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Pasta enriched with soy flour can be considered as a functional food, due to its content in nutraceutical compounds such as isoflavones, carotenoids, and other antioxidants. The quantification of the amount of a functional ingredient is an important step in food authenticity. The availability of non-destructive techniques for quantitative and qualitative analyses of food is therefore desirable. This research aimed to investigate the feasibility of hyperspectral imaging in reflectance mode for the evaluation of the soy flour content, also to investigate the possibility of implementing a feed-back control system to precisely dose the soy flour during the industrial production of pasta. Samples of pasta in shape of spaghetti were produced with durum wheat semolina and soy flour at increasing percentages (0, to 50%, steps of 5%). A feature selection algorithm was used to predict the amount of soy flour. The most influent wavelengths were selected, and a six-term Gauss function was trained, validated, and tested. The identified transfer function was able to predict the percentage of soy flour with high accuracy, with an R2adj value of 0.98 and a Root Mean Square Error of 1.31. The developed system could represent a feasible tool to control the process in a continuous mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing need to produce more energy from renewable sources and improve the energy efficiency of the processes to reduce the environmental impact. At the same time, it would also be desirable to enhance the reuse of by-products from the perspective of a circular economy. With this purpose in mind it is of great interest considering the recovery of the olive pits along the extraction process for energy reuses. From this perspective, it is of great interest to consider the recovery of olive stones along the extraction process for energy reuse, in particular for the reduction of energy consumption linked to heat treatments for the conditioning of olive pastes. Mainly there are two ways to recover pits during the process: 1) by using a pomace destoner machine at the end of the process; 2) by using a combined crusher-destoner machine at the beginning of the process. In this work, the quality as biofuel of olive stones recovered with both methods was considered to evaluate the possible energy savings compared to the reference case (process line without stone recovery). In addition, the sustainability of the processes was evaluated by considering the increase in electrical energy required by the addition of the new pitting machines. The results show how an adequate organization and management of the process can lead to benefits both in terms of energy savings and plant operating costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The processes for extracting and refining edible oils are well-established in industry at different scales. However, these processing lines encounter inefficiencies and oil losses when recovering crude or refined oil. Palm oil and olive oil extraction methods are used mainly as a combination of physical, thermal, and centrifugal methods to recover crude oil, which results in oil losses in the olive pomace or in palm oil effluents. Seed oils generally require a seed steam conditioning, and cooking stage, followed by physical oil recovery through an inefficient expeller. Most of the crude oil remaining in the expeller cake is then recovered by hexane. Crude seed oil is further refined in stages that also undergo oil losses. This chapter provides an overview of innovative technologies using microwave, ultrasound, megasonic and pulsed electric field energies, which can be used in the above-mentioned crude and refined oil processes to improve oil recovery. This chapter describes traditional palm oil, olive oil, and seed oil processes, as well as the specific process interventions that have been tested with these technologies. The impact of such technology interventions on oil quality is also summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of minimally processed vegetables generates large amounts of by-products whose concentrations in bioactive compounds is comparable to those of the edible part. The aim of this work was the optimization of sustainable processes for the extraction of phenolic compounds from chicory and fennel by-products using water as solvent. The results were compared with those obtained through a conventional extraction performed with a 70% ethanol aqueous solution as extraction solvent. The ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) and microwave-assisted extractions (MAE) were established by developing two Box–Behnken designs, respectively, a four-factor, three-level design and a three-factor, three-level design. A quadratic polynomial model was useful in optimizing both the ultrasonic (R2 0.8473 for chicory and R2 0.9208 for fennel) and microwave (R2 0.9145 for chicory and R2 0.7836 for fennel) extraction of bioactive compounds as well as the antioxidant activity of extract (R2 0.8638 for chicory and R2 0.9238 for fennel treated with ultrasounds; R2 0.9796 for chicory and R2 0.7486 for fennel submitted to MAE). The UAE conditions able to maximize the total phenolic concentrations were: 10 g/100 mL, 55 °C, t: 60 min, 72 W for chicory (9.07 mg gallic acid/g dm) and 15 g/100 mL, 45 °C, t: 40 min, 120 W for fennel (6.64 mg gallic acid/g dm). Concerning MAE, the highest phenolic concentrations were obtained applying 7.5 g/100 mL; 2 min; 350 W for chicory (8.23 mg gallic acid/g dm); 7.5 g/100 mL; 3 min; 160 W for fennel (6.73 mg gallic acid/g dm). Compared to conventional solvent extraction, UAE and MAE allowed the obtainment of (a) chicory extracts richer in phenolic compounds (+48% and +34%, respectively), in less time (4-fold and 90-fold reduction, respectively) and (b) fennel, extracts with slightly lower amount of phenolics (−11.7% and −10.5%, respectively) but halving the extraction time (UAE) or reducing it to 60-fold (MAE). