Reduction of diazinon and dimethoate in apple juice by pulsed electric field treatment

Degradation of Pesticide Residues in Water, Soil, and Food Products via Cold Plasma Technology

Water, soil, and food products contain pesticide residues. These residues result from excessive pesticides use, motivated by the fact that agricultural productivity can be increased by the use of these pesticides. The accumulation of these residues in the body can cause health problems, leading to food safety concerns. Cold plasma technology has been successfully employed in various applications, such as seed germination, bacterial inactivation, wound disinfection, surface sterilization, and pesticide degradation. In recent years, researchers have increasingly explored the effectiveness of cold plasma technology in the degradation of pesticide residues. Most studies have shown promising outcomes, encouraging further research and scaling-up for commercialization. This review summarizes the use of cold plasma as an emerging technology for pesticide degradation in terms of the plasma system and configuration. It also outlines the key findings in this area. The most frequently adopted plasma systems for each application are identified, and the mechanisms underlying pesticide degradation using cold plasma technology are discussed. The possible factors influencing pesticide degradation efficiency, challenges in research, and future trends are also discussed. This review demonstrates that despite the nascent nature of the technology, the use of cold plasma shows considerable potential in regards to pesticide residue degradation, particularly in food applications.

Advances in pulsed electric stimuli as a physical method for treating liquid foods

There is a need for alternative technologies that can deliver safe and nutritious foods at lower costs as compared to conventional processes. Pulsed electric field (PEF) technology has been utilised for a plethora of different applications in the life and physical sciences, such as gene/drug delivery in medicine and extraction of bioactive compounds in food science and technology. PEF technology for treating liquid foods involves engineering principles to develop the equipment, and quantitative biochemistry and microbiology techniques to validate the process. There are numerous challenges to address for its application in liquid foods such as the 5-log pathogen reduction target in food safety, maintaining the food quality, and scale up of this physical approach for industrial integration. Here, we present the engineering principles associated with pulsed electric fields, related inactivation models of microorganisms, electroporation and electropermeabilization theory, to increase the quality and safety of liquid foods; including water, milk, beer, wine, fruit juices, cider, and liquid eggs. Ultimately, we discuss the outlook of the field and emphasise research gaps.

High and low temperature processing: Effective tool reducing pesticides in/on apple used in a risk assessment of dietary intake protocol

Apples play an important role in everyone's diet and may contain pesticide residues that can pose a significant health problem for consumers. Various technological processes are promising methods for minimizing pesticide concentrations in fruit. Therefore, the subject of this comprehensive study was to investigate the effects of high-temperature (baking) and low-temperature (freeze-drying) processes on the change in the levels of nine fungicides in apples with skin and peeled. The investigated compounds belong to the chemical groups of benzimidazole (thiophanate methyl and carbendazim), phtalimide (captan and their metabolite tetrahydrophtalimid (THPI)), strobilurin (pyraclostrobin, trifloxystrobin) and triazole (difenoconazole, tebuconazole, tetraconazole). Processing factors (PF) were calculated for each pesticide-process-product combination. The results show that baking and freeze-drying generally reduced pesticide concentrations, with PFs ranging from 0.31 to 0.81 and 0.26 to 0.68, respectively. Apart from freeze-drying for carbendazim and baking for captan, PFs were above 1. Only for thiophanate-methyl, a complete reduction was observed, which resulted from complete degradation to carbendazim. The study also aimed to assess human risk according to the new strategy for different sub-populations with conversion using the 36 PFs obtained. The highest acute exposure (expressed as %ARfD) was obtained for tebuconazole in raw apples (initial concentration of 1.42 mg/kg; 400% ARfD) for Dutch toddlers. After food processing, this decreased to 284% (0.74 mg/kg, baking) and to 137% (0.37 mg/kg, freeze-drying), but was still above the safety limit. Similarly, for adults and the general French population for tebuconazole, the %ARfD was high as it reached the values of 104% (initial concentration of 0.89 mg/kg) in unprocessed apples, 73.9% after baking (0.73 mg/kg) and 35.6% after freeze-drying (0.35 mg/kg). The results indicate that food processing techniques can potentially be used to minimize the hazardous effects of pesticide residues on human health.

Process intensification in continuous flow organic synthesis with enabling and hybrid technologies

Industrial organic synthesis is time and energy consuming, and generates substantial waste. Traditional conductive heating and mixing in batch reactors is no longer competitive with continuous-flow synthetic methods and enabling technologies that can strongly promote reaction kinetics. These advances lead to faster and simplified downstream processes with easier workup, purification and process scale-up. In the current Industry 4.0 revolution, new advances that are based on cyber-physical systems and artificial intelligence will be able to optimize and invigorate synthetic processes by connecting cascade reactors with continuous in-line monitoring and even predict solutions in case of unforeseen events. Alternative energy sources, such as dielectric and ohmic heating, ultrasound, hydrodynamic cavitation, reactive extruders and plasma have revolutionized standard procedures. So-called hybrid or hyphenated techniques, where the combination of two different energy sources often generates synergistic effects, are also worthy of mention. Herein, we report our consolidated experience of all of these alternative techniques.

