Journal of Food Quality

Dried fruit slices are important, healthy, and popular snacks and gain importance day by day due to their high nutritional content. In this context, this study mainly focused on the production of healthy apple chips snacks and the determination of degradation kinetics of antioxidant activity, total phenolic compounds, and color values of apple chip snacks during convective hot air drying at three different temperatures (45, 55, and 65°C) and sample thicknesses (1.5 and 5 ± 0.5 mm). The drying kinetics, desorption isotherms, activation energy, and half-life of the apple chip snack were also calculated. The Page and GAB models are the best models for the determination of the drying (>0.992) and desorption (>0.9979) behavior of apple snacks with the highest R² values. The drying of all samples took place in the falling rate period. The D_eff values increased depending on the increasing air temperature and slice thickness. The antioxidant activity, total phenolic compounds, and total color change of the 5 mm thick samples were degraded following the first-order reaction kinetics. The higher antioxidant activity, phenolic compounds, L^∗ values, and lower half-life values were observed in conditions where the thickness (1.5 mm) and temperature (45°C) are low. The activation energy values calculated for the total phenolic compounds are higher than those calculated for the antioxidant activity. As a result, it can be concluded that apple chip snacks with high nutritional value can be produced by choosing low temperatures and slice thickness.

The gray abalone mushroom is a rich source of amino acids and carbohydrate compounds, with some biological activities and antioxidants. Nowadays, the variety of food additives on the market such as sodium glutamate (E621), sodium guanylate (E627), or sodium insonate (E631), could probably cause negative effects for people’s health. This study used gray abalone mushrooms to create naturally derived seasoning products without using flavor enhancers and synthetic compounds. The gray abalone mushroom was pretreated and dried at 60°C until attaining the moisture content of <5%, while the biological activity and antioxidant values were kept optimal. The mixture ingredients, including 5% abalone mushroom powder, 2% baby cornstarch, and other seasoning ingredients, were uniformly ground. The based-gray abalone mushroom powder that was packed in PE with the moisture content below 3% displayed stability in terms of quality throughout 90 days. Gray abalone mushroom seasoning powder contributed to creating safe, natural products as well as improving consumers’ health.

Quinoa seed, as a rich source of protein with strong antioxidant properties, plays an important role in improving consumers’ nutrition. This study was aimed at comparing the antimicrobial activity of peptides from quinoa hydrolysed proteins (QHP) on Streptococcus pyogenes as a Gram-positive and Escherichia coli as a Gram-negative bacterium with gentamicin antibiotic as a positive control. Different enzymatic ratios of pepsin and alcalase (30–90 AU/kg protein) at different temperatures (50–55°C) and times (150–210 min) were used to determine the optimal conditions for peptide hydrolysis with the highest antimicrobial properties. Similar to gentamicin, the maximum growth inhibition zones were 11.88 ± 0.37 mm and 12.49 ± 0.58 mm for S. pyogenes and E. coli, respectively, with an enzyme/substrate ratio as 60 AU/kg protein, a peptides concentration of 800 μg/ml, and at 50°C for 150 min of hydrolysis. The results showed that QHP has a good inhibitory effect on the bacteria mentioned and can be used as a food preservative.

Eggplants are highly nutritious and feature prominently in food recipes in the tropics. However, losses in weight, firmness, and nutrients affect the quality of the fruit after harvest. This work investigated the use of beeswax as a potential coating to improve the quality of eggplant fruit. Eggplant fruit were coated with a 3% beeswax solution alone or in combination with a citrate solution and stored at 10°C for 17 days. The coating significantly minimized weight loss, preserved firmness, and delayed colour changes. No changes in total phenols and antioxidant capacity were observed upon coating; however, ascorbate levels decreased. Using a response surface methodology approach the optimum conditions for the application of beeswax coating to improve the quality of eggplant fruit was investigated. The validated optimum coating conditions were 4.6% (w/v) coating concentration, 1% (w/v) citrate concentration, and 3 min coating duration. The validation experiment gave a high correlation coefficient (R²) of 0.93 between the predicted and measured physicochemical properties of the fruit. The optimized conditions can be useful in the preparation of a beeswax-based coating for improving the quality of eggplant fruit during cold storage.

