, which considers the implementation of techniques able to guarantee the nutritional value of the produce, the sustainability of the production and, at the same time, to reduce the ecological impact of agricultural practices. These principles can be also introduced in the fresh-cut market with the aim of maintaining the produce quality during shelf life. In this context, the use of bio-based products is rapidly increasing for improving economic and environmental sustainability of cropping systems during cultivation and shelf life. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effects of three different bacterial-based formulations (Paenibacillus pasadenensis, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, Pseudomonas syringae) applied during romaine lettuce cultivation by monitoring the changes of several quality indexes at harvest and during storage. Results showed that the application of microbial inoculants during romaine lettuce cultivation contributed to the maintenance of nutritional, functional and perceived quality attributes of leaves during shelf life. The microbial inoculants prevented the development of postharvest fungal pathogen B. cinerea. Moreover, the study evidenced different modes of action of the different inoculants and, in the case of Pseudomonas syringae 260-02 application, a direct involvement of ascorbic acid-mediated antioxidant mechanisms was observed.

A fundamental understanding of plant cell wall rheology is essential in view of the formulation engineering of plant-based foods/ingredients. In this paper, by means of oscillatory measurements, we study the rheological behavior of water suspensions of cell wall polysaccharidic supramolecular assemblies, which are extracted with selective solvents precipitation method from apple flesh. Once rehydrated with water, they behave as gel like materials, as it results from the mechanical spectra, with the elastic modulus Gʹ higher than Gʺ within the frequency range considered. Interestingly, amplitude and time sweep measurements show reversible stress softening and stress recovery after high shear strain. The observed behavior of the cell wall molecular assemblies resembles closely to that of colloidal gels, which also display shear-thinning rheological properties and a complex aging response. In this regard, creep measurements indicate history-dependent effects, which are interpreted in terms of aging phenomena, similar to those existing in glassy systems. The self-healing behavior and the non-equilibrium nature we observed allow customized modifications during processing and storage to obtain new structural states and rheology. Such changes in the microstructure might be relevant for product and process performance.

Cell walls in plants are polymeric composite systems, which determine the textural attributes of vegetal tissue. In this paper, results are presented on the investigation on the structural properties of cell wall materials (CWMs), intended for use as structuring materials in manufactured products. Specifically, CWMs were extracted from fresh and ripened minimally processed Valerianella locusta Laterr. At the tissue level, the structural resilience inferred by CWM varies with storage time, as it was evaluated both quantifying the membrane degradation and the mechanical characteristics of salads texture wilting. Mechanical spectra of the rehydrated CWM gel show the increase of the elastic character with the salad aging time. Stress relaxation spectra deduced from rheological study on water suspension of the extracted cell wall polysaccharides, showed fast and slow relaxation modes, whose ratio changed with the aging of the salad tissue. The use of unrefined cell wall materials (CWMs) in food formulations may infer naturalness to food offerings and this paper shows how CWM extraction from salad that underwent different time storage histories, can provide modulation of the functional properties of these structures in final manufactured products.

Resveratrol is a natural polyphenolic compound which is poorly soluble in aqueous solutions. Due to its polyphenolic structure, it possesses antioxidant activity and anticancer effects. Two different milk proteins (β-lactoglobulin (BLG), β-casein (BCN) and bovine serum albumin (BSA)) were used to investigate the influence of protein–resveratrol interaction and its influence on the binding sites, structure and the conformational changes of the proteins. Circular dichroism results showed that resveratrol did not caused any significant change to the secondary structure of proteins. However, steady-state fluorescence results indicated that resveratrol was able to quench the intrinsic fluorescence of the proteins. Fluorescence results were used to calculate the affinity constants between resveratrol and the three proteins. BLG was the protein with the highest accessible fluorophore exposure in comparison with BSA and BNC. In addition, transmission electron microscopy experiments were carried out to visualize the complex resveratrol–protein formation.

