The blending effects of mango seed fat (MSF), extracted using supercritical fluid, and palm stearin (PS) to formulate hard cocoa butter replacers (CBRs), were investigated. The triglycerides (TG), thermal properties and solid fat content (SFC) of the formulated blends were determined using different chromatographic and thermal techniques. All the blends had three main TGs; namely, 1,3-dipalmitoyl-2-oleoylglycerol (POP) (8.6-17.7%), 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-3-stearoyl-glycerol (POS) (12.6-19.6%), and 1,3-distearoyl-2-oleoyl-glycerol (SOS) (37.2-31.4%), with SOS being the major component. The melting peak temperatures gradually increased and shifted towards higher temperatures with PS. The crystallization onset temperatures increased, while the offset decreased with PS. The SFC did not drop to 0% at 37.5°C, which was shifted to 0% at and above 40°C for some blends. The studies revealed that CBRs could be prepared by blending MSF and PS, and they could be utilised by chocolate manufacturers in tropical countries.
The large amount of waste produced by the food industries causes serious environmental problems and also results in economic losses if not utilized effectively. Different research reports have revealed that food industry by-products can be good sources of potentially valuable bioactive compounds. As such, the mango juice industry uses only the edible portions of the mangoes, and a considerable amount of peels and seeds are discarded as industrial waste. These mango by-products come from the tropical or subtropical fruit processing industries. Mango by-products, especially seeds and peels, are considered to be cheap sources of valuable food and nutraceutical ingredients. The main uses of natural food ingredients derived from mango by-products are presented and discussed, and the mainstream sectors of application for these by-products, such as in the food, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and cosmetic industries, are highlighted.
A total of 33 crude palm oil samples were randomly collected from different regions in Malaysia. Stable carbon isotopic composition (δ13C) was determined using Flash 2000 elemental analyzer while hydrogen and oxygen isotopic compositions (δ2H and δ18O) were analyzed by Thermo Finnigan TC/EA, wherein both instruments were coupled to an isotope ratio mass spectrometer. The bulk δ2H, δ18O and δ13C of the samples were analyzed by Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Orthogonal Partial Least Square-Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA). Unsupervised HCA and PCA methods have demonstrated that crude palm oil samples were grouped into clusters according to respective state. A predictive model was constructed by supervised OPLS-DA with good predictive power of 52.60%. Robustness of the predictive model was validated with overall accuracy of 71.43%. Blind test samples were correctly assigned to their respective cluster except for samples from southern region. δ18O was proposed as the promising discriminatory marker for discerning crude palm oil samples obtained from different regions. Stable isotopes profile was proven to be useful for origin traceability of crude palm oil samples at a narrower geographical area, i.e. based on regions in Malaysia. Predictive power and accuracy of the predictive model was expected to improve with the increase in sample size. Conclusively, the results in this study has fulfilled the main objective of this work where the simple approach of combining stable isotope analysis with chemometrics can be used to discriminate crude palm oil samples obtained from different regions in Malaysia. Overall, this study shows the feasibility of this approach to be used as a traceability assessment of crude palm oils.