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By changing consumers' tendency to use low-fat healthy food products, reducing oil content in fried foods by maintaining sensory quality is inevitable. In this study, ultrasound pretreatment at two frequencies of 20 and 40 kHz for 15 minutes as well as osmotic dehydration pretreatment using 2 and 4% salt solution concentration for 3 hours applied on the potato pieces and then deep-fat frying was performed at 150, 170 and 190°C for 60, 120, 180 and 240 seconds. The effect of the pretreatments on oil uptake and sensory characteristics were analyzed. To optimize and improve process equipment and frying conditions, oil uptake in potato pieces pretreated with ultrasound and osmotic dehydration was also investigated. Oil uptake in the fried potato pieces was significantly decreased (P<0.05) using osmotic dehydration pretreatment. The use of ultrasound together with osmotic dehydration, led to further reduction in oil uptake compared to the other samples. Proposed experimental models in this study fitted well with experimental data. In addition, osmotic dehydration and its combination with ultrasound pretreatment improved sensory characteristics of the fried potato slices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With high medicinal and nutritional value, red beetroot powder is utilized as a natural pigment and functional additive in various food industries. In this investigation, red beetroot powder was produced using foam-mat drying, and the effect of drying temperature on quality attributes was evaluated. Computer simulation was also performed to assess the impact of temperature on uniformity of moisture loss and temperature during drying. Temperature variations did not exert a significant impact on water solubility and total color difference of the powders. Images obtained from field emission scanning electron microscopy illustrated that with increasing temperature, wrinkling, cracking, and roughness of the powder particles reduced because of the formation of smooth and hard crusts on the particles' surface. Predicted moisture content values were in good agreement with measured data. The results of this study could be used to optimize foam-mat drying of red beetroot to produce functional powders with suitable physicochemical and microstructural characteristics., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest., (© 2023 The Authors. Food Science & Nutrition published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

In recent years the use of hybrid drying methods has been noticed because of the improvement of the dried products quality. The effect of infrared (IR) power (0, 400, 600, and 800 W) in combination with convective hot air (60 °C, 3 m/s) on the quality properties of black raspberry pulp during foam mat drying was investigated in this study. According to the findings, increasing the IR power, (IR-CHA) had no effect on the moisture content, moisture ratio, or drying rate of the product; however, the effective moisture diffusion coefficient (D eff ) was significantly increased. The effect of IR power on the physicochemical properties of black raspberry powder revealed that combining infrared with convective hot air (IR-CHA) improved the powder's flowability and total polyphenol content while decreasing its moisture content (p < 0.05). Furthermore, FESEM images revealed that the increase in IR power resulted in particles with smooth surfaces., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2023 The Authors.)

Since nonuniform drying in the continuous microwave harms the safety and quality of dried food materials, a significant quality improvement can be achieved by controlling the application time of the microwave. This study aimed to investigate the influence of microwave application time and power at a constant pulse ratio during the drying of zucchini on different product characteristics. The samples were first exposed to microwaves with powers of 360, 600, and 900 W alternately for 10, 30, and 50 s. After drying with intermittent microwaves, the process was continued using the hot-air drying. Increasing the microwave application time and power caused a significant reduction in the total process time. The minimum drying time was obtained at 900 W and 50 s (259.44 min). D eff increased significantly by 24.4% and 34.1% with increasing application time and power, respectively. The highest shrinkage and bulk density were observed in the samples dried at 360 W and 10 s due to a longer total process time than the other treatments. Rehydration increased by 10.3% and 14.7% with increasing application time and power, respectively. A 33% decrease in energy consumption was noticed in the 900 W-50 s treatment compared to the 360 W-10 s treatment. Moreover, with increasing microwave application time and power, the lightness of the dried product decreased, and the total color difference increased. In summary, the 900 W power and 50 s application time produced a better-dried product than the other treatments considering different quantitative and qualitative properties. The results of this research can be used in the food industry to dry products using microwave and hot air to control and improve their quality., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest., (© 2023 The Authors. Food Science & Nutrition published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Synergistic effect of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) as photocatalyst and organonanoclay (ONC) as biodegradable promoter on the degradation of polystyrene (PS) film was investigated. The films were exposed to ultraviolet irradiation under ambient air at room temperature for photo-catalytic degradation and then submitted to biodegradation test in soil using respirometric procedure. Fourier-transform infrared and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, colorimeter technique, contact angle measurement, and the carbon dioxide evolution results showed higher photo- and biodegradation efficiency of PS-ONC-ZnO nanocomposite compared to the neat PS, PS-ONC and PS-ZnO nanocomposites. Thermal stability, optical band gap, and water contact angle of photo-degraded PS-ONC-ZnO nanocomposite decreased by 11.37, 18.33 and 63.99%, respectively, while that of PS film was only 6.20, 6.44 and 5.84%, respectively. The photo-degraded PS-ONC-ZnO and PS-ZnO film indicated a biodegradation percentage value of 3.3 and 2.1%, respectively, over 16 weeks of incubation in soil. The possible degradation mechanism of nanocomposites was briefly discussed., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

The effect of Nano-emulsion (NE) and Macro-emulsion (ME) of cinnamon essential oil (CEO) on the properties of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC)-based films was investigated. MEs (diameters of 242-362 nm) and NEs (diameters of 59-80 nm) of CEO were produced through Ultra-Turrax and Ultrasonication, respectively. The scanning electron microscopy ( SEM ) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) images showed different morphologies in the films containing ME and NE, also a denser and more uniform microstructure was observed in the NE films in comparison with the ME ones. The higher stability of NE in the CMC matrix, increased the thickness of the resulted films. The water vapor permeability (WVP) was increased from 2.59 × 10 -9  g/ms Pa in the control film to 4.43 × 10 -9  g/m s Pa in the ME film, and decreased to 1.80 × 10 -9  g/ms Pa in the NE film. Adding CEO led to more flexible films with enhanced strain at break (SAB) from 53.56% in the control film to 80% and 94.77% in the ME and NE films, respectively. The antifungal indices against A. niger and M. racemous were 14.16% and 20.82% in the ME films, and were improved to 18.81% and 25% in the NE ones., (© 2020 The Authors. Food Science & Nutrition published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Inhibition from migration of plastic ingredients such as styrene monomer (SM) is very important in food packaging industry. Styrene monomer is one of the substances which can potentially migrate from polystyrene based packaging. In the present study, organoclay and zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) were used for decreasing of the SM migration into food simulants (10 and 50% ethanol (v/v)). A used GC-FID method for measuring of the migrated SM showed good precision and accuracy. Maximum reduction of SM migration into 10% and 50% ethanol (24 h storage at 40 °C) were observed in the polystyrene/nanoclay and polystyrene/ZnO samples, respectively. The SM migration data in 50% ethanol at 5 °C followed from Fickian diffusion law and the lowest diffusion coefficient (2.89 × 10 -14  cm 2 /s) was observed in the polystyrene/ZnO/nanoclay samples., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)