Soy okara, a nutrient-rich byproduct of tofu production, has limited use in food and feed due to its high content of oligosaccharides and enzyme inhibitors. Its high moisture content causes quick spoilage, leading to frequent waste and environmental concerns. To overcome these challenges, drying can extend its shelf life and enhance its potential for higher-value applications. This study investigates microwave-assisted foam mat drying (MFD) of okara, aiming to optimize foaming conditions and enhance drying and product quality. The optimal conditions-48.06% okara pulp, 2.64% egg white powder (EWP), 2.91% maltodextrin (MD), and 3.52 min of whipping time (WT)-enhanced foam stability and expansion. Drying at 300, 450, and 600 W followed the Page model (R-2 > 0.989), with higher power accelerating moisture removal. Microwave drying reduced moisture content and bulk density, resulting in improved water solubility index and flowability with increasing wattage. Foam-dried samples exhibited brighter color, lower browning index, and a porous microstructure. Structural analysis through XRD and SEM confirmed increased porosity and reduced crystallinity. FTIR spectra highlighted changes in functional groups due to the foaming agents, while TGA revealed that the foamed samples were thermally less stable, with lower degradation temperatures (Tp) and higher weight loss (Delta W) compared to the control samples. Additionally, foam samples retained total phenolic content (TPC) and antioxidant activity (DPPH inhibition), further increasing the potential value of dried okara. MFD offers a potentially scalable solution for valorizing soy okara, reducing waste, and enhancing resource efficiency, with promising applications in functional foods and nutraceuticals.

Tomatoes, a highly perishable agricultural product, are commonly dried to extend their shelf life. They serve as raw materials in various domains, including direct consumption and as key ingredients in processed foods, functional foods, and nutraceuticals. However, producing dried tomato products with quality attributes equivalent to fresh tomatoes, such as nutrient content, appearance, flavor, texture, and reconstitution properties, poses significant challenges. Several research attempts have been made to evaluate the feasibility of different drying methods for tomatoes. Solar drying, hot air drying, and spray drying are commonly employed techniques, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Conventional solar drying practices often result in extended drying times and undesirable quality parameters. Hence, it is imperative to adopt enhanced solar drying techniques for the large-scale production of dried tomato products. Additionally, hybrid-drying approaches can be explored to achieve better quality products with reduced drying times. Pretreatments before drying can also enhance overall drying performance. Combining conventional drying with novel drying methods, precise selection of drying parameters and pretreatments are demonstrated as efficient ways to improve the drying rate while preserving food quality. Modeling the drying process is also critical for designing large-scale dryers, selecting appropriate drying conditions, maintaining product quality, and process optimization. Therefore, this article aims to provide detailed insight into existing drying methods with their unique features and modeling approaches, which may enable professionals and scientists to choose better and optimized tomato drying method to deliver the highest quality product to consumers.Practical ApplicationsProcessing tomatoes as dried products is a potential area to explore to minimize their postharvest loss. Lack of awareness regarding how to process, what parameters to consider, and which method to employ are hurdles in adopting and popularizing dried tomato products. Hence, it is crucial to consolidate the key findings pertaining to tomato drying from various methods into a unified platform. This will provide valuable guidance to future researchers and enable consumers to make informed decisions when selecting the most suitable drying method. Therefore, this comprehensive review aims to elucidate the current practices in tomato drying, highlighting their potential benefits and limitations. The review comprises the importance of tomato drying and various conventional and advanced methods available in dried tomato production. Different approaches for enhancing drying efficiency and mathematical modeling concepts in tomato drying techniques are elaborated on in the manuscript. image

Designed experiments were conducted to investigate the influence of ohmic heating (OH) at varying electric field strength (EFS) and holding time on the recovery of oil from mustard (Brassica juncea) seeds during mechanical expression. Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) in the visible-near infrared (Vis–NIR, 399–1003 nm) and short-wave infrared (SWIR, 895–1712 nm) ranges was used to visualize the change in oil distribution induced by OH on the mustard seeds. OH treatment led to an increase in expression of oil content by 25

In this study, a soybean aqueous extract-based composite film was developed by incorporating beeswax, clove essential oil, and span-20 via ultrasonication. The effect of ultrasonication power level (0-600 W) on the rheological properties of the film forming solution (FFS) and important film properties such as water vapor permeability, tensile strength, elongation at break, and opacity was evaluated. It was found that ultrasonication treatment until a power level of 400 W at a constant treatment condition of 15 min and a frequency of 20 kHz improved barrier (water vapor permeability: 2.91 x 10(-10) g m/m(2).Pa.s) and mechanical properties (tensile strength: 2.53 MPa). Ultrasonication considerably reduced the apparent viscosity of FFS from 1.32 Pa s (control) to 0.188 Pa s (600 W) and improved the flow behavior. The smooth and homogenous surface obtained in SEM analysis validated the enhanced properties obtained for ultrasonication treated films. Model fitting of moisture sorption data of the experiments indicated that the GAB model is best suited to predict the moisture uptake behavior of developed films at all selected temperatures (25, 35, and 45 degrees C). Sealed samples exhibited a tearing failure during testing with a seal strength value of 59.16 N/m. A qualitative biodegradation test resulted in the degradation of films within 12 days, making them an eco-friendlier packaging option. Application of the developed film as a packaging material for muffins showed that soybean aqueous extract-based film could maintain the moisture content and textural parameters of muffins for up to six days under ambient storage.

