Characterisation of pore properties of deep‐fat‐fried chicken nuggets breading coating using mercury intrusion porosimetry technique

The objective of this study was to characterise the pore properties of deep‐fat‐fried chicken nuggets coating under different processing conditions namely frying temperatures (170, 180 and 190 °C) and time (0–240 s) using porosimetry technique. Porosity range obtained was between 39.93 and 68.99%. Porosity of the freeze‐dried samples decreased with frying time. The main effect of temperature on porosity was significant (P < 0.05). Porosity showed a high positive and negative correlation with moisture and fat contents, and the correlation coefficients ranged between 0.88 and 0.96 and 0.78 and 0.8, respectively. Bulk density increased with frying time, while apparent density was relatively the same. Pore distribution showed bimodality. There was no significant effect of temperature on pore size distribution. Over 70% of the pore volume is made up of pores greater than 1 μm. Pore volume ranged between 0.54 and 1.5 cm³ g^?1, and it decreased with frying time. Mean pore diameter was between 0.006 and 389 μm, while with frying time, it ranged between 0.25 and 8.32 μm. Total pore area was between 2.53 and 16.53 m² g^?1. Hysteresis phenomenon showed that some of the pores were not perfectly cylindrical in shape.     

Categorization of pork quality using Gabor filter-based hyperspectral imaging technology

Objective assessment of pork quality is important for meat industry application. Previous studies using spectral approaches focused on using color and exudation features for the determination of pork quality levels without considering the image texture feature. In this study, a Gabor filter-based hyperspectral imaging technique was presented to develop an accurate system for pork quality level classification. Texture features were obtained by filtering hyperspectral images with two-dimensional Gabor functions. Different spectral features were extracted from Gabor-filtered images and hyperspectral images. The principal component analysis (PCA) was used to compress spectral features over the entire wavelengths (400–1000 nm) into principal components (PCs). ‘Hybrid’ PCs were created by combining PCs from hyperspectral images with PC(s) from Gabor-filtered images. Both K-means clustering and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) were applied to classify pork samples. Results showed that, the accuracy of K-mean clustering analysis reached 78% by 5 hybrid PCs and 83% by 10 hybrid PCs, which were 15% and 28% higher than the results without using texture features. The highest classification accuracy using LDA reached 100% by 5 hybrid PCs. Furthermore, the cross-validation technique was applied for evaluating how the classification results would generalize to independent pork sample sets. A total of 210 partitions (different training and testing sets) were used to obtain the unbiased statistical classification results. The overall classification accuracy reached 84 ± 1% (mean ± 95% confidence interval) by 5 hybrid PCs and was 72 ± 2% when no Gabor filter-based spectral features were used. Thus, a statistically significant improvement was achieved using image texture features. Moreover, the classification results strongly suggested that the texture features along the direction of π/4 offered more useful information for the differentiation of the four main levels of pork quality.     

Prediction of Egg Freshness and Albumen Quality Using Visible/Near Infrared Spectroscopy

Important changes occur in egg during storage leading to loss of quality. Prediction of these changes is critical in order to monitor egg quality and freshness. The aim of this research was to evaluate application of visible (VIS) and near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as a rapid and non-destructive technique for egg quality assessment. Three hundred and sixty intact white-shelled eggs freshly laid by the same flock of hens fed with a standard feed were obtained. They were put under controlled conditions of temperature and humidity (T = 18 °C and RH = 55%) for 16 days of storage. Forty eggs were analyzed at day 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16. Transmission spectral data was obtained in the range from 350 to 2,500 nm. The non-destructive spectral data was compared to egg sample’s Haugh unit (HU) and albumen pH in terms of quality and to the number of storage days in terms of freshness. A partial least squares predictive model was developed and used to link the destructive assessment methods and the number of storage days with the spectral data. The correlation coefficient between the measured and predicted values of HU, albumen pH, and number of storage days were up to 0.94, R ² was up to 0.90 and the root mean square error values for the validation were 5.05, 0.06, and 1.65, respectively. These results showed that VIS/NIR transmission spectroscopy is a good tool for assessment of egg freshness and albumen pH and can be used as a non-destructive method for the prediction of HU, albumen pH, and number of storage days. In addition, the relevant information about these parameters was in the VIS and NIR ranging from 411 to 1,729 nm.     

Protein Denaturation in Pork Longissimus Muscle of Different Quality Groups

Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used to investigate the protein denaturation characteristics of pork muscles from four quality groups namely RFN (red, firm, and non-exudative), RSE (red, soft, and exudative), PFN (pale, firm, and non-exudative), and PSE (pale, soft, and exudative). The thermograms indicated three endothermic peaks between 45°C to 90°C, corresponding to denaturation of myosin (peak I), sarcoplasmic proteins (peak II), and actin (peak III). The myosin peak was much reduced in PSE samples, while the actin peak remained almost identical in all groups. RFN and RSE samples were found to have very similar protein denaturation characteristics and were not significantly different in their thermodynamic protein denaturation parameters. PFN samples showed similar myofibrilar protein denaturation but significantly different sarcoplasmic protein denaturation characteristics compared to normal (RFN) samples according to their DSC thermograms. Based on these findings, it was suggested that the pale color in PFN pork is linked to sarcoplasmic protein denaturation.     