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food matrix structures are becoming more and more investigated from a rheological characterization point of view because this influences their behavior in the food process phases. In this study, a brief characterization of olive paste is attempted according to their rheological profile. Moreover, the influence of new technologies to prepare the olive paste on the rheological characteristics of olive paste is presented. The small olive oil droplet size, solid volume fraction, and the strong interactions of droplet interfaces are significant factors that change the rheological profile of the olive paste during the olive oil extraction process. The process involved, in fact, favors a decrease of viscosity of the initial matrix used which occurs mainly with the passage of the oil paste in the malaxer reaching an adequate viscosity. However, the viscosity of processed olive paste depends on the raw material, according to various factors such as the pedo-climatic conditions, agronomic techniques, the ripening index of the drupes, cultivars used, processing technologies that have a strong influence on the solid/liquid ratio. Therefore, the objective of the present study is to investigate the rheological properties of the olive paste when a combined heat-exchange and microwave machine are used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L.) dried flowers contain a large number of interesting biologically active compounds which make it an important medicinal herb. In order to preserve the commodity quality and the biologically active compounds of chamomile, the correct management of the chamomile processing process coming from the field is fundamental. An important phase of the chamomile process is the final sieving of the dried chamomile in which the intact flower heads are separated from the other parts of the flower. In this study a simulation of a vibrating screen machine was carried out in order to find the best kinematical parameters that allow to improve efficiency during the sieving process of chamomile. The study of the movement kinematics provides the acceleration of the vibrating screen depending on its geometric and mechanical characteristics. The frequencies and amplitudes of the vibrations transmitted to the screen were estimated in the main directions, and the optimal parameters were evaluated to guarantee high sieving efficiency and reliable productivity of the machine. To validate the modelling experimental tests were performed by installing three triaxial accelerometers on the mobile frame of the machine, in order to obtain an accurate measurement on the three reference axes. The comparison of the measured values with the simulated ones demonstrated the suitability of the numerical simulation and its ability to estimate the process performance. Finally, experimental tests demonstrated that by using the optimal sieving frequency a significant reduction of waste was possible, with a consequently increase in the fraction of dried whole and intact flower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pre-heating of the paste could reduce the malaxation time and enhance the temperature control during this process. In this study a 3D CFD analysis of a tube-in-tube heat exchanger was carried out to predict its behaviour when the rheology of the olive paste varies. The "What if Analysis" tool of Flow Simulation allowed to perform multiple analyses to analyse the temperature and pressure drop inside the exchanger. Numerical model is confirmed to be a useful tool to identify the main factors affecting the optimization of the heat exchanger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality of raw ham is linked to the loss of essential properties such as color, which must be red and stable. In fact, the intensity of the red color of cured ham is susceptible to a progressive variation over time, which requires the producer to search for technologies to ensure maximum stability of the factors responsible for the red color of raw ham. Nitrites (potassium E249 and sodium E250) and nitrates (sodium E251 and potassium E252) are added during the production phase of raw hams mainly as preservatives. Nitrates may also be naturally present in small quantities in meat products. The aim of this work was to develop a rapid method, based on image analysis techniques, to detect the presence of nitrate and nitrites in raw hams by inspecting the surface of a slide. A number of 160 slices of raw hams of different producers have been acquired by an RGB system composed by a camera and a square array illumination system (color temperature of 6500K) in a black box. An algorithm to read the chromatic coordinates in L*a*b* in CIELAB color space was developed in MATLAB® environment. A numerical classifier capable to discriminate raw ham samples prepared with the use of food additives and without. Chemical determinations of nitrates and nitrites have been carried out to train the numerical classifier. A 5-fold cross validation statistic method has been used to validate the numerical classifier. The image analysis system was able to detect efficiently the chromatic pattern of the raw ham slices. The numeric classifier reached the 100% of correct classification (validation set) of raw hams containing additives. The percentage of correct classification of raw hams without additives was 95.0% (validation set), whit a percentage of false positives of 5%. The overall correct classification was 97.5% of detection. Thus, the developed technique could be used instead of the analytic technique because rapid and easy to use. Furthermore, it should be noted that the analytical determinations carried out on all samples showed that additives were present in traces or in a limited quantity, and this result reinforce the capability of the image analysis procedure developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of pulsed electric field (PEF) technology to improve the extractability and enhance the oil quality in an industrial olive oil extraction process. Using a PEF device on olive pastes significantly increased the extractability from 79.5% for the control, up to 85.5%. The PEF system did not modify the primary legal quality parameters or total concentrations of phenols, aldehydes, and esters. On the contrary, the non-thermal treatment slightly enhanced the dialdehydic forms of decarboxymethyl elenolic acid linked to hydroxytyrosol (3,4-DHPEA-EDA) and tyrosol (p-HPEA-EDA), and decreased the total saturated and unsaturated C5 and C6 alcohols of the PEF EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) compared to the control test. This study confirmed that PEF technology can improve olive oil extraction and quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]