Nano Food Research Articles

Investigation of Knowledge and Awareness about Food Nanotechnology of Nutrition and Dietetics Students

In this study, it was aimed to examine the knowledge and awareness levels of nutrition and dietetics department students about food nanotechnology. This descriptive study was conducted with 242 students aged 18 and over who were studying at the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics.52.1% of the participants are 22 years old and over, and 66.9% have heard of the concept of food nanotechnology (nano food). In the study, it was determined that the level of knowledge and awareness about food nanotechnology was high among those who had heard of the concept of food nanotechnology (nano food) before (p=0.017) and those who had knowledge of food nanotechnology (nano food) (p=0.000). Those who think that smart packaging systems that provide information about the quality of packaged food during storage and transportation will not be useful (p=0.001), those who think that smart packaging methods will be preferred instead of traditional packaging techniques with the development of nanotechnology (p=0.000), have ethical concerns about the use of nanotechnology in the field of food. The level of knowledge and awareness about food nanotechnology was found to be high among those who thought that the use of nanotechnology in the field of food was very low (p=0.000) and those who stated that the perceived risk level was very low (p=0.000). It shows that nutrition and dietetics students have limited knowledge about the wide application of food nanotechnology.

An update on Bulimia Nervosa and its Management

Bulimia Nervosa is an eating disorder where a patient indulges in binging and purging. Various psy-chological treatments are available like Cognitive Behavior Theory (CBT) and Interpersonal psycho-therapy which focusses on combating the negative thoughts to prevent destructive habit. Pharmacolog-ical treatments like consuming antidepressants like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) play a major role in eating disorder (ED) therapy. Bulimia Nervosa and its effects on the body can be main-tained by increasing the serotonin levels. Serotonin level can be increased by increasing tryptophan, folic acid, omega-3 fatty acids, electrolytes like potassium, magnesium etc in the body. Pharmacologi-cal treatment may have its own side effects in the body like dizziness, agitation, insomnia etc. Thus, various natural ingredients and herbs can be used like soybean, turmeric, whole grains, ginseng etc., for the management of Bulimia Nervosa (BN). Introducing nano foods using nanotechnology and adding polyphenols for managing BN can be a new scope for the food industry as well as the nutraceutical industry.

A Review on Nano-Food Packaging: An Untapped Revolution in Food Packaging

Spoilage of food is a worldwide concern because of poor faulty packaging material. Today the evolution of nanotechnology in the food industry provides several benefits in food preservation, food processing, and food packaging. Nano packaging has found many applications in the food industry. Nano packaging of food provides many benefits such as oxygen (O2) scavengers, moisture scavengers, antimicrobial, gas barrier properties, strength, flexibility, keeping an eye on freshness, etc. These nanomaterials help to increase the shelf life of food, and maintaining the quality without causing any alteration is a primary concern. Nano packaging made it possible to transport food globally by increasing the shelf life of food products. Nano food packaging, however, is still in the fetal stage; therefore, this review crisps the present status and recent advancement of this technology. Furthermore, address the toxicity of nanoparticles (NPs) in food packaging and safety concerns. The pros and cons of this novel technology will describe its usefulness and appropriateness in the food packaging industry.

Role of nanoparticles in maintaining food safety and tackling malnutrition

The food varieties which complete what seems like a forever cycle from development to bundling through nanotechnology are known as Nano food, for instance, we are devouring some braced food that has nanoparticles like iron, zinc, omega 3, and coenzymes. Numerous food sources normally having safe nanoparticles, get processed in the body at the nanoscale. Nano food sources have high dietary benefits and less bad cholesterol. They are the cutting-edge food that may battle against Malnutrition. There are more than 500 nano foods accessible in the market which can be sorted as Nanoemulsion, Nano container, and bundled food. Nanoparticles are additionally utilized as a protected palatable covering that monitors our food against parasite, dampness, and gas trade in this way expanding the self-existence of food. Nanoparticles have an extraordinary job in food bundling.