Diazinon reduction in food products: a comprehensive review of conventional and emerging processing methods

Diazinon is known as one of the most commonly used organophosphorus pesticides which influence different pests through inactivating acetyl choline esterase enzymes. Despite diazinon applications, its toxicity to human health could result in a worldwide concern about its occurrence in foodstuffs. Malfunction of brain is considered as the main disorders induced by long time exposure to diazinon. Due to the degradation of diazinon in high temperatures and its susceptibility to oxidation as well as acidic and basic conditions, it could be degraded through several physical (9-94%) and chemical (19.3-100%) food processing procedures (both household and industrial methods). However, each of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages. Normally, the combination of these methods is more efficient in diazinon reduction. To this end, it is important to apply an effective method for diazinon reduction in the food products without affecting food quality or treating human health. It could be noticed that bioremediation by microorganisms such as probiotics could be a promising new method for diazinon's reduction in several food products.

Research trends and emerging physical processing technologies in mitigation of pesticide residues on various food products

The application of pesticides enhances food production vastly, and it cannot be prevented; longer fresh produce is contaminated with health-threatening pesticides even though traditional processing methods can remove these pesticides from food surfaces to a certain extent; novel emerging technologies such as cold plasma, ultrasound, electrolyzed water, and pulsed electric field could more effectively dissipate the pesticide content in food without the release of toxic residual on the food surface. The present review focuses on applying emerging technologies to degrade pesticide residues in great utility in the food processing industries. This review also discusses the pesticide removal efficacy and its mechanism involved in these technologies. The oxidation principle in cold plasma is recently gaining more importance for the degradation of pesticide residue in the food processing industries. Analysis of the emerging physical processing methods indicated greater efficacy in eradicating pesticide residues during agriculture processing. Even though the technologies such as EO (99% reduction in dimethoate), ultrasound (98.96% for chlorpyrifos), and irradiation (99.8% for pesticide in aqueous solution) can achieve promising results in pesticide degradation level, the rate and inactivation highly depend on the type of equipment and processing parameters involved in different techniques, surface characteristics of produce, treatment conditions, and nature of the pesticide. Therefore, to effectively remove these health-threatening pesticides from food surfaces, it is necessary to know the process parameters and efficacy of the applied technology on various pesticides.

Effect of pulsed electric field processing on reduction of sulfamethazine residue content in milk

The whole milk spiked with sulfamethazine was treated under thermal and pulsed electric field processing for maximum reduction. The low-temperature long-time (LTLT, 62.5 °C for 30 min), high-temperature short time (HTST, 72 °C for 15 s) pasteurization and ultra-high temperature processing (UHT, 138 °C for 2 s) resulted in the reduction of sulfamethazine 7.3, 5.2 and 4.6% respectively. PEF and combination treatment (thermal + PEF) were found to reduce sulfamethazine content in milk by 67-72% and 73-76% respectively. Combined treatment of milk resulted in a higher percentage of reduction. Similar predicted and actual values proved that they fit the linear regression model and successful application of pulsed electric field technology in reducing antibiotic residues. PEF and mild thermal treatment can be a promising technology to reduce the antibiotic residues with ensuring minimal negative impact on the nutritional quality of food.

Impact of pulsed electric field processing on reduction of benzylpenicillin residue in milk

PURPOSE

The presence of residues of veterinary drugs in animal-derived food is one of the major problems for food safety. The consumption of milk containing antibiotic residues can evoke allergic reactions in hypersensitive individuals, disorders of intestinal flora and produces the risk of emerging antibiotic resistance microorganism.

METHODS

In this study, the effect of the thermal treatments and pulsed electric field (PEF) on the reduction of benzylpenicillin (PNG) spiked artificially in milk was evaluated quantitatively by calculating the loss of the concentration using HPLC. Fresh raw milk was subjected to a high-temperature short-time (72 °C for 15 s, HTST), low-temperature long- time (62.5 °C for 30 min, LTLT) and ultrahigh-temperature processing (138 °C for 2 s, UHT). The PEF process factors output voltage (20-65%) and pulse width (10-26 μs) were optimized for maximum reduction of PNG by employing the statistical tool response surface methodology (RSM).

