Allergy caused by food is usually type 1 allergy of four types of allergic reactions. One of the most widespread allergic is those that are caused by crustacean shellfish. Crustaceans are classified among arthropods which include crab, crayfish, lobster, prawn and shrimp. Shrimp which are broadly consumed as nutritional food is one of the most important food that contribute to allergy. Thus, reducing the allergenicity of shrimp allergen will be helpful to individuals who are sensitive to shrimp and for this reason the characteristics of each allergen need to be studied. Those sensitized individuals can develop urticaria, angiodema, laryngospasm, asthma and life threatening anaphylaxis. To date, four main allergens contribute to allergic reactions. They are tropomyosin (TM), a highly conserved and heat stable myofibrillar protein of 35-38 kDa followed by arginine kinase (AK) which is also known as Pen m 2 or Lit v 2 with 40 kDa. Two other contributing allergens are sarcoplasmic calcium-binding protein (SCP) also known as Lit v 4 with 22 kDa and myosin light chain (MLC) which is also termed as Lit v 3 with 20 kDa. This mini-review will provide a better understanding of each allergen derived from shrimp which subsequently will help to reduce the allergenicity.
Vigna sinensis also known as long-podded cowpea or Chinese long bean (Family:Fabaceae) is most widely grown in Southeast Asia. They are a good source of protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, phosphorus, and potassium. The antioxidant potential of crude methanol extract, chloroform, and ethyl acetate soluble fractions of Vigna sinensiswas screened for in- vitro antioxidant activity using total phenolic content, ferric reducing power, 2,2'-azinobis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) (ABTS) assay, ferric thiocyanate (FTC) and thiobarbituric acid (TBA) tests. It was found that ethyl acetate fraction have maximum amount of polyphenolics compounds (2.69 mg/g GAE in concentration 0.5 mg/mL); more effective than methanol and chloroform extract.This fraction also exhibited fairly good antioxidant activity with in both TBA (17.39% mg/g GAE) and FTC (12.65% mg/g GAE) methods.
Gastrodin elata blume (Tianma in Chinese, Chunma in Korean) is a perennial parasitic herbaceous plant native to Korea, Japan and China (Chae et al., 2008). The plant has recently received very good attention, especially in Korea, due to its excellent health-promoting properties. This plant is reported to have excellent antioxidant, anticancer and anti-inflammatory properties. This paper briefly reviews some characteristics and functional properties of Chunma.
The processing of cocoyam tubers for industrial or human use involves different operations
of which peeling is the major problem. This study was aimed at designing, fabricating and
carrying out performance evaluation of a cocoyam peeling machine, taking into consideration
some physical and mechanical properties of the cocoyam tubers. The machine was evaluated
based on the following parameters which includes; throughput capacity and peeling efficiency
at the speeds of 400 rpm, 700 rpm and 933 rpm. Results revealed that, for all the speeds tested
in the experiment, the corresponding peeling efficiencies of the machine were 50%, 64% and
68% respectively while that of the throughput capacities were 63.20 kg/hr, 84.90 kg/hr and
112.92 kg/hr respectively. It was observed that 933 rpm speed was the most suitable speed for
the operation of this machine, as it had higher peeling efficiency of 68% with a throughput
capacity of 112.92 kg/hr. These results showed appreciable improvement over manual method
which is 20 – 35 kg/hr.
In this present study, enzymatic esterification synthesis of fructose laurate was performed in organic media using lipase from Candida antarctica immobilized on acrylic resin. Screening phase of esterification reaction was done using two commonly used commercial immobilized lipases, in three different solvents, molecular sieve loadings, and reaction time to observe their effect on the yield of fructose laurate. The highest yield was obtained by using ethanol as the solvent, 0.02 g lipase loading, 0.10 g molecular sieves loading, and 24 hr of reaction time. By using response surface methodology (RSM) with central composite design (CCD), it was found that the optimum operational conditions were 40°C, 0.13 g lipase loadings, 200 rpm agitation rate, and without molecular sieve needed for the system. The optimized esterification conditions could give the yield of fructose laurate about 93.21 ± 0.13% with 92.91% confidence level.
