A Brief Review of the Occurrence, Use, and Safety of Food‐Related Nanomaterials

Genetic techniques for plant breeding

To overcome food borne illness, food quality and safety are major scientific disciplines including food handling, preparation and storage. Detection of contaminants in the food system is the main concern regarding public health. It is necessary to develop an immunoassay system to detect and control food borne pathogens in contaminated foods before they enter into the human food chain and cause infections. The conventional methods including agar plating, chromatography or immunoassay are tedious and time consuming for detection of food contamination, while biosensors are one option to overcome these problems. There is growing interest towards biosensors technology due to high specificity, convenience and quick response. In the field of food science and technology, biosensors technology for the detection of food borne pathogens is more fascinating to the current researchers. In this contest we introduce, quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) a label free and piezoelectric biosensor for the detection of pathogenic microbes and toxins present in the food. The potential significance of the present review is to provide the implementation of QCM based biosensor for the detection of various analytes in food systems including toxic and nontoxic.

Sensors support machine learning

EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Food

Natural bioactive ingredients have lower bioavailability because of their chemical instability and poor water solubility, which limits their applications in functional foods. Among diverse biopolymers that can be used to construct delivery systems of bioactives, chitosan has attracted extensive attention due to its unique cationic nature, excellent mucoadhesive properties and easy modification. In this review, chitosan and its composites-based food-grade delivery systems as well as the factors affecting their performance are summarized. Modification, crosslinking, combination with other biopolymer or utilization of coating material can effectively overcome the instability of pure chitosan-based carriers under acidic conditions, thereby constructing chitosan and its complex-based carriers with conspicuously improved performance. Furthermore, the applications of chitosan-based delivery systems in nutrition and health as well as their future development trends and challenges are discussed. Functional food ingredients, functional food packaging and biological health are potential applications of chitosan-based food-grade delivery systems. The research trends of nutraceutical delivery systems based on chitosan and its composites include co-delivery of nutrients and essential oils, targeted intestinal delivery, stimulus responsive/sustained release and their applications in real foods. In conclusion, food industry will be significantly promoted with the continuous innovation and development of chitosan-based nutraceutical delivery systems.

<scp>IFST</scp> vision for a <scp>UK</scp>‐wide national food strategy

Agricultural production, agro-industrial food processing, distribution and consumption generate high Amounts of varied food by-products and waste which place a heavy burden on the environment and cause losses to the food industry. The most common disposal methods of food wastes are the use of landfills and incineration, which lead to several environmental, social, and economic issues. However, many of these by-products and wastes have been reported to be higher than the final product in terms of nutritional or functional properties, making them potential raw materials for application in the agro-food industry. Together with the recent sustainable development goals of food security, environmental protection, and energy efficiency, these are the key reasons why food waste valorization is necessary. Valorization of food waste within the bio-economy approach offers an economical and environmental opportunity that can serve as a solution to the issues faced with the conventional disposal methods. Traditionally, in Africa, especially in Cameroon, food by-products and waste have been valorized into a range of products for application in food and food preparation, including food additives and spices, food emulsifiers and stabilizers, food salts and nutraceuticals. Traditional Waste valorization methods could achieve sustainable development in technologically underdeveloped countries by going beyond improving agro-food waste management to the production of useful biochemicals, food ingredients and food products, which can be referred to as value added products from waste. In addition, the processing and conversion of these agro-food by-products and waste generated in the poor regions of the world for the production and formulation of novel foods and biochemicals will directly benefit the local communities by reducing environmental pollution and increasing income in the food industry. This review aims at providing insight into current trends in food waste valorization using traditional methods in an African country such as Cameroon. This paper presents the variety and type of food waste within the food chain that can be valorized into various products using traditional methods. Furthermore, a series of examples of key food waste valorization schemes and value added products as case studies to demonstrate the advancement in traditional bioconversions are described, bringing out the opportunities and challenges for the Cameroon bioeconomy.