RESULTS

HTST, LTLT, and UHT have resulted in the reduction of PNG 13.5%, 6.1%, 1.2% respectively. The optimized parameters of the PEF treatment had reduction efficiency in the range of 79-86%. The saddle response surface obtained from RSM showed that the center was neither at maximum point nor at the minimum point. The predicted and experimental values of the response were nearly similar which proved the suitability of the fitted quadratic model. Combined thermal and PEF treatment has a significant synergistic effect in reducing the PNG.

CONCLUSIONS

PEF induced reduction efficiency achieved was 79-86%. The reduction percentages were observed higher in the combined pasteurization and PEF treatment of milk. The pulsed electric field can be adopted as a unique processing tool for degradation of antibiotic residues whilst retaining nutritional quality parameters.

Changes in the Glutinous Rice Grain and Physicochemical Properties of Its Starch upon Moderate Treatment with Pulsed Electric Field

Pulsed electric field (PEF) processing is an emerging non-thermal technology that shows potential to improve food quality and to maintain stability. Glutinous rice is composed mainly of amylopectin and has low amylose content. This study investigated the effect of PEF treatment at 3 kV/cm field strength for 50 to 300 pulses on whole, water-soaked glutinous rice grains. Micro-pores were created at the surface of PEF treated rice grains, increasing grain porosity from 7.3% to 9.8%. Peak viscosity of PEF treated rice flour decreased, and breakdown, final and setback viscosities increased as the number of PEF treating pulses increased, indicating that the swelling degree of rice starch was promoted after PEF treatment. Lower values of gelatinization enthalpy and lower crystalline degree of PEF treated glutinous rice flour were also observed. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) studies confirmed the secondary structure changes in rice protein and partial gelatinization of rice starch after PEF treatment.

Non-thermal technologies: Solution for hazardous pesticides reduction in fruits and vegetables

Pesticide residues in the food above the maximum permissible residual limit (MRL) for safe consumption are a severe concern today. Though unit operations employed in domestic and industrial-scale processing of foods such as high-temperature decontamination and chemical washings degrade the agrochemicals and reduce toxicity, eliminating pesticides from the fresh and raw fruits and vegetables with the retainment of nutritional and organoleptic attributes demand appropriate non-thermal technologies. In this review, the potential of novel technologies like the pulsed electric field, high-pressure processing, irradiation, ozone, ultrasonication, and cold plasma for the reduction of pesticides in fruits and vegetables have been discussed in terms of their mechanism of action, playing around factors, advantages, and limitations. All the reviewed non-thermal technologies exhibited promising effects on pesticide degradation with their unique mechanism of action. Also, these techniques' potential to reduce the pesticides below MRLs and yield nontoxic metabolites in fruits and vegetables were analyzed. However, investigating the impact of the technologies on the nutritional and organoleptic quality profile of the commodities at the processing conditions causing noticeable pesticide reduction and the pathways of degradation reactions of various pesticides with each emerging technology should be studied to enhance the applicability.

Pulsed Electric Fields (PEF) to Mitigate Emerging Mycotoxins in Juices and Smoothies

The development of innovative food processing technologies has increased to answer the growing demand to supply of fresh-like products. The aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of pulsed electric fields (PEF) technology on reducing the emerging mycotoxins (enniatins (ENs) and beauvericin (BEA)) contents in juice and smoothie samples. The products of degradation obtained after PEF treatment were identified and their toxicological endpoint toxicities predicted by Pro Tox-II web. Mycotoxin reduction ranged from 43 to 70% in juices and smoothies, but in water the expected effect was lower. The acidified pH increased BEA reduction in water. The degradation products that were produced were the result of the loss of aminoacidic fragments of the original molecules, such as HyLv, Val, Ile, or Phe. Pro Tox-II server assigned a toxicity class I for enniatin B (ENB) degradation products with a predicted LD50 of 3 mg/Kgbw. The other degradation products were classified in toxicity class III and IV.

Effect of pH and pulsed electric field process parameters on the aflatoxin reduction in model system using response surface methodology: Effect of pH and PEF on Aflatoxin Reduction

The presence of aflatoxin, a carcinogenic and toxigenic secondary metabolite produced by Aspergillus species, in food matrix has been a major worldwide problem for years now. Food processing methods such as roasting, extrusion, etc. have been employed for effective destruction of aflatoxins, which are known for their thermo-stable nature. The high temperature treatment, adversely affects the nutritive and other quality attributes of the food, leading to the necessity of application of non-thermal processing techniques such as ultrasonication, gamma irradiation, high pressure processing, pulsed electric field (PEF), etc. The present study was focused on analysing the efficacy of the PEF process in the reduction of the toxin content, which was subsequently quantified using HPLC. The process parameters of different pH model system (potato dextrose agar) artificially spiked with aflatoxin mix standard was optimized using the response surface methodology. The optimization of PEF process effects on the responses aflatoxin B1 and total aflatoxin reduction (%) by pH (4-10), pulse width (10-26 µs) and output voltage (20-65%), fitted 2FI model and quadratic model respectively. The response surface plots obtained for the processes were of saddle point type, with the absence of minimum or maximum response at the centre point. The implemented numerical optimization showed that the predicted and actual values were similar, proving the adequacy of the fitted models and also proved the possible application of PEF in toxin reduction.