Food packaging is an important area of food research due to its prime role in the protection and containment of foodstuffs. Traditionally petroleum-derived polymers fulfill the lion's share of packaging material requirements. However, present-day consumers are more concerned about the environmental impact and health hazards of these synthetic polymers. This necessitates the requirement of alternative packaging material with unique biodegradable and renewable characteristics. The edible film is considered a solution to replace these synthetic plastics with naturally available bio-macromolecules such as polysaccharides, proteins, and lipids. An enormous number of researches have been carried out across the world to explore its full potential. Their findings need to be consolidated for further development of this trending research area. Therefore, this article comprehensively reviews previous research progresses, such as different film formulations from various sources and their characteristics and product applications to guide the enthusiastic researchers. Finally, the last section of this article elaborates on safety and regulation aspects as well as recent trends and challenges to tackle all the obstacles in establishing a greener packaging option.

In the current study, soybean aqueous extract (SAE)-based nanocomposite film was developed by incorporating cellulose nanofiber (CNF) at various concentrations (0-10%). Effect of nanoreinforcement on essential properties of the nanocomposite film such as barrier, mechanical, water affinity, and optical properties were evaluated. Homogeneous films with improved barrier and mechanical properties were observed until 6% CNF, beyond which considerable reduction in desirable properties was noticed due to nanoparticle's agglomeration effect. Furthermore, the prediction of the mechanical and barrier properties of nanocomposite film was performed with mathematical models such as modified Halpin-Tsai and modified Nielsen equations, respectively. The model-fitting results reveal that the theoretically predicted values were in close agreement with the experimental values. Hence, these models were well suited for predicting respective properties. Model prediction also implies that the increase in the aspect ratio of fillers can considerably cause a reduction in water vapor permeability and improvement in mechanical properties. Suitability of developed film as cheese slice separator was evaluated: they had equivalent outcomes in terms of easiness in slice separation and wholeness of slices after separation compared to the commercial material.

Soybean aqueous extract (SAE) is a promising raw material for edible film preparation. In this study, SAE-based composite edible film was developed by incorporating beeswax (0.4-1.2%), clove essential oil (0.5-1.5%), and span-20 (0.5-1.5%), and their effect on the physico-mechanical and barrier properties was evaluated. Response surface methodology (RSM) using central composite rotatable design and supervised artificial neural network (ANN) models were used to predict the effect of the independent variables on responses like tensile strength, elongation at break, water vapor permeability, moisture content, water-solubility, and optical parameters. All the independent variables had a significant role (p < 0.05) on the responses, and the experimental data were better predicted by ANN models compared to RSM with higher R-2, lower RMSE, MAE and chi(2) values. The RSM optimized value of beeswax, clove essential oil, and span-20 was 1.2%, 0.91%, and 0.73%, respectively. Among the independent variables, beeswax and clove essential oil were the most influential in mechanical and water barrier properties, while the level of span 20 affected the color and solubility of the films. A semi-crystalline nature of the composite film was evident from the SEM and XRD analysis. The characterization of the developed film confirmed its utility in food packaging applications.

The feasibility of using non-conventional osmotic agents such as coconut sugar, and jaggery in coconut chips production was evaluated, and compared with sucrose treated chips in terms of quality and sensory attributes. Samples were processed at the identical condition of 0.60 mm slice thickness, 45 oBrix solution concentration, and 65 degrees C drying temperature. Osmotic dehydration ability of different osmotic agents on coconut slices was found to be comparable in terms of water loss and solute gain. Pretreatment significantly enhances mass transfer rate of water during convective drying. However, sucrose treated samples shown slightly higher effective diffusivity values during both osmotic dehydration and hot air drying due to the inherent nature of solution. Introduction of new osmotic agents was positively reflected in the sensory attributes. Other important quality indices like rehydration ratio, solute gain, textural parameters and hygroscopicity also came under an acceptable range for all samples. Thin-layer drying behavior of slices was analyzed with six widely used drying models. According to the model fittings, the drying behavior of sucrose and jaggery-treated slices can be well described by the modified Henderson and Pabis equation, and the logarithmic equation was best suited to coconut sugarbased chip samples.