The present study was aimed to investigate the efficacy of fenugreek seeds as a potential natural source of antioxidants and antimicrobials. Fenugreek seed (FS) extracts were prepared using ethanol (75%), methanol (75%) and water as extraction solvents. Ethanol (E-FSP), methanol (M-FSP), water (W-FSP) and hot water (HW-FSP) extracts were obtained from ground FS, whilst water extract (W-GeFS) was obtained from germinated FS. The results revealed that all extracts of the ground FS exhibited antioxidant and antimicrobial activities and the extractability of bioactive compounds in the presence of water was higher in germinated seeds (W-GeFS). Highest phenolic (156.3 mg GAE/ g) and flavonoid (38.5 mg CE/ g) contents were found in W-GeFS. It also showed the strongest DPPH radical-scavenging activity of 68 % inhibition at a lower concentration (0.06 mg/ ml). In addition, highest vitamin C equivalent antioxidant capacity (143.28 mg vitamin C/ g) with an IC50 value of 42.1 μg/ ml were found in W-GeFS. Based on disc diffusion method, W-GeFS exhibited highest antimicrobial activity against all tested bacterial pathogens (Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, and Escherichia coli). Thus, it can be concluded from the results that W-GeFS extract from germinating fenugreek seeds (W-GeFS) has the potential to be used as a natural source of bioactive compounds with varied applications in food industry especially, for active film packaging purposes to prolong the shelf-life of food products.
A study on the feasibility of using gel electrophoresis technique in grading the agarwood oil
quality was investigated. Prior to electrophoresis, the emulsified agarwood oil droplets were
screened by a diffuse layer of ions that have equal absolute charge to that of the droplets surface
charge in aqueous phase. The condition was obtained by varying the concentrations of nonionic
surfactant; Tween 80 until the critical aggregation concentration (CAC) value of 0.0167%
(v/v) was achieved. The prepared droplets suspended in the aqueous within nano-metre size and
had ability to migrate through the agarose gel with its own specific electrophoretic mobility.
However, due to the limitation of gel pore size, only large oil droplets (>200 nm) indicated
visible bands. Overall, a novel work for grading the emulsified agarwood oil droplet with its
own electrical properties was feasible.
Octenyl succinic anhydride (OSA) modified sago starch was prepared in order to improve the emulsification properties of native starch. In the present study, the major factors affecting esterification were investigated with respect to OSA concentration, pH and reaction time using response surface methodology (RSM) based on central composite rotatable design (CCRD) to obtain the highest value of degree of substitution (DS). Results shown that the optimum conditions for OSA concentration, pH and reaction time were 5.00%, pH 7.20 and 9.65 h, respectively. At optimum condition, the esterification of sago starch with OSA resulted in DS value of 0.0120. The DS increased linearly with the increase in amount of OSA, whilst pH and reaction time show a curvature trend on the value of DS. The value of DS was found to be significantly affected by all the three variables. The experimental values under optimum condition were in good consistent with the predicted values (0.0131), which suggested that the optimisation by RSM is more efficient process than conventional optimisation.
This research was conducted to evaluate the effects of supplementation of jackfruit puree on probiotic (Lactobacillus acidophilus FTDC 1295) in terms of cell count, viability and nutritional value of dadih. Four samples of dadih were prepared in this investigation; Control, Jackfruit dadih, Probiotic dadih and Jackfruit Probiotic dadih (Control, ConJD, ConPD and JPD respectively). Results revealed that dadih supplemented with jackfruit puree (JPD) directly improved the probiotic cell counts which are significantly higher than the dadih without jackfruit puree (ConPD). The high probiotic viability in dadih (ConPD 92%; JPD 96%) indicated that it can be an effective probiotic delivery vehicle. The chemical compositions (moisture, total solids, fat, protein, mineral, organic acid, and pH) showed variations in its pattern due to the differential in formulations and the incorporations of probiotic bacteria. In addition, the Total Phenolic Content and the antioxidant capacity were reported to be the highest in dadih supplemented with jackfruit puree and probiotic (JPD) as compared with other dadih samples. These are attributed by the presence of jackfruit puree and probiotic in the samples which effectively increased the total phenolic content which directly increase the antioxidant activity
Meat quality is always subject to consumer scrutiny when purchasing from retail markets on
mislabeling as fresh meat. Repeated cycles of ‘freeze-thaw’ degrade the quality of meat. Existing
studies have primarily embarked on physical, chemical and biochemical changes induced by
variable storage conditions. The authentication of fresh versus thawed meat quality can be
further explored with the data involving a series of biochemical pathways that were largely
well-studied in living muscle tissues. However, these pathways are less predictable in postslaughter
condition where muscle turns to meat. In addition, there is far less known about how
various management or environmental stimuli impact these pathways, either by substrate load
or altered cellular environment during storage. Though the rate of post-slaughter metabolism
is quite important in driving meat quality development, it is also fairly well established.