A survey of symbiotic organisms search algorithms and applications

Nature-inspired algorithms take inspiration from living things and imitate their behaviours to accomplish robust systems in engineering and computer science discipline. Symbiotic organisms search (SOS) algorithm is a recent metaheuristic algorithm inspired by symbiotic interaction between organisms in an ecosystem. Organisms develop symbiotic relationships such as mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism for their survival in ecosystem. SOS was introduced to solve continuous benchmark and engineering problems. The SOS has been shown to be robust and has faster convergence speed when compared with genetic algorithm, particle swarm optimization, differential evolution, and artificial bee colony which are the traditional metaheuristic algorithms. The interests of researchers in using SOS for handling optimization problems are increasing day by day, due to its successful application in solving optimization problems in science and engineering fields. Therefore, this paper presents a comprehensive survey of SOS advances and its applications, and this will be of benefit to the researchers engaged in the study of SOS algorithm.

     

Osmotic Dehydration of Apple Slices with Carboxy-Methyl Cellulose Coating

The effect of carboxy-methyl cellulose (CMC) coating on mass transfer process during osmotic dehydration of apple slices and its effect on salt absorption were investigated. The study was conducted using four concentrations of CMC (0.5, 1, 1.5, and 3%) and nine osmotic solutions comprising of glucose syrup (30, 40, and 50%) and salt (2, 4, and 6%). Sample contact time with the hypertonic solution was 15, 30, 60, 120, 180, 240, and 360 min. Both coated and uncoated samples were evaluated in terms of water loss (WL), solids gain (SG), WL/SG ratio, and salt absorption. Optimal condition was obtained when the CMC concentration of 1% was used with hypertonic solution comprising of 50% glucose syrup and 2% salt.     

Pulsed electric field treatment of carrots before drying and rehydration

BACKGROUND: In this study the effects of pulsed electric field (PEF) pretreatment were evaluated during drying and rehydration of carrots. Carrots pretreated with an electric field intensity of 1 kV cm^?1 (capacitance 0.5 µF, 20 pulses) or 1.5 kV cm^?1 (capacitance 1 µF, 20 pulses) as well as blanched (100 °C, 3 min) carrots were used for the study. Following pretreatment, samples were oven dried at 70 °C and then rehydrated in distilled water (1:30 w/v) at room temperature (24 ± 1 °C). RESULTS: PEF pretreatment increased the drying rate of carrots. However, the rehydration rate of PEF‐pretreated carrots was lower than that of blanched carrots. There were no colour differences between PEF‐pretreated and blanched carrots before drying and after rehydration. In terms of texture, PEF‐pretreated carrots were firmer than blanched carrots. PEF pretreatment reduced the activity of peroxidase by 30–50%, while blanching completely inactivated the enzyme (>95%). CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the results suggest that PEF could be an effective pretreatment during drying and rehydration of carrots. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry     

Effects of pre-heating temperature and formulation on porosity,moisture content,and fat content of fried batters

The effect of pre-heating temperatures on moisture and fat contents, and porosity of fried batters was studied. Batter pre-heated at 60 °C showed higher moisture content, lower fat content and lower porosity than non-pre-heated batter and batters pre-heated at 70 and 80 °C. Moisture content, fat content, and porosity at 4 min frying for batters with different pre-heating treatments ranged from 35.08 to 39.37, 3.92 to 5.16, and 13.14 to 45.31 %, respectively. Because of significant reduction in fat content, 60 °C pre-heating temperature was chosen to study the effect of batter formulations on moisture and fat contents, and porosity. Different wheat to rice flour ratios were prepared, and then each batter was pre-heated at 60 °C. Batters with higher wheat flour content showed higher moisture content, and lower fat content and porosity than batters with higher rice flour.     

Kinetics of Heterocyclic Amines Formation in Meat Emulsion at Different Fat Contents

The objectives of the study were to investigate the yield of heterocyclic amines (HA) in meat emulsion during heating as in cooking at different temperatures using the kinetic modeling approach and to determine the influence of fat content on the formation of HAs. Meat emulsion with two different fat contents namely extra lean (6 g/100 g) and regular (19 g/100 g) were used in the study. The samples were heated at 160, 180 and 200°C for times, varying from 5 to 40 mins. HAs namely IQx, MeIQx, and PhIP were identified and quantified using the HPLC. Formation of HAs was dependent on temperature, time, and fat content. It followed the first-order kinetics. Increasing fat content of samples resulted in lower HAs concentrations and lower activation energy of reaction. Fat enhanced formation of HAs in meat but apparently diluted available precursors for reactions.     

Binding of curcumin to β-lactoglobulin and its effect on antioxidant characteristics of curcumin

The binding of curcumin (CCM) to bovine β-lactoglobulin (β-Lg) was investigated by Fourier transform infrared and fluorescence. The effect of binding on antioxidant activity of CCM was determined by using ABTS and hydroxyl radical scavenging capacity and total reducing ability. Our results showed that when CCM binds to β-Lg, it lead to a partial change in protein structure. In fact, CCM was bound respectively to two different sites of protein at pH 6.0 and 7.0 via hydrophobic interaction. CCM–β-Lg complex was formed by one molecule of protein combining with one molecule of CCM. Moreover, the average distance from one binding site to Trp residues in protein is similar with another. This result suggested that fluorescence resonance energy transfer cannot be used as unique method to study the characteristics of binding of ligands to proteins. The antioxidant activity of CCM might be improved by binding with β-Lg.