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Whole wheat bread has high nutritional value, but it is characterized by inferior quality and a high glycemic index. Studies have shown that the addition of exogenous protein can improve bread quality. The aim of this study was to determine how different protein combinations (gluten + other cereal proteins) alter dough properties. Based on these properties, we inferred the interactions of the major components (protein, starch, and water) and analyzed their effects on baking quality and starch digestibility of whole wheat bread. Alterations in mixing characteristics, rheological characteristics, and scanning electron microscopy images showed that the addition of large amounts of gluten strengthened the gluten network, whereas the addition of highland barley protein had little effect, and other added proteins caused damage. The addition of gluten improved bread quality tremendously, while the addition of other proteins negatively affected bread quality. All protein additions significantly reduced the in vitrostarch digestibility (p < 0.05), with the bread containing highland barley protein showing the lowest estimated glycemic index (76.96) and an excellent baking quality. Therefore, highland barley protein can be selected as a partial substitute for gluten in whole wheat bread.

β-Carotene is a hydrophobic molecule that can be isolated from plants that acts as a natural pigmen and nutraceutical. However, the limited water-solubility, oxidative-stability, and bioavailability limit its utilization in functional food, supplement, and pharmaceutical products. Pickering emulsions stabilized by chitosan-phytic acid-cyclodextrin (CS-PA-CD) nanoparticles were prepared to improve the delivery, stability, and bioavailability of β-carotene. The impact of nanoparticle concentration (0.1%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, 2.0% w/v) and oil phase fraction (30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70% v/v) on the stability of β-carotene-loaded Pickering emulsions was investigated. The Pickering emulsions that were most stable to phase separation were formed at intermediate oil concentrations (50%-60% v/v). The encapsulated β-carotene exhibited improved resistance to heating (70 °C) and UV light exposure. Moreover, the bioaccessibility of β-carotene was also improved using a simulated gastrointestinal model. Overall, our findings highlight the potential of CS-PA-CD nanoparticles for forming and stabilizing Pickering emulsion-based delivery carrier for hydrophobic bioactive substances.

A relatively straightforward green method to fabricate robust hydrophobic sponges for effective removal of oil pollutants and other organic contaminants was developed. These sponges were constructed from bio-sources: citronellal and palmitic acid-modified aminoethyl cyclodextrin-sodium phytate-chitosan (ACCTCS). The modified sponge exhibited desirable mechanical properties and strong hydrophobicity with a water contact angle (WCA) of 147.8°. Scanning electron microscopy showed that the ACCTCS sponge had a highly porous structure that was particularly suitable for organic component absorption. The sponge exhibited excellent absorption capacities for n-hexane, trichloromethane, vacuum pump oil, and peanut oil (47.9, 32.3, 32.6, and 32.2 g/g, respectively). The removal rate of oil was more than 80% (>26.2 g/g) after 10 absorption–desorption cycles. The ACCTCS sponge also showed good oil/water and organic components/water separation performance. The bio-source materials, green preparation method, and new absorbed-oil recovery strategy provided a novel pathway to construct multifunctional absorbents for oil/water separation in industrial wastewater.

As people become increasingly health conscious, consumers are increasingly becoming aware of the potentially negative impact of synthetic preservatives on their health. Consequently, the food industry has been searching for safe, natural, and environmentally friendly food additives to meet the nutritional and health needs of consumers. Medicine food homology plants (MFHPs) are defined as substances that have both nutritional and medicinal qualities. Essential oils extracted from MFHPs (MFEOs) often contain multiple beneficial active compounds. MFEOs have been reported to have various health benefits, including antimicrobial, antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, and anti-obesity properties. MFEOs provide excellent alternatives to the synthetic additives currently used by the food industry, not only to improve the organoleptic properties of food but also to increase its shelf life by decreasing food pathogens. Therefore, this review aims to discuss the recent development of the sources, chemical constituents, health benefits, and food applications of MFEOs. Moreover, this work provides a good foundation for the further development and utilization of MFEOs. The researcher believes that MFEOs will become important food additives and will be more widely used in food preservation.

Ideally, packaging materials should ensure the safety and quality of foods, without contributing to environmental degradation. Consequently, there is interest in the development of biodegradable films assembled from natural materials, such as polysaccharides, proteins, lipids, and their mixtures. In this review, the physicochemical attributes and functional characteristics of biodegradable films prepared from these food-grade natural substances are summarized. Recent advances in the production of active and intelligent packaging materials are also discussed. Active packaging is designed to improve the shelf life of packaged foods by including antimicrobials or antioxidants, such as essential oils. Intelligent packaging is designed to provide real-time information about the quality, freshness, or safety of packaged foods by including indicators in the film that are responsive to changes in storage conditions, gas levels, pH, etc.Potential applications of intelligent and active packaging materials to fruit, vegetable, meat, seafood, and dairy products are discussed.