Alternatively, the biochemical mechanisms responsible for the cessation of postmortem
metabolism, or protracted carbohydrate metabolism are particularly puzzling. Likewise,
there is little information about the relationship between volatility profiles of biomolecules
with regards to functional groups, enzymatic activity, protein solubility and protein surface
properties in meat during storage. The studies of these changes could be used to distinguish
between fresh and thawed meat.
Globally, agro-industrial by products such as fruit waste has attained immense recognition to be used for the extraction of valuable functional ingredients. Pectin is naturally occurring biopolymer that is widely recognized in food industry as well as in biotechnology. Keeping in view, current research was conducted for extraction, characterization and utilization of grapefruit peel pectin from Duncan cultivar. The extracted pectin was characterized for different parameters that explored its role in value added products. Acid extraction was carried out and then pectin was characterized for equivalent weight, ash content and methoxyl content. With the addition of extracted pectin, jam was prepared and analysed for physicochemical analysis and sensory attributes. The maximum extraction (22.55%) was done from grapefruit peel at temperature-120°C with pH-1.5, while minimum extraction (0.41%) was obtained at temperature-120°C with pH-2. Moreover, adding pectin in jam formulation resulted in significant effect on texture of the final product. Conclusively, pectin holds a great potential to be extracted and utilized in fruit based products for best quality and value addition.
Multitude of factors such as concern for use of growth hormones, chemical additives in feed,
animal welfare, human health issues and environmental impacts have led to the steady increase
in the consumption of organic meat worldwide. The purpose of the study was to investigate
the factors that influence the purchase intention towards organic meat based on the Theory of
Planned Behavior (TPB) and organic meat choice motives. The influence of attitude, subjective
norm, perceived behavioral control, safety, meat characteristic, health concern and price on the
intention to purchase organic meat was analyzed. The study utilized cross-sectional research
design using survey method. A total of 400 consumers responded to the survey using mallintercept,
with both genders equally represented and had an average age of 35 years. Results
showed that the respondents seemed to be very concern about food safety (m=4.06) and meat
characteristics (m=4.04) as compared to health (m=3.70) and price (m=3.36) was not a strong
motivating factor (m=3.35). The level of attitude towards organic meat, subjective norm
and perceived behavioral control was at moderate level. The findings showed that perceived
behavioral control and personal norm towards organic meat of TPB and price and meat
characteristic of the choice motives could explain 66.4 percent of the variance in the intention
to purchase organic meat. As intention to purchase is an important indicator of future organic
meat consumption, policy makers and marketers may draw on these results when attempting to
promote and enhance acceptance of organic meat among the consumers.
Athletes are a special group of consumers whose specific diet requirement is important during training and competition to ensure their success. As commercial foodservice establishments are increasing involved in providing foods to this group of consumers on one hand and the lack of research investigating the athletes’ dining satisfaction, especially meeting their diet requirement on the other hand, this study was conducted to investigate the influence of nutritional factors in athletes’ dining satisfaction and the acceptance of various foods provided in an international sporting event. Following a stratified random sampling, 700 athletes were selected from the entire population of 1330 participants. The final usable sample size was 450 (64.3% response rate). Regression analysis revealed that overall service, overall food quality, grooming of server, and nutritional information tag significantly influence the overall dining satisfaction among athletes. In addition, nutritional value, menu variety, fat content, freshness, and taste were found as the most important determinant in almost all food categories. It is intriguing that meeting diet requirement is not a significant factor but nutritional information tag is. Important implications were discussed. Nutrition education is recommended for foodservice operators especially when they are involved in providing food for sporting events. It is advisable that an appointed specialized sport dietitian or nutritionist to a sporting event works together with the foodservice operators to ensure that the menu meets the nutritional requirement of athletes.
Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana Linn.) is a highly beneficial fruit, containing potent bioactive compounds such as xanthones. However, the metabolite comparisons of mangosteen pericarp, aril and seed have not been described in detail previously. A comparative approach was undertaken in the present work to evaluate the effects of different ratios of solvent combination in the metabolite extraction of mangosteen. Gas chromatography-based metabolomics approach was performed to evaluate the efficiency of two metabolite extraction methods utilising different solvent extraction ratios (3/1/1 v/v or 2/1/2 v/v of methanol/chloroform/water) in determining the primary metabolite composition of mangosteen fruit tissues (pericarp, aril and seed). Cumulatively, 43 known metabolites were putatively identified from the mangosteen fruit tissues. Due to the higher ratio of polar solvent (methanol and water) used in method 2 as compared to method 1, the former method preferentially extracted a higher number of polar metabolites. Conversely, the higher ratio of methanol solvent in method 1 also contributed to the identification of more alcohol metabolites. Additionally, the multivariate analysis revealed that mangosteen pericarp was mainly localised by ribonic acid, arabinopyranose, β-hydroxypyruvic acid, L-(+)-tartaric acid and galacturonic acid. Meanwhile, thymol-α-D- glucopyranoside and D-ribofuranose contributed to the separation of mangosteen aril, whereas mangosteen seed contained high levels of β-D-galactofuranose, L-threonic acid, butanoic acid, glycoside, malic acid and myo-inositol. Results suggested that the differing solvent ratios can highly influence the types and levels of the extracted metabolites. This finding highlights the influence of metabolite solvent extraction methods towards the end results of the extraction as well as the localisation of primary metabolites in different mangosteen fruit tissues. Hence, the present work is vital in revealing important spatial information of various metabolites toward a better understanding of the mangosteen fruit ripening process.
Banana is one of the most important food crops after rice, wheat and corn around the world. It is susceptible to a wide spectrum of non-infectious problems such as abiotic stresses resulting in restricting growth and production. Studies were conducted to determine the effects of four salinity levels (0.17 (control), 3.0, 6.0, and 9.0 dS m-1) on morphological characteristics of four banana cultivars at vegetative growth stage. Banana cultivars from the Cavendish group (Williams, Malindi) and plantains group (FHIA18 and Diwan) were grown in 61 x 76 cm polyethylene bags filled with soil mixture comprising of top soil, sand and peat moss (3:1:2 v/v), with pH ranging from 6 - 6.5 and EC 0.02 mScm-1. The experiment was carried out under a rain-shelter in split-plot design with three replicates. Plants were irrigated manually. Data were collected at 3, 6 and 9 months after transplanting. The results revealed that, the number of leaves, stem height, stem girth and total leaf area were significantly affected by salinity, variety and plant age. Significant interaction was also found between salinity and variety, salinity and plant age, as well as variety and plant age. The morphological characteristics of banana were negatively affected by higher salinity levels (6.0 and 9.0 dS m-1). Under similar salinity level, cultivar Malindi had higher number of leaves, stem height, stem girth and total leaf area as compared to cultivar Williams. Among plantains banana, cultivar FHIA18 was more tolerance to high salinity levels than Diwan cultivar, while Malindi from Cavendish group shows high salt tolerant than Williams. Therefore cultivars Malindi and FHIA18 could be grown in arid and semiarid environment depend on their tolerance to high salinity level above 1.0 dS m-1.
Although one of the major users of flocculants are water and wastewater treatment industries, flocculants are also used in various food industries. The chemical flocculants are preferred widely in these industries due to low production cost and fast production ability. However, the negative effects of the chemical flocculants should not be neglected to gain the economic benefits only. Therefore, the researchers are working to discover efficient and economical flocculants from biological sources. Several attempts have been made and are still being made to extract or produce bioflocculants from natural sources such as plants, bacteria, fungi, yeast, algae, etc. The review revealed that significant amount of work have been done in the past, in search of bioflocculant. However, commercially viable bioflocculants are yet to be marketed widely. With the advent of new biotechnologies and advances in genetic engineering, the researchers are hopeful to discover or develop commercially viable, safe and environmentfriendly bioflocculants.
