On how people deal with industrialized and non-industrialized food: A theoretical analysis

“Canned, frozen, processed, ultra-processed, functional” etc. Two hundred years after the beginning of the food industry, industrialized food has evolved with many labels. Every person in the world eats and has different experiences with food that are connected to culture and social relationships which permeate our daily lives in many kinds of situations. Food evokes feelings, beliefs, desires, and moral values. For many people, food not only satisfies hunger and sustains life, but it also brings a delicious pleasure that is with their history, culture, and ancestry. Today's food industry pushes products through its marketing, which promotes a plethora of claims that have now trended proportionally with neophobic dimensions. In reality, the general public lacks objective knowledge about the complex science of modern food technology because of its low transparency, and this has resulted in the appearance of misleading ideas that can prejudice the correct analysis of food values. Given this, education about food is an urgent need. Notably, food scientists, technologists, and engineers must look at eaters through the prism of consumers who are human beings in all their rich social/anthropological diversity. The objective of this article is to explore the elemental anthropologic aspects of foods and how they can affect consumer's trust in the food industry's role.

Teaching Engineering and Food: From Traditional Approaches to a Flipped Course on Gastronomic Engineering

Understanding concepts of food engineering (FE) is fundamental for professionals in the discipline, necessary for food scientists, appealing to non-food science students, and valuable for curious cooks. The challenge of teaching FE is delivering meaningful learning outcomes to the different backgrounds, motivations, and interests of the audiences. This article delves into the origins of FE in academia and the influence on teaching of an expanding food processing industry. Current trends demand a FE education with a wider scope, focused on consumer needs and wants that convey elements of food product design, sustainability, innovation, and culinary applications, among others. Although the core concepts of FE have remained practically the same, new teaching methodologies call for expanded computational abilities, ample access to online contents, and active learning, student-centered approaches. As a case study, we describe the implementation of an elective flipped classroom course on engineering, science, and gastronomy for undergraduate students that include in-class demonstrations by chefs.

Emerging forward osmosis and membrane distillation for liquid food concentration: A review

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. This review aims to provide an up-to-date knowledge about liquid food concentration by FO and MD. First, we introduce the principle and applications of FO and MD in liquid food concentration, and highlight the effect of process on liquid food composition, membrane fouling mechanism, and strategies for fouling mitigation. Besides, economic assessment of FO and MD processes is reviewed. Moreover, the challenges as well as future prospects of FO and MD applied in liquid food concentration are proposed and discussed. Comparing with conventional membrane-based or thermal-based technologies, FO and MD show outstanding advantages in high concentration rate, good concentrate quality, low fouling propensity, and low cost. Future efforts for liquid food concentration by FO and MD include (1) development of novel FO draw solution (DS); (2) understanding the effects of liquid food complex compositions on membrane fouling in FO and MD concentration process; and (3) fabrication of novel membranes and innovation of membrane module and process configuration for liquid food processing.

Enhancement in Site-Specific Delivery of Carvacrol against Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Induced Skin Infections Using Enzyme Responsive Nanoparticles: A Proof of Concept Study

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) induced skin infections have become a challenging problem due to the escalating antibiotic resistance. Carvacrol (CAR) has been reported to be effective against MRSA. However, due to its characteristics, CAR exhibits low skin retention. In this study, CAR was formulated into site-specific nanoparticle (NPs) delivery system using poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL), following incorporation into a hydrogel matrix to facilitate dermal delivery. The release study exhibited significantly higher release of CAR from PCL NPs in the presence of bacterial lipase, highlighting its potential for differential delivery. Moreover, encapsulation of CAR in PCL NPs resulted in a two-fold increase in its anti-MRSA activity. Dermatokinetic studies revealed that the NPs loaded hydrogel was able to enhance skin retention of CAR after 24 h (83.29 ± 3.15%), compared to free CAR-loaded hydrogel (0.85 ± 0.14%). Importantly, this novel approach exhibited effective antimicrobial activity in an ex-vivo skin infection model. Hence, these findings have proven the concept that the loading of CAR into a responsive NPs system can lead to sustained antimicrobial effect at the desired site, and may provide a novel effective approach for treatment of MRSA induced skin infections. However, further studies must be conducted to investigate in-vivo efficacy of the developed system in an appropriate infection model.