Nowadays, oleogels have gained attentions as promising fat substitutes. Lipid-based compounds, mono- and diacylglycerols, fatty acids (FAs), fatty alcohols, waxes, sterols, ceramides, and phospholipids exhibit excellent oil-gelling potential due to their structural similarity to triacylglycerols. This review addresses how oleogels composition affects their nutritional functionality and further applications in food industry. The properties of oleogels structured by lipid-based compounds depend on structurant (concentration, type, ratio), solvent oil (type, FA profile, minor polar components), and processing conditions (cooling rate, shear force). Synergistic effects between FAs and fatty alcohols have been confirmed, and a thermodynamics-based screening model has been developed to assist identification of potential oil-structuring combinations, though further validation is needed. Oleogel offers health benefits contributed by its structure, oleogelator, and solvent oil type, including replacing harmful fats, delaying lipid release, inhibiting lipid-lipase interactions, and delivering bioactives, but long-term safety studies, especially for FAs and fatty alcohols, are required. Thus, modulating gel processing conditions and the composition of structurants and solvent oils can tailor the properties of oleogels, enhancing their nutritional function and broadening potential applications in food industry with desired product quality. Oleogels have been successfully applied in bakery, dairy, meats, spreads, margarine, confectionary, frying medium, and delivery systems, with complete fat substitution strategies developed for cheese, meat, spreads, and margarines. Further research could explore their nutritional roles and applications in functional foods, particularly considering the regulatory limitations and the influence of long-term consumption on human metabolisms.

The foremost challenge in food and beverage industry is the need to develop quick and cost effective tools in the detection of contaminants, toxins, non-Halal components and pathogens in the food. For this reason, biosensor is one of the best tool to detect and verify the existence of those components. They are modern analytical devices which consist of bio-receptor, transducer and signal processing to produce specific reaction when in contact with a specific component. Biosensors are recently gaining much interest and widely used in analysis of bio-materials for better understanding of their bio-compositions, structures and functions by converting biological responses into electrical signals. In this review, various biosensors reported in the literatures for the detection of pork in food, detection of alcohol in fermented beverages, monitoring of fructose level and detection of harmful contaminants in dairy products are summarized, highlighting their principles, advantages, and limitations together with their simplicity, sensitivity, and multiplexing capabilities.

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) is a robust and nondestructive method that can detect foreign particles such as microbial, chemical, and physical contamination in food. This review summarizes the work done in the last two decades in this field with a highlight on challenges, risks, and research gaps. Considering the challenges of using HSI on complex matrices like food (e.g., the confounding and masking effects of background signals), application of machine learning and modeling approaches that have been successful in achieving better accuracy as well as increasing the detection limit have also been discussed here. Foodborne microbial contaminants such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, yeast, and protozoa are of interest and concern to food manufacturers due to the potential risk of either food poisoning or food spoilage. Detection of these contaminants using fast and efficient methods would not only prevent outbreaks and recalls but will also increase consumer acceptance and demand for shelf-stable food products. The conventional culture-based methods for microbial detection are time and labor-intensive, whereas hyperspectral imaging (HSI) is robust, nondestructive with minimum sample preparation, and has gained significant attention due to its rapid approach to detection of microbial contaminants. This review is a comprehensive summary of the detection of bacterial, viral, and fungal contaminants in food with detailed emphasis on the specific modeling and datamining approaches used to overcome the specific challenges associated with background and data complexity.

Encapsulation systems for the delivery of hydrophilic nutraceuticals: Food application

