Research Publications (Food Safety)

Wine authentication is vital in identifying malpractice and fraud, and various physical and chemical analytical techniques have been employed for this purpose. Besides wet chemistry, these include chromatography, isotopic ratio mass spectrometry, optical spectroscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, which have been applied in recent years in combination with chemometric approaches.

The purpose of the work was to provide an overview on craft beer. Details and issues concerning history and legal definition market, fiscal policy, innovation, safety, healthiness, consumer profile, and sustainability are supplied.

As emerging membrane technologies, forward osmosis (FO) and membrane distillation (MD), which work with novel driving forces, show great potential for liquid food concentration, owing to their low fouling propensity and great driving force. In the last decades, they have attracted the attention of food industry scientists in global scope. However, discussions of the FO and MD in liquid food concentration advancement, membrane fouling, and economic assessment have been scant.

Pulse seeds are nutritious and sustainable matrices with a high level of intrinsic microstructural complexity. They contain high‐quality plant‐based protein and substantial amounts of slowly digestible starch and dietary fiber. Starch and protein in pulses are located inside cotyledon cells that survive cooking and subsequent mechanical disintegration, hence preserving natural nutrient bioencapsulation.

Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, Volume 20, Issue 1, Page 2-2, January 2021.

Astringency, as a kind of puckering, drying, or rough sensation, is widely perceived from natural foods, especially plants rich in phenolic compounds. Although the interaction and precipitation of salivary proteins by phenolic compounds was often believed as the major mechanism of astringency, a definitive theory about astringency is still lacking due to the complex oral sensations.

The market trend towards plant‐based protein has seen a significant increase in the last decade. This trend has been projected to continue in the coming years because of the strong factors of sustainability and less environmental impact associated with the production of plant‐based protein compared to animal, aside from other beneficial health claims and changes in consumers' dietary lifestyles.

Pectin is a heteropolysaccharide abundant in the cell wall of plants and is obtained mainly from fruit (citrus and apple), thus its properties are particularly prone to changes occurring during ripening process. Properties of pectin depend on the string‐like structure (conformation, stiffness) of the molecules that determines their mutual interaction and with the surrounding environment.

This review will discuss, under the Circular Economy and Biorefinery concepts, the performance of the alternative solvents in the downstream process to recover natural pigments in a more sustainable way. Conventionally, pigments marketed on an industrial scale are produced through chemical synthesis by using petroleum derivatives as the main raw material. Also, the current production chain of the synthetic dyes is linear, with no solvent recycling and waste generation.

Recently, interests in binary protein systems have been developed considerably ascribed to the sustainability, environment‐friendly, rich in nutrition, low cost, and tunable mechanical properties of these systems. However, the molecular coalition is challenged by the complex mechanisms of interaction, aggregation, gelation, and emulsifying of the mixed system in which another protein is introduced.

Acorns, the fruit of the oak, have long been an important source of food in different cultures around the world. Despite their long culinary tradition, they have become under‐appreciated. Due to their high starch content, acorns are mainly used for flour production, and acorn flour is considered as a replacement for cereal flour in a wide range of applications in food production.

To improve the quality of meat products is a constant focus for both the meat industry and scientists. As major components in meat protein, the gelation properties of myofibrillar proteins (MPs) predominantly determine the sensory quality and product yield of the final product. Naturally or artificially occurring covalent modifications are known to largely affect MP functionality by changing the protein structure and forming aggregates, leading to both favorable and unfavorable outcomes.

Cheese is a product of ancient biotechnological practices, which has been revolutionized as a functional food product in many parts of the world. Bioactive compounds, such as peptides, polysaccharides, and fatty acids, have been identified in traditional cheese products, which demonstrate functional properties such as antihypertensive, antioxidant, immunomodulation, antidiabetic, and anticancer activities.

The development of active packaging films and edible coatings based on biopolymers and natural bioactive substances has received increasing attention in recent years. Propolis, also called bee glue, is a natural resin substance collected by worker‐bees from the mucilage, gum, and resin of several plants. In food industry, propolis is commonly extracted in solvents to afford polyphenol‐rich extract with potent antimicrobial and antioxidant activities.

Application of ultraviolet (UV) irradiation for the degradation of chemical contaminants in food products has gained more and more interest in the past two decades. The majority of the research in this field was on mycotoxins, especially aflatoxins and patulin, with limited studies on pesticide residues and other chemical contaminants in food.

Acrylamide is the product of the Maillard reaction, which occurs when starchy, asparagine‐rich foods including potato or grain products and coffee are fried, baked, roasted, or heated. Studies in rodents provide evidence that acrylamide is carcinogenic and a male reproductive harmful agent when administered in exceedingly high levels.

Viable but nonculturable (VBNC) microorganisms have been recognized as pathogenic contaminants in foods and environments. The failure of VBNC cells to form the visible colonies hinders the ability to use conventional media for their detection. Efficient and rapid detection of pathogens in the VBNC state is a prerequisite to ensure the food safety and public health.

Mycotoxins are toxic compounds naturally produced by certain types of fungi. The contamination of mycotoxins can occur on numerous foodstuffs, including cereals, nuts, fruits, and spices, and pose a major threat to humans and animals by causing acute and chronic toxic effects. In this regard, reliable techniques for accurate and sensitive detection of mycotoxins in agricultural products and food samples are urgently needed.

The food industry, along with the consumers, is interested in plant‐based diet because of its health benefits and environmental sustainability. Vicia faba L. (V. faba) is a promising source of pulse proteins for the human diet and can yield potential nutritional and functional ingredients, namely, flours, concentrates, and isolates, which are relevant for industrial food applications. Different processes produce and functionalize V.

Production and world consumption of spices are constantly increasing. Although the antimicrobial properties of some spices are well documented, their use in the agri‐food industry is also responsible for microbial contamination and spoilage. Bacterial spores introduced by spices can withstand different preparation processes, particularly thermal treatments, leading to food alterations during storage.

Across the globe, strategies to adapt food production to a changing climate as well as to unforeseen events (such as a pandemic) are needed, for example, if farmers miss planting times due to abnormal weather patterns or harvests are lost. Such food security considerations represent reasons for why proso millet deserves a more prominent place at the table.

In recent years, starch‐based nanoparticles have attracted great interest due to their small size, good biocompatibility, and environmental friendliness, as well as their potential applications in foods, drug delivery carriers, and biodegradable edible films. Compared with nonstarch polysaccharides, starch can be enzymatically hydrolyzed into glucose in vivo, so it can be used as an enzyme‐responsive carrier.

Innovation in cultivated meat development has been rapidly accelerating in recent years because it holds the potential to help attenuate issues facing production of dietary protein for a growing world population. There are technical obstacles still hindering large‐scale commercialization of cultivated meat, of which many are related to the media that are used to culture the muscle, fat, and connective tissue cells.

Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, EarlyView. The encapsulation process has been utilized in the field of food technology to enhance the technofunctional properties of food products and the delivery of nutraceutical ingredients via food into the human body. The latter application is very similar to drug delivery systems.

Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, EarlyView. Bacteriocins are generally considered as low‐molecular‐weight ribosomal peptides or proteins synthesized by G+ and G− bacteria that inhibit or kill other related or unrelated microorganisms. However, low yield is an important factor restricting the application of bacteriocins.