Texture and mesostructure of packaged fresh-cut ‘Fuji’ apple slices were studied during 30 days storage at 4, 10 and 20 °C. Instrumental mechanical–acoustic texture evaluations were carried out, and cell wall materials were isolated from the flesh tissue by means of an ethanol and methanol–chloroform solvents extraction procedure. The emphasis was on relating the macroscopic loss of fresh texture characteristics to the changes in the rheological properties occurring to the structuring elements of the cell wall materials (CWMs). The rheology of the reconstituted CWM water dispersion was evaluated by means of oscillatory dynamic testing, and viscoelastic data were interpreted according to the ‘weak-gel model’ theory. The dynamics of the flowing components at the mesoscale structural level was related to the texture softening, which yields decrease in firmness and rigidity parameters, and an attenuation of the acoustic emission (fewer acoustic peaks and lower sound pressure level), as it was measured in the combined acoustic–mechanical test. The kinetic reaction rate values are presented. Softening of apple flesh is accompanied by slight cleavage of molecular assemblies and a loss in cell adhesion, mediated by the increase in assemblies’ water uptake. The ability to handle the relationship between the sounds produced during flesh crushing and the structure of the cellular tissue would assist breeders and geneticists in the selection and control of the apple crispness, or would support technologists in preventing postharvest softening during storage and retail.

Texture is a quality attribute closely related to the structural properties of the apple cellular tissue and is claimed to be the most important aspect affecting consumer acceptability apart from taste. Instrumental and human-based assessment of apples crispness are presented in this paper. A commercially available acoustic AED detector, interfaced with a TA.XT.plus Texture Analyzer, was used to collect both the acoustic emissions recorded during the instrumental mechanical penetration test, and the acoustic emissions resulting from the first bite of an apple flash, which were accomplished by 10 subjects with random dental state. Seven commercial cultivars of apples with different textural characteristics (Fuji, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Renetta Canada, Royal Gala, and Stark) were analyzed. In order to measure the apple juice content, the expressible fluid released from the apple flash during compression was also quantified. Merging distinctive parameters taken from the mechanical signals and simultaneously recorded acoustic traces allowed apples to be clustered based on their crispness attributes using principal component analysis (PCA), a qualitative approach for multivariate data set. Results showed that sounds emitted during the human biting could not be assumed as a capable predictor of the sensory attribute of crispness, while apples can be efficiently distinguished for crispness by means of coupled acoustic and mechanical texture analysis. Finally, the inclusion of juiciness in the acoustic-mechanical PCA data set did not significantly increase the efficiency in cluster separation in terms of the texture crispness property.

Cooking has been addressed to influence the human species, evolution, firstly due to the impact on the energy balance related to food processing and associated with higher digestibility of many foods. Many researchers are focusing their attention to model a tool for optimizing food processes. It is not only for the energy saving and economic aspects, but also to achieve the final food products' texture, flavor, and nutritional value. Modeling is also a valid instrument for better understanding the different scales of the cooking process. Quantitative models can be used for many activities and applications. A general model for the thermal processing of food matrices based on heat and mass transfer equations and a partial differential equations (PDEs) approach have been presented, implemented on commercial finite-elements software and validated on different test cases. The macro-component approach used for the research seems to be valid for estimation of the transport properties, even with the simplification coming from the homogenization assumption.

Consumer acceptability of fresh-cut apples is affected by texture characteristics, mainly by crispness attribute. The use of combined instrumental acoustic-mechanical techniques and the measurement of the absorption coefficient at 670 nm (mu(a)670) by time-resolved reflectance spectroscopy (TRS) have been shown useful to assess fruit crispness and the maturity degree. The aim of this work was to evaluate the influence of the maturity degree measured by TRS, modified atmosphere and anti-browning dipping on the texture of fresh-cut apples as measured by means of an instrumental mechanical-acoustic test and the rheological behavior of the cell wall material. Apples were measured at harvest by TRS at 670 nm, ranked on the basis of decreasing mu(a)670 (increasing maturity) and classified as less mature (LeM), medium mature and more mature (MoM). Only LeM and MoM apples were peeled and cut, half of them were dipped in the antibrowning solution and the other were not dipped. All samples were packed using air or 80% Ar + 20% CO2 modified atmosphere (MA). Ethylene concentration and instrumental mechanical-acoustic characteristic were evaluated after 1, 4, 8, 11 and 15 d of refrigerated storage (4 degrees C). The rheological behavior of cell wall material was evaluated after 1 and 15 d. LeM and MoM samples showed a different ethylene evolution for fresh-cut apples packed in air. The mechanical-acoustic results showed that the maturity degree influenced the texture significantly, with LeM apples firmer and more rigid and producing also a higher number of acoustic events with more elevated maximum signal amplitude than MoM fruit. However maturity degree did not affect the evolution of texture throughout storage. Both dipping treatment and MA did not affect texture clearly. The rheological behavior of the cell wall material suggested an increase of elastic behavior with storage time. In order to obtain a fresh-cut product with homogeneous texture characteristics, these results suggest that it would be beneficial to process fruits of a homogeneous maturity class, which could be achieved by sorting using TRS. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Growing recognition of the complexity of children’s lives has led to strong advocacy in education research literature for greater collaboration between researchers from different paradigms to address the ‘wicked’ problems that face contemporary children and families. There is little literature, however, exploring how collaboration works in practice. This paper, drawing on researcher reflective narrative, and using Cultural Historical Activity Theory as a heuristic framework, describes and critiques the formative stages of an educational research collaborative group of five early and one mid-career early childhood education researchers (the authors), from two universities, and with quite different epistemological and ontological understandings. It outlines, from an insider perspective, some of the outcomes, challenges and tensions associated with participating in the research group, and concludes by providing some implications for policy and considerations for those contemplating forming a collaborative group.