Consumer perceptions of food quality are dependent on many factors other than the organoleptic properties of products. Quality parameters include perceptions of risk associated with different potential food hazards, as well as ethical concerns associated with food production are likely to have an impact on consumer acceptance of quality. In addition, lack of consumer confidence in activities within the food chain reflects distrust in the activities of different stakeholders within foodproduction systems. It is these perceptions, beliefs and attitudes that may ultimately influence consumer behaviours. The focus of this paper is to briefly review individual difference in risk perceptions and attitudes associated with food production, and to discuss how this influences consumer acceptance of food quality. It is concluded that many public concerns about food production issues, are the result of perceived lack of transparency in regulatory and production systems, and public perceptions that the “truth” about risks is being concealed in order to protect the vested interests of regulators, scientists, producers or the food industry. It is concluded that new integrated risk analysis systems should be developed which do not a priori assume that risk assessment, risk management and risk communication should be functionally separated. INTRODUCTION Recent food scares have increased consumer concerns about quality of food and how this is related to food production practices. In particular, consumer confidence in the motives of food producers and retailers, and institutions which have responsibility for consumer protection, have decreased. Examples of recent food hazards that have exacerbated this effect include BSE (which has apparently increased consumer concerns about other animal diseases such as foot and mouth, and animal welfare issues associated with animal feeds), public concerns about the use of transgenic organisms in agriculture and food production, the presence of dioxins and endocrine disrupters in the food chain, and the acrylamide scare in Sweden. Consumer concern is not exclusively related to risk. Ethical concerns (such as those associated with animal husbandry practices, animal welfare in general, environmental impact of agricultural technologies and concerns about technology negatively impacting the integrity of nature) are also likely to determine the acceptability or otherwise of different food products. Thus consumer perception and interpretation of quality may include diverse factors such as organoleptic properties, risk perceptions, and ethical issues related to the method of production and the impact of agricultural practices on the environment or well-being of animals. Proc. Int. Conf. Quality in Chains Eds. Tijskens & Vollebregt Acta Hort. 604, ISHS 2003 234 It is now recognized that technical risk estimates alone do not form the basis for the development of a coherent and utilitarian food policy that is also acceptable to consumers. Research conducted by Paul Slovic and his co-workers (for example, see Slovic, 1993) has consistently demonstrated that factors such as whether a risk is perceived to be involuntary, potentially catastrophic, or uncontrolled are more important determinants of public response than technical risk estimates. Risk perceptions represent extremely important determinants of food choice behaviours and perceptions of food quality. Risk perceptions and related attitudes not only influence health behaviours associated with dietary and nutritional issues (such as high levels of fat consumption, or patterns of dietary intake that exclude particular nutrients), but also influence attitudes towards microbiological risks and food handling practices. Risk perception is important in the understanding of public attitudes towards the different processes and technologies used in agriculture and food manufacturing, and has been problematic in terms of introducing some innovations from within the biosciences into the food chain. The importance of such perceptions has been studied in the context of food safety (Fife-Schaw and Rowe, 2000; Verbeke and Viane, 1999; Verbeke, 2001; Frewer and Salter, 2002), transgenic organisms in the food chain (Frewer et al., 1997), and unintended negative environmental and health impacts of agricultural technologies (Levidow and Marris 2001). There has also been emphasis on institutional and cultural differences in risk analysis (Turner and Wynne, 1992). Individual differences in perceptions are also important, particularly under circumstances where risk exposure is perceived to be involuntary (Barnett and Breakwell, 2001). Affective factors, such as “worry’’, may also influence perceived risk (Baron et al, 2000), as may personality correlates such as “anxiety” (Bouyer et al, 2001). Differences in perceptions of risk and benefit associated with various hazards exist between different countries and cultures, between different individuals within countries, and within different individuals at different times and within different contexts (Burger et al, 2001; Frewer et al, in press). For example, gender or ethnicity is one of the best predictors of higher risk perception for a range of health and safety issues, (Dosman et al 2001; Flynn et al, 1994; Fincucane et al, 2000; Johnson 2002). One conclusion from this research is that ethnic minorities, less affluent individuals and women perceive that they are excluded from risk management decisionmaking processes. Otway (1987) has observed that effective risk management involves structuring decision-making processes in such a way that they can accommodate social concerns and provide institutional forms in which these social concerns can be discussed. In particular, societal priorities for risk mitigation activities may not align with those identified by expert groups. However, dismissing the former as irrelevant may result in public outrage, and increased distrust in the motives of regulators and industry. HOW DO CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS AND ATTITUDES INFLUENCE BEHAVIOURS? Consumer attitudes and perceptions can influence behaviours in various ways. Some examples of how risk perceptions may be associated with particular products or foods are summarised below: • Product choices and product substitution. Consumers may avoid the product category and turn to substitute products (of particular importance when a category of food product is affected by a risk for example, consumer tendency to choose beef products was impacted by both the BSE (Pennings, Warsink and Meulenberg, 2002) and dioxin scares (Verbeke 2001) • Brand choices. Consumers may turn to brands that they trust more strongly (Smith Young and Gibson, 1998) and that provide reassurance in terms of risk perception (Aaker, 1991). • Retail choice. Consumers may switch to retailers with a stronger image of trust-

BackgroundThe analysis of the quality of food is important to protect humans from food-borne or food-based illnesses caused by pathogens, such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, and protozoa. Rapid identification of these pathogens is critical to ensure food safety. Various detection and identification strategies exist; however, they are laborious and time consuming and hence the detection takes longer time. The aim of this study was to develop the specific and fast method for the detection of contaminants in milk. ResultsIn this study, we have developed a simple paper-based PCR method with minimum sample preparation process. The 16S rDNA universal primers were used for the detection of bacterial contaminants. LacZ primers were used for coliform detection which causes serious illness and hence their detection is crucial. ITS region primers were used for fungal detection. The most unique thing about this study is use of Whatman paper no. 1 as sample carrier material. We developed and validated the paper-based PCR method and used it for the detection of microbes and coliforms using milk as a representative sample. ConclusionWe evaluated this method for its suitability in the detection of contaminant microbes using different milk samples. The paper-based method could successfully detect contaminants in the milk samples and the results were comparable to the traditional microbial detection method. The traditional microbiological method takes at least 18–20 h for detecting the presence of microbes in any sample but the developed paper-based PCR method can confirm the microbial presence in 2–3 h. This is very promising especially in the testing where sample sterility is crucial.

A vision for food, nutrition and health research

From the President and IFST News