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Bioactive Compounds and Enriched Foods: Technological and Nutritional Aspects

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Science and Technology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2024) | Viewed by 6859

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
CREA Research Centre for Food and Nutrition, Via Ardeatina 546, I-00178 Roma, Italy
Interests: food quality; pseudocereals; legumes; cereals; bioactive compounds; gluten-free products; food by-products; fermented foods
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Guest Editor
CREA-Research Centre for Food and Nutrition, Rome, Italy
Interests: bioactive compounds; phenolic compounds; antioxidants; cereals; pseudocereals; functional foods; novel foods; HPLC; analytical methods
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The resonance of bioactive compounds and enriched foods comes from afar, and fundamental and applied research into healthy foods and biologically active food components has been carried out over the last few decades. Nonetheless, there is much to investigate and discover, and further investigations are required to open up new opportunities to expand our knowledge in these areas.

This Special Issue aims to bring together original articles or reviews on the topics below, so as to gain new and solid knowledge of bioactive compounds and enriched foods.

  • The fortification of foods with functional components from traditional and emerging sources (e.g., food by-products, food waste, botanicals, plant extracts);
  • The characterization of emerging enriched foods;
  • Macro- and micro-nutrients as functional components;
  • The effect of (bio)technologies (e.g., thermal and non-thermal treatment, fermentation) on nutritional value and organoleptic properties of functional foods;
  • The role of enriched/fortified foods in food-specific diets and/or diets followed for medical reasons;
  • Probiotic enriched foods;
  • Bioavailability, bioaccessibility, and bioactivity;
  • Mechanisms by which enriched foods/food components can modulate physiological parameters connected with disease prevention;
  • In vitro, cell and animal studies.

Dr. Francesca Melini
Dr. Valentina Melini
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • bioactive compounds
  • enriched foods
  • fermented foods
  • probiotics and prebiotics
  • antioxidants
  • bioaccessibility, bioavailability and biological activity
  • human/gut health protection
  • in vitro and in vivo studies
  • effect of thermal/non-thermal treatments
  • food waste recovery

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 1417 KiB  
Article
Oncom from Surplus Bread Enriched in Vitamin B12 via In Situ Production by Propionibacterium freudenreichii
by Bożena Stodolak, Anna Starzyńska-Janiszewska and Dagmara Poniewska
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(11), 4879; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14114879 - 4 Jun 2024
Viewed by 1148
Abstract
Bread is a frequently wasted food product. Surplus or stale bread can be successfully processed by solid-state fermentation and used as the only fermentation substrate. Oncom, which originated in Indonesia, is made with moulds of the Neurospora genus. This experiment aimed to obtain [...] Read more.
Bread is a frequently wasted food product. Surplus or stale bread can be successfully processed by solid-state fermentation and used as the only fermentation substrate. Oncom, which originated in Indonesia, is made with moulds of the Neurospora genus. This experiment aimed to obtain oncome from stale bread enriched in vitamin B12. Co-fermentation with N. sitophila and Propionibacterium freudenreichii was carried out on two types of bread differing in chemical composition and initial pH value. Oncom obtained after 5 days of fermentation, depending on the substrate used and the fermentation variant (fungal, fungal-bacterial), contained from 35 to 40% dry mass, from 17.5 to about 23% protein, about 2 to max 5% fat, and from 65 to 74% carbohydrates by weight in dry mass. Vitamin B12 content depended largely on the bacterial strain, the colony-forming unit dose in the inoculum, and also the initial pH of the substrate. The oncom product obtained after co-fermentation with P. freudenreichii DSM 20271 contained a maximum of 1.3 µg/100 g, which corresponds to the vitamin B12 level in a chicken egg. Full article
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11 pages, 4288 KiB  
Article
The Effect of Brewing Time on the Antioxidant Activity of Tea Infusions
by Anna Winiarska-Mieczan and Ewa Baranowska-Wójcik
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(5), 2014; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14052014 - 29 Feb 2024
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3678
Abstract
Many studies have found that tea has an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-obesogenic and anti-diabetic effect, mostly associated with the content of anti-oxidant compounds. Polyphenols, being the main secondary metabolites in tea, are often considered the physiological markers determining a tea’s quality. Apart from [...] Read more.
Many studies have found that tea has an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-obesogenic and anti-diabetic effect, mostly associated with the content of anti-oxidant compounds. Polyphenols, being the main secondary metabolites in tea, are often considered the physiological markers determining a tea’s quality. Apart from the tea production process and tea components, brewing conditions can also influence the levels of antioxidants in tea. This study aimed to verify whether the brewing time of various tea types (5, 10 and 15 min) affects the level of extraction of antioxidant compounds into infusions and their antioxidant activity. We examined 11 types of tea: green leaf tea, green tea bags, white tea bags, black tea bags, red tea bags, black leaf tea, yerba mate, raspberry tea bags, butterfly pea flower (Clitoria ternatea) tea, white lychee plum tea and hibiscus flower tea. Total polyphenol (TPC), flavonoids and anthocyanins content, as well as determination of antiradical and antioxidant capacity with DPPH radical and ABTS radical cation, were determined using spectrophotometric assays. Due to the antioxidant activity of tea infusions, the optimum brewing time for green tea (leaf and bags), black tea (leaf and bags), butterfly pea flower tea, white tea, white lychee plum tea, raspberry tea and yerba mate is 15 min. Red tea brewing time should be ten minutes, and for hibiscus flower tea it should be five minutes. The results refer to the brewing temperature recommended by tea manufacturers. Full article
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Other

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14 pages, 2906 KiB  
Systematic Review
Bakery Product Enrichment with Phenolic Compounds as an Unexplored Strategy for the Control of the Maillard Reaction
by Valentina Melini, Domizia Vescovo, Francesca Melini and Antonio Raffo
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(6), 2647; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14062647 - 21 Mar 2024
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1459
Abstract
The Maillard reaction (MR) is one of the main reactions that occurs during the thermal processing of food. It contributes positively to the flavor, aroma, and color of food but also produces harmful by-products, including acrylamide and advanced glycation end products (AGEs). Bakery [...] Read more.
The Maillard reaction (MR) is one of the main reactions that occurs during the thermal processing of food. It contributes positively to the flavor, aroma, and color of food but also produces harmful by-products, including acrylamide and advanced glycation end products (AGEs). Bakery products are major staples consumed daily by people from all walks of life and of all ages; the identification of strategies to hamper acrylamide formation in bread and bread-like products is thus crucial for public health. Several strategies have been proposed to inhibit the MR in food processing, including biochemical approaches such as the use of enzymes; innovative technologies such as ohmic heating, pulsed electric field, high pressure processing, or encapsulation of metal ions; and the chemical modification of reactants, intermediates, or products of MR. Recently, phenolic compounds have been reported to have an inhibitory effect on the formation of harmful by-products resulting from the MR. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to provide a state-of-the-art overview of the use of phenolic compounds in the formulation of bakery products to inhibit the MR. A systematic review of the most up-to-date scientific literature was thus performed. It emerged that the inhibitory action was mainly investigated in bread. Phenolic extracts and powders obtained from plant-based foods have been included in the formulation of bakery products. The effect of pure phenolic standards was also considered. Full article
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