A Review on the Application of Nanotechnology in Food Industries

Nanotechnology has the potential to be used in the food business and processing as novel pathogen detection instruments, disease treatment delivery methods, food packaging, and bioactive component distribution to specific areas. Nanotechnology's implementation in food systems will bring new approaches to improving food safety and nutritional value. It sums up the capability of nanoparticles for their utilization in the food business to give purchasers a safe and tainting-free food and to guarantee the customer adequacy of the food with upgraded useful properties. With the increase in shelf life and enhanced quality, the edible packages or thin-film usage can delay the deterioration of food. To regulate the nanomaterials and applications in the food industry a legal basis has been made. The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recommended the standard test guidelines be used for the hazard assessment of nanomaterials for chemical safety. Finally, nanotechnology supports the change of the existing food processing systems to attest the safety of the products, nurturing a healthy food, and also the food’s nutritive quality to be enhanced. The straightforwardness of security issues and natural effect should be the need while managing the advancement of nanotechnology in food frameworks and hence mandatory testing of nano food varieties is expected before they are delivered to the market.

CONSUMER RELATED THEORIES AND THE RIGHT TO INFORMED CHOICE FOR CONSUMER IN NANO FOOD CONSUMPTION

The use of nanomaterials in food-by-food producers has increased in today’s modern society. Food that contains nanomaterials is known as nano food, which is associated with both benefits and risks. Due to the uncertainty of its risks, it is important to accord consumers with the right to informed choice in the context of nano food consumption. In the absence of this right in the existing food legislation in Malaysia, this paper aims to examine the underlying principles from the perspective of consumer-related theories to provide theoretical justification in reforming the present food legislation. This paper presents how the identified consume-related theories can be applied to explain the need for such rights in Malaysian legislation. Three consumer-related theories, which are the Theory of Planned Behaviour, Consumerism heory, and Postmodernism Theory, are analysed through a doctrinal approach and via theory analysis. Deductive inferences were made to establish the rationale for the need to have the right of informed choice available to consumers in the context of nano food consumption. The examination of the theories evidently shows that the right to informed choice can be exercised through labelling requirements for nano food. This paper contributes significantly to the existing body of knowledge as it highlights the need for the right to informed choice for consumers in nano food consumption, and emphasises the identification of consumer-related theories to support legislative reform so as to include the right. This paper suggests the use of labelling as a way of according the right to informed choice to consumers in nano food consumption.

Nanomaterials for food packaging applications: A systematic review

The application of nanotechnology in food packaging is widely considered during the last two decades. In this regard, numerous studies have been conducted regarding applying nanomaterials such as zinc oxide, clay, silver, carbon nanotube, titanium dioxide, and copper, and copper oxide in food packaging which were summarized in the current study. The employing of nano food packaging increases the physicochemical quality of food (color, flavor, moisture content, weight, bioavailability, and texture) and reduces the microbial load by cell-membrane function, Trojan-horse, and reactive oxygen mechanisms while they improve the barrier/mechanical properties of food packaging. Although nano food packaging has many advantages for public health, the associated toxicity due to migration, especially in acidic conditions, is considerable. Further studies regarding the advantages and disadvantages of this technique are recommended.

Pan bread quality as affected by some nano and fermented-nano food industries by-products

BackgroundRapid development of nanotechnology is expected to transform many areas of food technology with increasing investment and market share. Also, phytochemical-rich foods have attracted consumer’s attention due to their ability to promote benefits for human health. So, in this study, the suitability of some food industry by-products [nano-wheat bran (NWB), nano-wheat germ (NWG), fermented nano-rice bran (FNRB), fermented nano-carrot pomace (FNCP), and fermented nano-pomegranate peel (FNPP)] as supplements for pan bread was investigated.ResultsLoaf volume significantly (p ≤ 0.05) decreased, while loaf weight increased by increasing the level of all tested materials as compared to control bread. Hardness and chewiness of bread samples increased, while springiness and cohesiveness decreased by increasing the level of replacement of all nano-materials. The control bread had the lowest value of alkaline water retention capacity (AWRC) being 326, 292, 265, and 237%, respectively for 3, 24, 48, and 72 h of storage time at room temperature. At all levels of replacing, noticeable increase of AWRC was detected as well as retarding staling rate of bread during storage.ConclusionThe sensory evaluation results of bread indicated that functional pan bread with acceptable quality could be prepared from NWB, NWG, and FNRB up to 15% and FNCB and FNPP up to 5% replacement level.

Nanotechnology in food systems: Application and safety

Nanotechnology is a multidisciplinary technological and scientific field undergoing a rapid development. In this paper, current applications of nanotechnology in food systems include pesticide delivery systems through bioactive nanencapsulations, biosensors to detect and quantify pathogens, organic compounds, other chemicals and food composition alteration, high–performance sensors and edible thin films to preserve fruit and vegetable. The paper conclude that it is necessary to do a thorough risk assessment of nano foods before they are released to the market.