Current and future prospects for the use of pulsed electric field in the meat industry

Pulsed electric field (PEF) is a novel non-thermal technology that has recently attracted the attention of meat scientists and technologists due to its ability to modify membrane structure and enhance mass transfer. Several studies have confirmed the potential of pulsed electric field for improving meat tenderness in both pre-rigor and post-rigor muscles during aging. However, there is a high degree of variability between studies and the underlying mechanisms are not clearly understood. While some studies have suggested physical disruption as the main cause of PEF induced tenderness, enzymatic nature of the tenderization seems to be the most plausible mechanism. Several studies have suggested the potential of PEF to mediate the tenderization process due to its membrane altering properties causing early release of calcium ions and early activation of the calpain proteases. However, experimental research is yet to confirm this postulation. Recent studies have also reported increased post-mortem proteolysis in PEF treated muscles during aging. PEF has also been reported to accelerate curing, enhance drying and reduce the numbers of both pathogens and spoilage organisms in meat, although that demands intense processing conditions. While tenderization, meat safety and accelerated curing appears to be the areas where PEF could provide attractive options in meat processing, further research is required before the application of PEF becomes a commercial reality in the meat industry. It needs to deal with carcasses which vary biochemically and in composition (muscle, fat, and bones). This review critically evaluates the published reports on the topic with the aim of reaching a clear understanding of the possible applications of PEF in the meat sector in addition to providing some insight on critical issues that need to be addressed for the technology to be a practical option for the meat industry.

Effect of Dimethoate on the Activity of Hepatic CYP450 Based on Pharmacokinetics of Probe Drugs

BACKGROUND

Dimethoate (DM), one of the most widely used systemic organophosphate insecticide, has been reported to exert toxic effects after long-time subchronic exposure. This study aims at investigating the toxic effect of DM on liver after repeated administration of low doses of DM in rats.

METHODS

Twenty Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into the control group (n = 10) and the DM group (n = 10). After 2 weeks' exposure to DM at low dosage (5 mg/kg), biochemical parameters of hepatic functions were measured, histology and CYP450 expressed in liver was detected. The activities of CYP1A2, CYP2C11, CYP2D1, and CYP3A2 were evaluated by the Cocktail method.

RESULTS

The level of AChE (acetylcholinesterase) was significantly decreased, hepatic functions were damaged and the mRNA level of CYP2D1 was significantly increased in the DM group (p < 0.05). The pharmacokinetics of probe drug revealed AUC(0-t), AUC(0-∞), t1/2 and Cmax of metoprolol was shorten in the DM group (p < 0.05). However, there were no statistical differences in MRT, t1/2, CL and Tmax for phenacetin, tolbutamide and midazolam.

CONCLUSIONS

A low dosage of DM could induce the activity of CYP2D1 in liver and increase the metabolism of metoprolol when exposed for 2 weeks.

Processed foods: contributions to nutrition

Both fresh and processed foods make up vital parts of the food supply. Processed food contributes to both food security (ensuring that sufficient food is available) and nutrition security (ensuring that food quality meets human nutrient needs). This ASN scientific statement focuses on one aspect of processed foods: their nutritional impacts. Specifically, this scientific statement 1) provides an introduction to how processed foods contribute to the health of populations, 2) analyzes the contribution of processed foods to "nutrients to encourage" and "constituents to limit" in the American diet as recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 3) identifies the responsibilities of various stakeholders in improving the American diet, and 4) reviews emerging technologies and the research needed for a better understanding of the role of processed foods in a healthy diet. Analyses of the NHANES 2003-2008 show that processed foods provide both nutrients to encourage and constituents to limit as specified in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Of the nutrients to encourage, processed foods contributed 55% of dietary fiber, 48% of calcium, 43% of potassium, 34% of vitamin D, 64% of iron, 65% of folate, and 46% of vitamin B-12. Of the constituents to limit, processed foods contributed 57% of energy, 52% of saturated fat, 75% of added sugars, and 57% of sodium. Diets are more likely to meet food guidance recommendations if nutrient-dense foods, either processed or not, are selected. Nutrition and food science professionals, the food industry, and other stakeholders can help to improve the diets of Americans by providing a nutritious food supply that is safe, enjoyable, affordable, and sustainable by communicating effectively and accurately with each other and by working together to improve the overall knowledge of consumers.