Optimization of the process conditions of mixed culture of bacidiomycete fungi for improved protein enrichment of fruit peels is necessary to ease replication and scale-up processes. Sixday fermentation period and temperature of 32°C were optimum for elevated protein synthesis and enzyme activities (78.99 units/ml for α-amylase and 0.36 units/ml for cellulase). A highly significant quadratic model obtained from Face Centered Central Composite Design (FCCCD) described the process optimization. Linear effect of pH and inoculum size were significant (p < 0.05) while pH and moisture content (MC) interact significantly. 70.2% MC, pH 5.4 and 6.1% inoculum were the optimum level for a maximum crude protein synthesis of 198.77 mg/g. The crude protein contained essential and non-essential amino acid at a comparable level with other bioprocessed materials that are currently used as animal feed supplement.
This work aims at optimizing the media constituents for citric acid production from oil palm empty fruit bunches (EFB) as renewable resource using artificial neural networks (ANN) approach. The bioconversion process was done through solid state bioconversion using Aspergillus niger. ANN model was built using MATLAB software. A dataset consists of 20 runs from our previous work was used to develop ANN. The predictive and generalization ability of ANN and the results of RSM were compared. The determination coefficients (R2-value) for ANN and RSM models were 0.997 and 0.985, respectively, indicating the superiority of ANN in capturing the non-linear behavior of the system. Validation process was done and the maximum citric acid production (147.74 g/kg-EFB) was achieved using the optimal solution from ANN which consists of 6.1% sucrose, 9.2% mineral solution and 15.0% inoculum.
This study aimed to determine the perceptions and opinions of medical students about food allergy. Universal sampling was used to conduct focus group discussions. The majority of the participants 40 (67%) mentioned that the common symptoms of food allergy are: skin rashes, swollen lips, diarrhea, vomiting, bronchospasm, redness, itchiness, difficulty in breathing, stomach ache and fever. Majority of participants mentioned that seafood is the food that can cause most food allergies 52 (87%), followed by tree nuts 25 (42%), peanuts and dairy products 19 (32%). Regarding the most allergenic food named by the participants are seafood 23 (38%); followed by milk and dairy products 5 (8%) and nuts 5 (8%). The majority of participants mentioned that food allergy can be fatal 48 (80%), a child can catch food allergy 57 (95%), and 10 of 100 people would have food allergy 31 (52%). Half of the participants 30 (50%) mentioned that it is very hard to care for children with food allergy. The majority of participants mentioned that food allergies do run in families 50 (83%), avoiding allergenic food is the best preventive methods 36 (60%) and that food allergy can be treated and will go away and 32 (53%). This study showed that in spite of sufficient knowledge among medical students about food allergy, some misconceptions still exist such as the high prevalence of food allergy and that food allergy can be treated and will go away. Therefore, there is a need for improving the continuous medical education among medical students with regard to food allergy because they are our future physicians.
Natural products are useful for delaying the ripening process, preserving quality and reducing biochemical changes in fruits. Effect of gum arabic (GA) 10% and chitosan (CH) 1% edible coatings on physiological and biochemical properties of mango (Mangifera indica L. cv. Choke Anan) fruit were investigated. Mango fruit were stored at 13°C and 80% relative humidity for 28 days. Significant (P≤0.05) differences were observed in fruits treated with GA 10% and CH 1% as compared to the control. The results showed that GA 10% and CH 1% treatments significantly reduced weight loss than the control fruits. The application of CH 1% coating effectively inhibited the increase in soluble solid concentration (SSC), respiration rate and ethylene production. But no significant differences were observed in terms of ascorbic acid loss between treated fruits and control during the entire storage period. Furthermore, the combined application of GA 10% + CH 1% alleviated decay incidence and retained high firmness of mango fruit. These results suggested that application of GA 10% coating combined with CH 1% as a bio preservative might be a simple and effective technique for delaying ripening and maintaining quality of mango fruit during cold storage without the use of fungicides.