The present paper describes preliminary results on the development of a batch lab-scale co-extrusion device for the production of alginate beads as carrier for hydrophilic compounds. A dual jet of liquid core (aqueous solution of glucose or vitamin B12 or olive oil) and liquid shell material (aqueous solution of alginates differing for guluronic to mannuronic ratio) was pumped through concentric extrusion nozzles and droplets were formed by means of a rotating fluid jet cutter. The shell of the bead was then hardened in the hardening bath containing a calcium chloride solution. Optimization of the co-extrusion plant accounts for the management of the operative conditions within the hardening unit (incubation time, molarity of the gelling agent), and for the control of the surface-tension-driven breakup of laminar jets which was managed by varying the jet cutter - hardening unit distance. Beads enriched in vitamin B12, that were formed according to the best plant set-up, were tested for the bioactive release when stressed under thermal conditions simulating typical dairy products processes. Cyanocobalamin was retained at all.

A lipophilic aroma widely used in the food field, R-(+)-limonene, was entrapped in a solid emulsion in absence of emulsifiers using agar gel as encapsulating medium. The perception of the flavour release was evaluated by means of an electronic nose. The relation between structural organization of the agar gels and flavour release and perception was studied. Different viscoelastic properties of the continuous phase of the solid emulsion were achieved by varying the gelling polysaccharide concentration from 0.2% up to 1% (w/v) and the consequent aroma trapping effect was correlated with the perception of the flavour release from the solid emulsion during aging up to 15 days storage. Release phenomena were finally accelerated by increasing temperature of the gel from 30 to 77 °C. Structure assessment of the gelled phase take place within 24 h from the gel setting time and during this transient period most of the aroma release happens.

In this work a physico-chemical characterization of the polysaccharide fraction of the exudates of Launaea acanthodes, a common medicinal species in central regions of Iran, was performed. The extraction of the polysaccharide fraction of the exudates was described. The structure characterization of the polysaccharide was performed with mono and bi-dimensional NMR spectroscopy techniques, which allowed the chemical composition and the relative monomers abundance of the extracted fraction to be estimated. The constituent monosaccharides were predominantly galactose, rhamnose, arabinose and galacturonic acid residues. Interchain association phenomena in the main arabinogalactans component (Mw = 33.550 Da) were evidenced both from high-performance size-exclusion chromatography (HP-SEC–TDA), and by intrinsic viscosity ([η]0 = 0.323 dl g−1 in water and [η]0 = 0.115 dl g−1 in NaNO3 0.1 M at 20 °C) measurement and the Huggings coefficient λ. Due to the formation of hyperentanglements, a unique function of C[η]0 cannot be defined. The technological consequence was that once structured, the polysaccharide network did not express a sufficient degree in polymer orientation and therefore cast films showed weak mechanical properties.

Surface aggregating soy protein-pectin solutions are used in the production of biodegradable films intended for food packaging applications. Structural properties of the surface biopolymer network influence the engineering properties of the films, such as permeability and mechanical strength. Soy protein isolates (SPI) – high methoxyl pectin (HMP) films that develop at the air–water interface were therefore investigated by a combined interface rheological and ellipsometric approach. The behavior of pure SPI interfacial layer is that of a light cross-linked polymer network with a small regime of linear viscoelasticity response. Since SPI progressively accumulate at the air–water interface, higher protein concentration in the solution does not lead automatically to higher surface coverage but due to restricted unfolding of the proteins to weaker and fluid-like films. The rheological behavior of composite SPI–HMP solutions at the air–water interface shows that the HMP addition increases the elastic interfacial modulus. The stabilizing effect in presence of the polysaccharide is attributed to a protein–polysaccharide complex formation at the interface.