Kersting’s groundnut (Macrotyloma geocarpum, Harms) is a legume crop with nutritional potential in West Africa where it is widely consumed due to its palatability. The present study investigated the physical characteristics, nutritional composition, and organoleptic properties of five Kersting’s groundnut accessions selected based on their yield performance, stability, and seed color. Physical characteristics (seed size, length, and thickness) were determined using a Vernier Caliper while a laboratory weighing scale was used to determine 100-seed weight. Protein and fat contents were analyzed using micro-Kjeldahl and Soxhlet systems, respectively. Dietary fiber content was determined using the AOAC method while carbohydrate content was determined using the method of difference. Amino acids were hydrolyzed and determined using the liquid chromatography method. Ten trained panelists participated in testing the cookability of the samples while 30 untrained panelists were involved in the acceptability test. Results showed that accessions ranged between 8.1 ± 0.1 and 9.3 ± 0.2 mm for seed length, 5.7 ± 0.4 and 6.0 ± 0.2 mm for the width, and 4.0 ± 0.0 and 4.9 ± 0.4 mm for thickness. The 100-seed weight ranged from 11.7 ± 0.8 to 16.7 ± 1.6 g. Protein, fat, and carbohydrate contents ranged from 20.5 ± 0.2 to 22.0 ± 0.2, 1.2 ± 0.0 to 2.3 ± 0.0, and 56.5 ± 0.0 to 59.4 ± 0.1 (g/100 g dw), respectively. The lowest and highest cooking times were 78 and 124 minutes, respectively. All accessions recorded good sensory acceptability (>50%) except the accession BUR 16 which was liked only by 23.3%. Overall, accession OUA had the highest protein, medium cooking time, and highest overall acceptability score (>70%), hence recommended for wide production. Future studies need to be performed on the antinutritional content of this accession and to find out the effect of cooking on the nutritional value of derived meals and starch modification.

Objective. A network pharmacology approach was used to investigate the main active ingredients, key targets, and mechanisms of action of bitter almond antioxidants, and preliminary validation of the relevant targets was performed using molecular docking techniques. Methods. The active ingredients of bitter almond were obtained through the traditional Chinese medicine systematic pharmacology database and analysis platform (TCMSP), and the main active ingredients were screened by bioavailability (OB) and drug-like properties (DL); the GeneCards database was used to search antioxidant-related disease targets through the traditional Chinese medicine systematic pharmacology database and analysis; building a “drug-disease-target” visual network map with Cytoscape 3.9.0 software; a protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed using STRING website and core targets were screened; GO function and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis were obtained using Metoscape. Finally, SailVina software was used to molecularly dock the major active ingredients and target proteins and visualize them using PyMOL software. Results. A total of 19 antioxidant active ingredients were obtained for bitter almond, mainly stigmasterol, glycyrol, and estrone. The targets regulated by their main active ingredients were intersected with oxidative targets, and 53 intersected targets were obtained by Venn diagram, with key targets involving NR3C2, NCOA2, MAOA, ADRA2A, and CHRM1; GO analysis yielded 3616 GO entries, including 2821 biological process (BP) entries, 316 cellular component (CC) entries, and 479 molecular function (MF) entries, and 184 signalling pathways were obtained from KEGG pathway enrichment screening. The molecular docking results showed that Stigmasterol-NR3C2 binding was better. Conclusion. Stigmasterol, glycyrol, estrone, and licochalcone B in bitter almond may be the material basis of antioxidant and have better antioxidant activity; therefore, bitter almond has the characteristics of multicomponent, multitarget and multipathway.