Relating Food Engineering to Cooking and Gastronomy

Modern consumers are increasingly eating meals away from home and are concerned about food quality, taste, and health aspects. Food engineering (FE) has traditionally been associated with the industrial processing of foods; however, most underlying phenomena related to FE also take place in the kitchen during meal preparation. Although chemists have positively interacted with acclaimed chefs and physicists have used foods as materials to demonstrate some of their theories, this has not been always the case with food engineers. This review addresses areas that may broaden the vision of FE by interfacing with cooking and gastronomy. Examples are presented where food materials science may shed light on otherwise empirical gastronomic formulations and cooking techniques. A review of contributions in modeling of food processing reveals that they can also be adapted to events going on in pots and ovens, and that results can be made available in simple terms to cooks. Industrial technologies, traditional and emerging, may be adapted to expand the collection of culinary transformations, while novel equipment, digital technologies, and laboratory instruments are equipping the 21st-century kitchens. FE should become a part of food innovation and entrepreneurship now being led by chefs. Finally, it is suggested that food engineers become integrated into gastronomy's concerns about safety, sustainability, nutrition, and a better food use.

Toward predictive food process models: A protocol for parameter estimation

Mathematical models, in particular, physics-based models, are essential tools to food product and process design, optimization and control. The success of mathematical models relies on their predictive capabilities. However, describing physical, chemical and biological changes in food processing requires the values of some, typically unknown, parameters. Therefore, parameter estimation from experimental data is critical to achieving desired model predictive properties. This work takes a new look into the parameter estimation (or identification) problem in food process modeling. First, we examine common pitfalls such as lack of identifiability and multimodality. Second, we present the theoretical background of a parameter identification protocol intended to deal with those challenges. And, to finish, we illustrate the performance of the proposed protocol with an example related to the thermal processing of packaged foods.

A Novel Approach To Improve the Efficiency of Block Freeze Concentration Using Ice Nucleation Proteins with Altered Ice Morphology

Freeze concentration is a separation process with high success in product quality. The remaining challenge is to achieve high efficiency with low cost. This study aims to evaluate the potential of using ice nucleation proteins (INPs) as an effective method to improve the efficiency of block freeze concentration while also exploring the related mechanism of ice morphology. Our results show that INPs are able to significantly improve the efficiency of block freeze concentration in a desalination model. Using this experimental system, we estimate that approximately 50% of the energy cost can be saved by the inclusion of INPs in desalination cycles while still meeting the EPA standard of drinking water (<500 ppm). Our investigative tools for ice morphology include optical microscopy and X-ray computed tomography imaging analysis. Their use indicates that INPs promote the development of a lamellar structured ice matrix with larger hydraulic diameters, which facilitates brine drainage and contains less brine entrapment as compared to control samples. These results suggest great potential for applying INPs to develop an energy-saving freeze concentration method via the alteration of ice morphology.

Extrusion and Extruded Products: Changes in Quality Attributes as Affected by Extrusion Process Parameters: A Review

Extrusion of foods is an emerging technology for the food industries to process and market a large number of products of varying size, shape, texture, and taste. Extrusion cooking technology has led to production of wide variety of products like pasta, breakfast cereals, bread crumbs, biscuits, crackers, croutons, baby foods, snack foods, confectionery items, chewing gum, texturized vegetable protein (TVP), modified starch, pet foods, dried soups, dry beverage mixes etc. The functional properties of extruded foods plays an important role for their acceptability which include water absorption, water solubility, oil absorption indexes, expansion index, bulk density and viscosity of the dough. The aim of this review is to give the detailed outlines about the potential of extrusion technology in development of different types of products and the role of extrusion-operating conditions and their effect on product development resulting in quality changes i.e physical, chemical, and nutritional, experienced during the extrusion process.

