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Increased consciousness for health, well-being, and changes in eating habits, such as a shift towards veganism among the masses, has resulted in rapid growth in the functional foods market. Functional beverages are one of the core areas of research and development among various functional foods. However, ready to drink beverages have some limitations in terms of shelf life, storage, and transportation, so the future trends in the beverage industry could be more towards powdered beverages and ready-to-reconstitute instant mixtures. Due to a sedentary lifestyle, people are trying to follow a balanced diet for weight management, and weight loss programs are also gaining importance. One such category that has come into focus is meal replacements. Nutritionally balanced beverage mixtures have the potential to be used as meal replacements. This review is based mainly on recent and ongoing trends in beverages, such as functional beverages based on dairy sources, fruits and vegetables, cereals-legumes, and millets-based beverages. It also focuses on the future aspects in the beverage industry with a brief about instant beverage powders. Beverages as potential meal replacement products are the major future aspect in this area. This review also discusses the optimization techniques used for the development of beverage mixes.

Asian countries, despite being the largest producers and yielding a significant proportion of the world’s rice, have poor disposal facilities for the harvested rice straw (stubble). Due to higher costs in their handling relative to their value, local farmers prefer the burning of stubble fields, thus creating environmental problems. Even though the government has taken initiatives, no effective solution has been discovered to handle this large agro-waste problem efficiently. In this regard, the utilization of rice straw to develop nanocellulose (NC) products is of interest. Renewability and biodegradability, along with suitable mechanical and thermal properties required for the packaging functions, are key advantages of NC. The bio-nanocomposites prepared using NC and other bio-based polymers are also being widely considered for sustainable food packaging applications due to the reinforcement provided by NC and alternative petroleum-based packaging materials. This review provides an overview of process utilization for preparing NC products using rice straw, pulping methods, and isolation to produce bio-nanocomposites for sustainable food packaging applications. The challenges and future aspects covering the utilization of rice straw for producing NC and eventually producing active packaging materials are also discussed.

This study explains the effect of ultrasound on the extraction of the bioactive compounds from garlic (Allium sativum L.) leaf powder. The experiment was carried out by varying the ultrasound amplitude (30–60%), treatment time (5–15 min), and ethanol concentration (40–60%) required to obtain the maximum extraction yield of total phenol content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), and antioxidant activity. Rotatable central composite design (RCCD) provided experimental parameter combinations in the ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) of garlic leaf powder. The values of extraction yield, TPC, TFC, and antioxidant activity for the optimized condition of RSM were obtained at 53% amplitude, 13 min of treatment time, and 50% ethanol concentration. The values of the target compounds predicted at this optimized condition from RSM were 32.2% extraction yield, 9.9 mg GAE/g TPC, 6.8 mg QE/g TFC, and 58% antioxidant activity. The ANN-GA optimized condition for the leaf extracts was obtained at 60% amplitude, 13 min treatment time, and 53% ethanol concentration. The predicted values of optimized condition obtained by ANN-GA were recorded as 32.1738% extraction yield and 9.8661 mg GAE/g, 6.8398 mg QE/g, and 58.5527% for TPC, TFC, and antioxidant activity, respectively. The matured leaves of garlic, if not harvested during its cultivation, often go waste despite being rich in antioxidants and phenolic compounds. With the increased demand for the production of value-added products, the extraction of the bioactive compounds from garlic leaves can resolve waste management and potential health issues without affecting the crop yield through the process for high-end use in value addition.

The physical properties of food grains play an important role in optimizing the design parameters for machines and equipment, process automation, and determining the efficiency of the machine during various stages such as harvesting, drying, storage, dehulling, and other unit operations. Thus, the present study aimed to characterize the promising chickpea varieties for their physical properties, and the 3D scanned image was employed to study the geometrical variations among different chickpea varieties. The digital image processing approach offers rapid computation of shape and size parameters and validation of data obtained from manual methods by using digital vernier calipers. The dimensional parameters, namely length, breadth, and thickness were examined and were further used to calculate the derived parameters as mean diameters, sphericity, surface area, volume, and aspect ratio. The length of chickpea grains of different varieties lay in the range of 7.42 ± 0.63 to 8.78 ± 0.46 mm, the width varied from 5.33 ± 0.38 to 6.50 ± 0.42 mm, and the thickness ranged from 5.17 ± 0.46 to 6.23 ± 0.45 mm. The sphericity of the grains was found to vary from 75.84 ± 3.03% to 82.89 ± 3.92%. The 3D imaging approach was adopted for the determination of the various physical properties of grains, and the results obtained are precise; thus, this approach may help in the characterization of grains and process automation. It was observed that the hilum portion of the chickpea contributes to less than 5% of the total chickpea volume. Thus, if this portion is removed, it results in a significant improvement in the sphericity of the grains to behave as spheres. Therefore, calculations for physical properties may be carried out considering chickpea grains as spherical objects. During milling, the hilum portion is the first to be broken due to abrasion as it is brittle in nature, and this also results in a decrease in the coefficient of friction. Thousand kernel weight, bulk density, and true density were also examined as they are the important parameters that help in designing their storage bins. Chickpea cultivars were evaluated for their frictional properties, i.e., the angle of repose and the coefficient of static friction. The coefficient of static friction was determined over different common contact material surfaces, and it was found that all the varieties have a maximum coefficient of friction over plyboard, followed by the galvanized iron sheet, and a minimum coefficient of friction on the glass surface.