Online measurement of temperature and relative humidity as marker tools for quality changes in onion bulbs during storage

Innovative probiotic yogurt: Leveraging green banana peel for enhanced quality, functionality, and sensory attributes

Yogurt, a popular dairy product renowned for its nutritional benefits and probiotic content, serves as a functional food with potential health-promoting properties. The objective of this study was to investigate whether incorporating green banana peel polyphenol extract (GBPPE) into yogurt formulations enhances the viability and functionality of probiotics while also potentially improving the overall quality and health-promoting properties of the yogurts. GBPPE was extracted and added to the yogurt formulation at 0.0 %, 0.5 %, 1 %, and 2 %. Various physico-chemical properties of GBPPE as well as a range of physical, biochemical, sensory, and microbial assessments of formulated yogurts were carried out. Compared to the control, yogurt containing GBPPE improves functional characteristics by increasing antioxidant activity while having no detrimental impact on physicochemical and organoleptic properties. In terms of antioxidant capabilities, all fortified yogurts showed significantly (p < 0.05) higher total phenolic, flavonoid contents and antioxidant activities than the control yogurt. The addition of GBPPE also affected (p < 0.05) pH, titratable acidity, viscosity, water-binding capacity, syneresis, and total soluble solids, while no significant differences in the color parameters were detected in both control and all fortified yogurts with reduced brightness (L∗) and increased redness (a∗) of the product. The initial viable counts of all yogurt samples were almost similar, and the maximum and minimum viability loss of probiotics were observed in control and 2 % GBPPE fortified samples, respectively. Sensory assessment revealed that yogurt with 0.5 % banana peel extract outperformed all other treatments except the control. These findings support the sustainable use of GBPPE to create probiotic yogurt with improved physicochemical, microbiological, and sensory qualities.

Effect of low oxygen stress on the metabolic responses of tomato fruit cells

Postharvest losses of fruits and vegetables can occur due to cell breakdown and browning during controlled atmosphere storage as a result of low oxygen (O2) stress. Therefore, the study was designed to better understand the underlying mechanisms of the response of isolated tomato fruit cells incubated at low O2 (hypoxic and anoxic) conditions as a model system. The O2 stress conditions used for the experiment were based on the results of the Michaelis-Menten constant (Km) of respiration. A total of 56 polar metabolites belonging mainly to different functional groups, including amino acids, organic acids, sugars and sugar alcohols, were identified using GC-MS. O2 stress stimulated the biosynthesis of most of the free amino acids while decreasing the synthesis of most of the organic acids (especially those linked to the tricarboxylic acid cycle), sugars (except for ribose) and other nitrogen-containing compounds. The down-regulation of these TCA cycle metabolites served to provide energy to ensure the survival of the cell. Increases in the sugar alcohol levels and induction of fermentative metabolism were observed under low O2 stress. By employing multivariate statistics, metabolites were identified that were essential to the oxygen stress response and establishing the correlation between metabolite abundance, oxygen levels, and incubation period were achievable. A higher correlation was observed between the O2 levels and most of the metabolites.