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Research into dairy‐free alternative products, whether plant‐based or cell‐based, is growing fast and the food industry is facing a new challenge of creating innovative, nutritious, accessible, and natural dairy‐free cheese alternatives. The market demand for these products is continuing to increase owing to more people choosing to reduce or eliminate meat and dairy products from their diet for health, environmental sustainability, and/or ethical reasons. This review investigates the current status of dairy product alternatives. Legume proteins have good technological properties and are cheap, which gives them a strong commercial potential to be used in plant‐based cheese‐like products. However, few legume proteins have been explored in the formulation, development, and manufacture of a fully dairy‐free cheese because of their undesirable properties: heat stable anti‐nutritional factors and a beany flavor. These can be alleviated by novel or traditional and economical techniques. The improvement and diversification of the formulation of legume‐based cheese alternatives is strongly suggested as a low‐cost step towards more sustainable food chains. © 2021 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Old durum wheat varieties are being appreciated again because of their interesting genetic diversity and low fertilizer needs. RESULTS: The agronomic and bread‐making performances of 14 old Italian durum wheat varieties grown under two low nitrogen (N) inputs (46 and 86 kg ha−1) were determined and the relationships among grain, semolina, dough and bread quality parameters were established. The old varieties yielded similarly to the check modern variety Svevo under both N levels. Increasing N fertilization from 46 to 86 kg ha−1 did not increase grain yield or the mg of N in the grain, although grain protein percentage increased as a result of a decrease in grain weight and an increase in gliadin content. Despite the resulting decrease in the gluten index, dough and bread quality improved at the higher N rate, highlighting the influential role of protein percentage and gliadin in bread quality. The genotypic variation in grain protein percentage among old varieties was more strongly associated with glutenin than with gliadin content. Variation in the gluten index was high (4–54); indeed, it was the most variable semolina parameter, and proved to contribute the most to variation in bread quality. This variation was independent of the glutenin alleles (HMW 20, 20*, 7, 13+16, 6+8) and was linked to the quality of the grain in terms of grain weight and the associated mg of N per grain. Remarkably, two old varieties, namely Calabria and Cappelli, were able to produce both a good yield and high‐quality bread. CONCLUSION: Old Italian durum wheats continue to boast significant biodiversity and are worth exploring in low‐input production systems. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the boom in durum wheat breeding, ancient wheat disappeared from the human diet and old durum wheat varieties were replaced by what is believed to be their better versions: higher yielding modern varieties grown in high‐input systems. Breeders have worked intensely ever since to improve the quality of durum wheat traits – mainly gluten subunit alleles – to obtain superior technological quality in the main durum wheat end products (first pasta and then bread) but conflicts about predicting their quality still exist. This is because quality is neither governed by one trait alone nor conditioned by a single controllable factor. This review discusses the evolution of wheat varieties from ancient to old, and then modern durum wheat in terms of agronomy, genetics, technological, and end‐product qualities. Environmental effects will not be discussed. Moving from ancient to modern durum wheat varieties, grain yield increased, grain protein concentration decreased, and gluten strength and dough toughness improved, ameliorating the quality of pasta but decreasing the durum wheat versatility. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Old durum wheat cultivars are attracting renewed attention due to their suitability to low input agricultural systems. Fourteen old durum wheat cultivars were analyzed in two field trials to assess the effect of grain number and N absorbed and translocated by the crops on grain protein percentage. The mean grain yield was below 3 t ha−1 and strongly associated with the number of grains m−2 (GNO) (r = 0.97 ***). Grain yield displayed a low sensitivity to severe terminal stressful conditions due to the ability of the old durum wheat cultivars to maintain high grain weights despite the high temperatures and short time available for grain filling caused by their late anthesis. The N source for the growing grains was mainly dependent on pre-anthesis N uptake, which was positively associated with the total biomass produced by anthesis. The tall cultivars generally left a greater amount of N m−2 (8–15 g m−2) in their straw compared with shorter ones (5–6 g m−2). The low and variable GNO modulated the amount of N potentially available for each grain and probably limited the possibility of delivering the large N source to the grains. The large grains played a positive role in determining both grain yield (by compensating for the low GNO) and grain protein percentage, as their high grain filling rate was associated with a high N accumulation rate, and hence with a high grain N content and protein percentage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]