The aim of this study was to continuously hydrolyze mango peel pectin, an agricultural waste, into pectic oligosaccharides (POS) with antibacterial activity. A packed-bed reactor (PBR) with immobilized polygalacturonase was designed, and the effects of the process conditions (flow rate, substrate concentration, and enzyme amount) were evaluated. The optimal conditions were obtained using response surface analysis, and a stable POS production with a yield of 94.56% was achieved. The PBR retained 82% of its initial activity after continuous operation for 72 h. The POS products exhibited good antibacterial activity against E. coli, S. aureus, B. subtilis, and S. typhimurium. The destructive effects of POS on the membrane system integrity were observed via scanning electron microscopy and the leakage of intracellular nucleic acids. Thus, the PBR is a powerful tool for continuous POS production, and hence, it can be applied as an alternative to chemical preservatives in the food industry.

Effective fermentation monitoring is a growing need during the production of wine due to the rapid pace of change in the industry. Total reducing sugar, pH and amino acid nitrogen (AAN) are the three most important process variables indicating the status of the Chinese rice wine (CRW) fermentation process. In this study, the potential of near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy as rapid tools to monitor the evolutions of these three chemical parameters involved in the CRW fermentation process was investigated and compared. The results demonstrated that compared with the partial least-squares (PLS) model based on the full spectrum, the model based on the spectra intervals selected by the synergy interval partial least-squares (SiPLS) algorithm had higher prediction accuracy. In addition, nonlinear models outperformed linear models in predicting fermentation parameters. After systemic comparison and discussion, it was found that for either models developed based on NIR spectra or models developed based on MIR spectra, SiPLS-support vector machine (SiSVM) models obtained the best result with the highest prediction precision. The overall results indicated that it was feasible to monitor the fermentation process of Chinese rice wine using NIR and MIR spectroscopy.

Amylose content has a profound impact on the contents of slowly digestible starch and resistant starch. Enzymatic debranching is a safe method to increase the amylose content, however, the lower substrate concentration and high viscosity of fully gelatinized starch limit the efficiency and yield of this method. This paper aims to explore the effects of extrusion and enzymatic debranching on increasing the amylose content thereby increasing slowly digestible starch and resistant starch contents. Different starch concentrations (10%, 15%, and 20%) of extruded corn starch (ECS) and extruded potato starch (EPS) were used to debranch. Both debranched ECS and debranched EPS showed high amylose content of approximately 90%, indicating that all samples with different starch concentrations achieved high-efficiency enzymatic debranching. The high-performance liquid chromatograph results indicated that the samples were mainly short amylose. The samples exhibit a typical B-type crystalline structure and the relative crystallinity of them exceeds 37%. The short amylose exhibited rapid rearrangement ability, with the gelatinization temperature range of rescanning determined as 80–125 °C, this will facilitate the formation of slowly digestible starch and resistant starch. The slowly digestible starch and resistant starch contents of the samples (debranched ECS and debranched EPS) were between 23% and 30% and between 31% and 37%, respectively. These results indicate that the extrusion and enzymatic debranching of a high substrate concentration can efficiently increase the amylose content, thereby significantly reducing the digestibility of starch, and has broad prospects of the actual production of slowly digestible starch and resistant starch.

In this study, porous starch/β-cyclodextrin microsphere (PCS-CD) was fabricated for the first time through the crosslink reaction between corn starch (CS) and β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) combined with enzymatic hydrolysis. The structure, morphology, particle size, thermal property and pasting property were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electronic microscope (SEM), laser light scattering particle size analyzer and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), respectively. The results showed that the combination significantly increased the adsorption capacity of hydrophobic substance, which was evaluated by oil adsorption (316 g/g), and achieved an improvement of thermal stability (for an increased pasting temp at 86.5 °C) and shearing resistance (for a decreased breakdown viscosity at 148 cP). The water solubility index (WSI), swelling power index (SPI) and paste clarity were decreased after being crosslinked, but increased slightly after enzymatic hydrolysis. Furthermore, the adsorption kinetics and mechanism of curcumin on the PCS-CD were also evaluated. The results of adsorption kinetics showed that the adsorption process could be described by Pseudo-first-order model and was controlled by two or more diffusion mechanism. The free energy calculated by adsorption isotherm model was 0.1017 kJ/mol, which revealed that a physical-controlled adsorption was occurred between the PCS-CD and curcumin.

In order to evaluate the application potential of enzyme-extruded barley flour (EEBF) in the brewing of whole-barley beer, the physicochemical properties, mashing and fermentation effects of EEBF were studied, and conventional extruded barley flour (CEBF) and steam-cooked barley flour (SCBF) were taken as controls. The water solubility index (WSI) of EEBF (46.88%–52.63%) was much higher than that of CEBF (6.70%) and SCBF (4.59%). The results of degree of gelatinization (DG) and enthalpy (ΔH) suggested that EEBF was almost completely gelatinized, and the rapid viscosity analyzer (RVA) exhibited that the peak viscosity of EEBF was drastically reduced. The weight-average molecular weight of EEBF (<106 g/mol) was significantly lower than that of CEBF and SCBF. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that the heat-treatments caused starch granules to break and aggregate, and there were many hydrolyzed pores on the surface of EEBF. Both the long- and short-range order of EEBF were destroyed. Although EEBF caused serious filtration blocking, it greatly improved the alcohol content of finished beer (5.41%vol). Overall, the thermal modification of barley flour by enzyme-extrusion meets the needs of fermentation, and could improve the problem of limited leaching of unmalted barley, which was benefit for the production of whole-barley beer.