Coconut slices were converted into healthy coconut chips by replacing conventional osmotic agent with jaggery to counteract the health deteriorating effect of refined sugar. The optimal processing condition to yield the desired product was determined by employing a Box-Behnken design based on independent variables: drying temperature (50-70 degrees C), jaggery solution concentration (45-55 degrees Brix), and slice thickness (0.50-1.00 mm). The simultaneous optimization of these processing parameters was done based on the responses: final moisture content, drying rate, rehydration ratio, crispness, appearance, taste and overall acceptability. Further, the sample prepared at the optimized condition (drying temperature - 66.22 degrees C, slice thickness - 0.55 mm and jaggery solution concentration - 46.18 degrees Brix) was characterized and compared with traditional refined sugar osmosed coconut chips. Proximate and mineral analysis of the optimized sample suggested that incorporating a new osmotic agent, jaggery, has improved the nutritional quality of the chips with higher consumer acceptability.

The reckless use of plastic is becoming a major threat to the environment. Therefore, reduction of plastic pollution is becoming a primary priority of every nation around the globe. Scientific community across the world has been searching for an alternative to plastic for many years. Food industry globally contributes a major share of the total plastic waste produced. Use of biodegradable and edible films is an alternate for many of the existing use of plastic packages in food and allied industry. Although it is not sufficient to completely curb the problem, may be able to play an important role in plastic pollution. More focus on edible and biodegradable packaging research is the need of the hour to make them a complete alternative for plastic packaging.

In 21 st century life is so fast, complex and stressed that everybody wants to stay fit and healthy.In our meals, we have so many food and nutritional items which provide us good nutrition.Among all the components of the diets, dietary fibers plays a very crucial and important role to maintain the individual health and fitness.Dietary fiber abundantly found in cereals and fruits, which helps us to keep the gut microbiota healthy.Microbes present in the gut extract energy from dietary fiber and formed metabolites like short chain fatty acids (SCFAs).SCFAs play a beneficial role to human physiology and prevent constipation and obesity.One has to include the right amount of dietary fibre in his diet to ensure the proper functioning of whole digestive system.In all dietary fiber intake help to maintain gut microbiota diversity and keep the individual healthy and fit.

Protein-lipid film is a very popular food material which can be prepared from various protein foods. A remarkable example of the protein-lipid film is a traditional soybean food which is a cream-yellow bland flavoured surface film of high nutritional value (soy protein-lipid film, designated as Yuba or soymilk skin), which is formed during the heating of soymilk. The protein digestion rate of the protein-lipid film is almost 100%.The objective of this study was to optimize the production of the composite protein lipid film using ohmic heating method, which has a significant effect on the quality of film produced over the conventional water bath heating, from blends of soy milk, peanut milk and fresh corn milk according to D-optimal mixture design approach. Results demonstrated that soy milk, peanut milk and fresh corn milk had noticeable effect on yield and protein content of the film. Multi-response optimization using all of the regression models was performed with the Design-Expert software, using its defaults settings to construct a desirability score that balances all of the fitted models. The methodology of the desired function was applied and the optimum level of various process variables was obtained as, Soy milk 0.57 Peanut milk 0.4 and corn milk 0.03, which gives the maximum of 21.44 g/100ml yield and 56.83% protein content with overall desirability value of 0.81.Other responses like colour, rehydration capacity and thickness of the film found to have no significant effect with the different milk formulations

106Food preservation has been used for the past years for maintaining edible products for consumption. New infectious diseases are emerging and adapting to infect humans in its own unique way. Besides these emerging and reemerging pathogens adaptation to the human environment, the changes in human lifestyle, population, and globalization of food supply have created new outbreaks for pathogens to infect humans. Preservation processes are designed to slow down the growth of microorganisms and are affected by food factors both intrinsic and extrinsic factors like pH, oxidation-reduction potentials, water activity, and natural antimicrobials. Several factors like heat, irradiation, and nonthermal processing are involved in inactivation of microorganisms. A combination of several techniques and processes can be used to make the food safer and to extend the shelf life of foodstuffs. A widespread suppression or eradication of the foodborne agents is not feasible. Continuous research efforts and newer strategies are essential for better understanding to control foodborne pathogens, and consumer educa- tion should be consistent which will create a quick response to the new and reemerging foodborne pathogens.

This chapter reviews chemical modification, characterization and function properties of modified pearl millet starch. Millet starches typically have polygonal and spherical starch granules. The process of starch modification is recasting and remodeling the basic structure of starch by creating an impact on the hydrogen bond in a regulatory manner. Chemical modification is commercially carried out to overcome the inherent deficiencies of native starch, i.e., higher retrogradation, which results in developing an extensive cohesive gel with elevated syneresis. Chemical modifications of starch include oxidation, cross-linking; and dual modification are commonly practiced. Dilute conditions are best forms that are used for chemical modification of starches. Wattanachant et al. reported that, to obtain a very appreciable effect, the very low degree of cross-linking reaction with C3H5ClO made it difficult to determine the DS directly and earlier reported the characterization of cross-linked starch and its quality control are dependent on the measurement of physical properties.