Reversible shear-induced crystallization above equilibrium freezing temperature in a lyotropic surfactant system

We demonstrate a unique shear-induced crystallization phenomenon above the equilibrium freezing temperature (T(K)°) in weakly swollen isotropic (Li) and lamellar (La) mesophases with bilayers formed in a cationic-anionic mixed surfactant system. Synchrotron rheological X-ray diffraction study reveals the crystallization transition to be reversible under shear (i.e., on stopping the shear, the nonequilibrium crystalline phase Lc melts back to the equilibrium mesophase). This is different from the shear-driven crystallization below T(K)°, which is irreversible. Rheological optical observations show that the growth of the crystalline phase occurs through a preordering of the Li phase to an La phase induced by shear flow, before the nucleation of the Lc phase. Shear diagram of the Li phase constructed in the parameter space of shear rate (γ) vs. temperature exhibits Li → Lc and Li → La transitions above the equilibrium crystallization temperature T(K)°, in addition to the irreversible shear-driven nucleation of Lc in the Li phase below T(K)°. In addition to revealing a unique class of nonequilibrium phase transition, the present study urges a unique approach toward understanding shear-induced phenomena in concentrated mesophases of mixed amphiphilic systems.

Multi-plate freeze concentration: Recovery of solutes occluded in the ice and determination of thawing time

The retention of solutes in the ice formed in a falling-film freeze concentrator (multi-plate freeze-concentrator) was analysed. Solutions of fructose, glucose and sucrose and a simulated juice with initial concentrations of 5, 10, 15 and 20 °Brix were freeze concentrated. The ice produced in the four steps of the process retains solutes at levels of 1.0–8.8 °Brix (expressed as solute mass fraction in the ice). The recovery of these solutes during thawing can increase overall system efficiency. All thawing steps were carried out dividing the sample in 10 fractions at 20 ℃. The first thawed fractions showed solute concentrations that were 1.9–3.3 times higher than the mean solute mass fraction in the ice, while the last fractions of ice showed very low levels of retained solutes, less than 0.2 times the mean solute mass fraction in the ice. It was found that fractionated thawing can recover most of the solute content in the ice. The procedure presented in the present study allows the determination of the solute concentration achieved in the various thawing fractions and predicts the thawing time required for a given form factor, melting temperature and initial solute mass fraction in the ice.

Learning control for batch thermal sterilization of canned foods

A control technique based on Reinforcement Learning is proposed for the thermal sterilization of canned foods. The proposed controller has the objective of ensuring a given degree of sterilization during Heating (by providing a minimum temperature inside the cans during a given time) and then a smooth Cooling, avoiding sudden pressure variations. For this, three automatic control valves are manipulated by the controller: a valve that regulates the admission of steam during Heating, and a valve that regulate the admission of air, together with a bleeder valve, during Cooling. As dynamical models of this kind of processes are too complex and involve many uncertainties, controllers based on learning are proposed. Thus, based on the control objectives and the constraints on input and output variables, the proposed controllers learn the most adequate control actions by looking up a certain matrix that contains the state-action mapping, starting from a preselected state-action space. This state-action matrix is constantly updated based on the performance obtained with the applied control actions. Experimental results at laboratory scale show the advantages of the proposed technique for this kind of processes.

The impact of functional genomics on microbiological food quality and safety

In the food processing industry, unwanted occurrence and growth of spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms is a key concern. A prime example is the extremely heat resistant bacterial endospores, microbial survival structures, that create problems due to their ability to survive classical thermal treatments and their ability to subsequently germinate and form actively growing vegetative cells. Research on food spoilage Bacillus subtilis isolates using the Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) technology and micro-array technology has identified a number of genomic factors correlated to the level of spore heat resistance. Strains could be classified according to these genomic markers. In addition, it was shown with the sequenced B. subtilis laboratory strain that sporulation in the presence of in particular calcium ions in a cocktail of calcium, magnesium, iron, manganese and potassium promotes thermal resistance of developing spores. This physiological observation correlated with an increased expression during sporulation of genes encoding small acid soluble spore proteins. Screening of ingredients using DNA-chip based techniques identifying the above indicated molecular markers, should allow in the future the identification of the occurrence of spoilage and pathogenic bacteria and prediction of their thermal preservation stress resistance. Currently various projects aiming at the integration of genomics data and micro(nano)-technology, a prerequisite if the alluded to ingredient Quality Control is going to succeed, are running or are being set-up. Information from these projects will be used together with the requirements of product organoleptic quality to derive robust integrated food safety and food quality processing parameters. Such parameters should form the basis of future food Quality Assurance systems.