Nutritional aspects of gluten‐free products

In recent years, gluten‐free (GF) goods have become popular, fuelling a growing market, as they not only cater to individuals with medical needs but also to consumers who seek a GF diet. In their development, it is pivotal to pay attention to nutritional quality. This review aims to provide some insights on the nutritional quality of GF products, focusing on major concerns and the strategies to overcome them. In order to mimic the viscoelastic properties of gluten, a large number of flours and starches and other ingredients have been used. Therefore the different mixtures of these ingredients bring a wide difference in the nutritional composition of GF foods with respect to gluten‐containing counterparts. Several GF foodstuffs contain more fat, including saturated, and salt but fewer minerals and vitamins than their equivalents with gluten. The increased fibre content and improved technological processes have positively affected the glycaemic responses from these goods. However, in order to improve their nutritional quality, wholemeal GF cereals and pseudocereals with high nutritive value should replace the low‐nutritional GF flours and consequently the technological processes would be optimized. The improvement of the nutritional quality of GF products, and in turn that of the GF diet, should also be aimed at lowering the risk of later chronic degenerative disorders, especially for infants and young children. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry     

Food safety education makes the difference: food safety perceptions, knowledge, attitudes and practices among Turkish university students

This study evaluated the influence of food safety education on the food safety perceptions, knowledge, attitudes, and practices among Turkish university students. Structured questionnaires were applied to 275 students majoring in “health or food” and 570 students majoring in “non-health or non-food” on a face-to-face basis. Food has positive connotations since associated primarily with taste and hunger in both groups. Freshness of the food product was the most important factor for the “health or food major” group, which was stated as quality for the “non-health or non-food major” group, when shopping for food (p < 0.05). Food poisoning was the main risk associated with foods in the “health or food major” group whereas fats was the most popular choice for the same question in the other group (p < 0.05). Positive influence of food safety education was clear from the results since a significant difference existed between the mean scores of knowledge, attitudes, and practices according to major discipline (p < 0.05). However, persistent food safety attitudes and practices showed little improvement with education. Although a significant difference existed between the disciplines, students in both groups did not have knowledge on the risk of raw white cheese consumption (p < 0.0001). High number of students shared their bowls with other people, consumed raw eggs and raw meat, and ate cooked foods left at room temperature more than 6 h if covered. Scientists and doctors were more trusted sources of information about serious food risks (p < 0.05). Trust in governmental agencies was significantly less in both groups.     

Solving non-linear elliptic difference equations by extendable sparse factorization procedures

New extendable LU sparse factorization procedures are presented for the solution of non-linear elliptic difference equations. The derived iterative methods are shown to be both competitive and computationally efficient in comparison with existing schemes. Application of the methods on non-linear elliptic boundary value problems both in two and three space dimensions are discussed and numerical results are given.     

Some basic results on M-matrices in connection with the Accelerated Overrelaxation (AOR) method

This paper extends some recent results by Varga concerning the theory of M-matrices, in connection with the well known iterative methods of Jacobi, of Extrapolated Jacobi and of Successive Over-relaxation, in two directions: i) The iteration matrix of the iterative scheme considered is more general than that of the aforementioned methods and may include a diagonal part and ii) the theory is presented in such a way that the number of equivalent statements given in the text covers the Accelerated Overrelaxation (AOR) method introduced by the present author not long ago.     

Numerische Lösung gewöhnlicher Differentialgleichungen mit Splinefunktionen

In this paper a general procedure to obtain spline approximations for the solutions of initial value problems for ordinary differential equations is presented. Several well-known spline approximation methods are included as special cases. It is common practice to partition the interval for which the initial value problem is defined into equidistant subintervals and to construct successively the spline approximation; thereby the spline function has to satisfy certain conditions at the knots. In the general procedure presented here additional knots are admitted in every subinterval. At these points which need not be equally spaced the spline approximation has to fulfill analogous conditions as at the original knots. Convergence and divergence theorems are proved; especially the influence of the additional knots on convergence and divergence of the method is investigated.     

Capability of the rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) extract on the oxidative stability of cooked sea bream (Sparus aurata) during frozen storage

The effects of rosemary extract addition on oxidative stability of cooked sea bream during frozen storage period were investigated. Sea bream fillets were fried, oven baked and grilled. Three groups with rosemary extract were also cooked by the same methods and cooked samples (with and without rosemary extract) were stored in ?18?°C for 4?months. After cooking procedures, the FFA formation was quite similar in fresh-raw and fried sea bream fillets, but significantly increased oven baked (0.31?C0.33% oleic acid) and grilled fillets (0.39?C0.40% oleic acid). The highest value of PV was also obtained from grilled fillets (1.18?C1.58?meq/kg). However, TBA values (1.92?mg MA/kg for fresh-raw fillet) did not increase in sea bream fillets after the frying and grilling procedure except oven baking without rosemary extract (2.41?mg MA/kg). A considerable increase in the FFA, PV and TBA was observed in all cooked groups during frozen storage period. The treated samples with rosemary extract generally showed slower PV and TBA formation than those of the untreated samples. However, the additions of rosemary extract have positive effect on sensory quality of baked sea bream.     

Evaluation of freshness decay of minced beef stored in high-oxygen modified atmosphere packaged at different temperatures using NIR and MIR spectroscopy

Meat freshness has been monitored by various microbiological, chemical and sensorial indices. However, these methods are slow and not suited to automation. Infrared spectroscopy is one of the most convenient analytical tools which could be used to monitor the evolution of food quality. The aim of this work was to investigate the ability of both NIR (Near Infrared) and MIR (Mid Infrared) spectroscopy to follow meat freshness decay. The minced beef was packaged in high-oxygen modified atmosphere (30% CO₂ and 70% O₂) and stored at three temperatures. Spectra were collected by Fourier-Transformation (FT)-NIR and FT-IR instruments. PCA, applied to the data, was able to discriminate samples on the basis of storage time and temperature. The modelling of PC scores versus time allowed the setting of the time of initial freshness decay for the samples (6–7 days at 4.3 °C, 2–3 days at 8.1 °C and less than 1 day at 15.5 °C).     

Internal quality and antioxidants content of cold-stored red sweet peppers as affected by polyethylene bag packaging and hot water treatment

Physical (weight, firmness) and compositional (sugars, organic acids, ascorbic acid, phenolic compounds and carotenoids) changes of red sweet peppers (Capsicum annuum L.) were monitored during 21 days of cold storage (at 7.5 °C); fruits were stored without packaging, packaged in low density polyethylene bags, or after hot water dipping (53 °C for 4 min) and packaging. Packaging prevented water loss, and preserved the firmness of the fresh product. Sugars (fructose and glucose) content was practically constant throughout the whole storage time, for all treatments. A moderate accumulation of citric acid was observed during storage, but no marked effects of packaging and hot water dipping on citric and malic acid content. Ascorbic acid content slightly increased in unpackaged and packaged fruits, but not in treated+packaged peppers. Hydroxycinnamics total content seemed not to be affected by cold storage, packaging or hot water treatment, whereas glycosylated flavonoids showed somewhat lowered levels during storage, particularly in the case of unpackaged and packaged+treated fruits. Regarding carotenoids content, the effect of the considered storage conditions seemed to be much smaller than that due to ripening stage. Provitamin A content showed an increasing trend in unpackaged and packaged fruits; packaged+treated peppers were characterised by a lower retention of provitamin A and a higher level of capsanthin and cucurbitaxanthin A with respect to not treated fruits. On the whole, packaging and hot water treatment did not produce noticeable adverse effects on the majority of the examined compositional quality parameters.