Porosity determination of deep‐fat‐fried coatings using pycnometer (Fried batter porosity determination by pycnometer)

The effect of processing conditions such as frying time and temperature, and batter formulation on pore development in deep‐fat fried chicken nuggets coatings were studied using helium pycnometer method. Chicken nuggets with preformed and laboratory prepared batter coatings were fried at temperatures between 170 and 190 °C for a time range between 0 and 240 s. There was significant (P < 0.05) effect of frying temperature and batter formulation on porosity. Porosity increased with frying time and temperature, and ranged between 2.15 and 47.92% for the preformed batter and 9.96 and 54.76% for the formulated batters. Apparent and bulk densities of the preformed batters increased and decreased with frying time, respectively, but both declined gradually with increasing frying temperature. As the level of rice flour in the formulation increased, apparent and bulk densities also increased. Batter formulation and frying temperature significantly (P < 0.05) influenced the variation in moisture and fat content of the fried batter. Porosity demonstrated positive and negative correlation with fat uptake and moisture loss, respectively, for all the batter coatings.     

Objective determination of pork marbling scores using the wide line detector

Marbling is an important factor in evaluating pork quality and can be estimated by marbling scores based on the official marbling standards. The marbling score is normally assessed by experienced graders by comparing pork chops with the standardized chart system. In this paper, the potentials of automatic objective prediction of marbling scores were studied. The region of interest (ROI) of the marbling standards and the pork samples was automatically determined for marbling extraction. Marblings were regarded as kind of line patterns and thereby extracted by the wide line detector. Proportion of marblings (PM) was used for determinating the marbling score. The stepwise procedure was employed to select prediction models. A multiple linear regression equation was used as the initial model of the procedure and the PM of marbling standards at all three channels as potential variables. Three models were developed by the stepwise procedure with different first entry variable of the initial model. The multiple linear model obtained by the PM of marbling standards at all three RGB channels outperformed the two simple linear models respectively developed at the green and blue channels. The adjusted coefficient of determination (R²) of the multiple linear model was 0.9992 and the root mean square error of leave-one-out cross-validation (RMSECV) was 0.0938. Forty pork loin samples were used to predict marbling scores. The prediction results of the three models showed that the prediction ability of the simple linear model developed at the blue channel was comparable with the multiple linear model.     

Dielectric Properties of Pork Muscle

Dielectric properties were measured across a frequency range from 200 MHz to 20 GHz and temperature range from 25 to 85°C for pork meat samples (grouped in four different quality classes). Dielectric properties varied widely with frequency and the loss tangents of different meat quality classes followed different trends. Discriminant analysis indicated that 2400 MHz was most significant (P < 0.05) for separation of the different classes. There were significant changes (P < 0.05) in the dielectric properties within the range of the temperatures corresponding to protein denaturation temperatures. There was clear segregation between the firm and non-exudative (red, firm, and non-exudative; pale, firm, and non-exudative) and the soft and exudative (red, soft, and exudative; pale, soft and exudative) samples. The results showed that dielectric properties could be useful in meat quality classifications.     

Electrohydrodynamic Drying—A Concise Overview

Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) drying is a novel method of non-thermal processing. The drying can be carried out using either AC or DC high voltages. The thermodynamic considerations regarding the lowering of temperature under EHD drying include rapid rates of evaporation and exothermic interaction of the electric field with a dielectric material. Multi-point and plate electrode systems are efficient in accelerating drying of agricultural materials. Compared to hot air (convective) drying systems, EHD drying systems offer lower food production costs along with superior quality in terms of physiochemical properties such as color, shrinkage, flavor, and nutrient content. Compared to convective and freeze-drying, EHD drying systems, given their simpler design and lesser energy consumption, show great potential for bulk and industrial drying applications.     

Phaseolus vulgaris lectins: A systematic review of characteristics and health implications

Legume lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins of non-immune origin. Significant amounts of lectins have been found in Phaseolus vulgaris beans as far back as in the last century; however, many questions about their potential biological roles still remain obscure. Studies have shown that lectins are anti-nutritional factors that can cause intestinal disorders. Owing to their ability to act as toxic allergens and hemagglutinins, the Phaseolus vulgaris lectins are of grave concern for human health and safety. Nonetheless, their potential beneficial health effects, such as anti-cancer, anti-human immunodeficiency virus (anti-HIV), anti-microbial infection, preventing mucosal atrophy, reducing type 2 diabetes and obesity, promoting nutrients absorption and targeting drugs, are of immense interest. The significance of Phaseolus vulgaris lectins in biological researches and the potential biomedical applications have placed tremendous emphasis on the development of purification strategies to obtain the protein in pure and stable forms. These purification strategies entail considerations such as effects of proteolysis, heating, gamma radiation, and high-hydrostatic-pressure that can have crucial outcomes in either eliminating or improving bioactivities of the lectins. Thus, up-to-date research findings of Phaseolus vulgaris lectins on different aspects such as anti-nutritional and health impacts, purification strategies and novel processing trends, are systematically reviewed.     

Pulsed Electric Field-Induced Structural Modification of Whey Protein Isolate

Effects of pulsed electric fields (PEF) on structural modification and surface hydrophobicity were assessed for whey protein isolate (WPI) of protein concentrations (3% and 5%) using fluorescence spectroscopy. The effects of a factorial combination of electric field intensities (12, 16, and 20 kV cm⁻¹) and number of pulses (10, 20, and 30) on the intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence intensity, extrinsic fluorescence intensity, and surface hydrophobicity of WPI were evaluated. PEF treatments of WPI resulted in increases in the intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence intensity and led to 2–4-nm red shifts in emission wavelengths, indicating changes in the polarity of tryptophan residues microenvironment in whey proteins from a less polar to a more polar environment. The extrinsic fluorescence intensity of WPI increased with PEF treatments, but with 2–4-nm blue shifts, indicating partial denaturation of WPI fractions and exposure of more hydrophobic regions under these PEF treatments. Thus, under the conditions studied, PEF treatments of WPI yielded increases in surface hydrophobicity. The study confirmed that PEF treatments resulted in whey protein structure modifications. These results suggested that controlled PEF could be applied to process liquids food including WPI ingredients and modify their structure and function in order to get desired food products.     

Heat transfer properties of chicken-drum muscle

Thermal properties namely bulk density, specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity of chicken-drum muscle were measured over a wide range of muscle moisture content and temperature. Variation of muscle density was quadratic with respect to moisture content. Specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity also showed quadratic variation with moisture content. The effect of temperature on specific heat capacity was related to the state of thermal denaturation of the chicken muscle protein. Regression equations of density, specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity are presented. © 1998 Society of Chemical Industry.     

Prediction of drip-loss, pH, and color for pork using a hyperspectral imaging technique

Many subjective grading methods with poor repeatability and tedious procedures are still widely used in meat industry. In this study, a hyperspectral-imaging-based technique was investigated to evaluate its potentials for objective determination of pork quality attributes. The system extracted spectral and spatial characteristics simultaneously to determinate the quality attributes, drip loss, pH, and color, of pork meat. Six feature band images were selected for predicting the drip loss (459, 618, 655, 685, 755 and 953nm), pH (494, 571,637, 669, 703 and 978nm) and color (434, 494, 561, 637, 669 and 703nm), respectively. Two intensity indices of the band images were used as inputs to establish neural network models to predict the quality attributes. The results showed that with the hyperspectral-imaging system, the drip loss, pH, and color of pork meat could be predicted with correlation coefficients of 0.77, 0.55 and 0.86, respectively. Pork meat could be classified based on their exudative characteristics and color successfully.