Governing with Ignorance: Understanding the Australian Food Regulator’s Response to Nano Food

This paper examines regulatory responses to the presence of previously undetected and unlabelled nanoparticles in the Australian food system. Until 2015, the Australian regulatory body Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) denied that nanoparticles were present in Australian food. However, and despite repeated claims from Australia’s food regulator, research commissioned by civil society group Friends of the Earth has demonstrated that nanoparticles are deliberately included as ingredients in an array of food available for sale in Australia. This paper critically examines how nanoparticles have come to be integrated into Australia’s food system under the radar of Australia’s food regulator. Our case study of FSANZ—including its responses to the civil society-led science that determined the existence of nanoparticles in Australian food—raises a number of important questions about the governance of risk in relation to emerging technologies such as nanotechnology. In this paper, we argue that FSANZ’ response to the presence of nanotechnology in Australia’s food system is an example of ‘governing with ignorance’. This is demonstrated via the denial and dismissal of science claims as a basis for limited regulatory intervention. FSANZ’ response intersects with the centrality of commercial interests in shaping science research and commercialisation, alongside the ‘hands off’ approach to regulation that is characteristic of neoliberal governance approaches. We conclude by arguing that in the current food governance framework, and alongside a paucity of impact science, civil society plays a vital role in attempts to democratise the Australian food system.

Significance of Nanotechnology in Food Industry

Magical spell have the ability to turn everything touched into gold, in real time scenario one such spell is “Nanotechnology” which has the mysterical power to revolutionize every field touched by it. Nanotechnology is now invading the food industry and establishing great potential.Nanotechnology applications in food industry include: encapsulation and delivery of substances in targeted sites, increasing the flavor,introducing antibacterial nanoparticles into food, enhancement of shelf life, sensing contamination, improved food storage, tracking, tracing and brand protection. Nano food processing and products can change the color, flavor, or sensory characteristics; they also change the nutritional functionality, removes chemicals or pathogens from food. Nano food packaging materials may extend food life due to high barrier packaging, improve food safety, alert consumers that food is contaminated or spoiled, repair tears in packaging, and even release preservatives to extend the life of the food in the package. Nanobarcodes are used for safety labeling and monitor distribution of food products. Nanosupplements can be easily incorporated by encapsulation techniques for nutritional and drug delivery systems effectively. And as health plays a major role in food the disadvantages of the technology is to be concerned.

Bioaccumulation of ZnO-NPs in Earthworm Eisenia fetida (Savigny)

Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) are increasingly used in nano fertilizers, sunscreens, biosensors, food additives, pigments, rubber manufacture and electronic materials. With wide application of ZnO-NPs, concern has been raised about its unintentional health hazards and environmental impacts. In the present study, we tested toxicity and uptake of ZnO-NPs as a marker of potential ecological harm. We provided multiple lines of evidence including, percentage of mortality, DNA damage, superoxide dismutase, lignin peroxidase, cellulolytic activity and transmission electron microscopy of coelomic fluid and earthworm tissue to express bioavailability and bioaccumulation of ZnONPs from soil to earthworm. The aggregates of NPs were observed in coelomic fluid and their tissues, away from portal of their entry. The results from response of antioxidant system combined with DNA damage indicated that ZnO-NPs could not induce significant damage to earthworms. The study demonstrated bioavailability of ZnO-NPs was very high throughout the earthworm cross sections in all exposures of NPs particularly at exposure of 10nm sized ZnO-NPs and revealed that intact NPs can be taken up by earthworm from soil and having good potential of bioremediation into non- toxic forms.

Customer Satisfaction Model in Nano Food Products Using by Customer Knowledge Management (CKM) Approach

In the emphasis on knowledge as a key competitive factor in the global economy, corporations may be overlooking a major element customer knowledge. Customer knowledge management (CKM) creates new knowledge sharing platforms and processes between companies and their customers. Customer education is one of the best ways of Customer knowledge management. Despite companies growing interest for customer education and the recent awareness in marketing literature of this concept, research on customer education remains relatively scarce. In this research a model which details the relationships between customer education and customer satisfaction was proposed and validated for nanofood product. The existence of two mediating variables was unveiled: product usage and product-usage related knowledge and skills. The experimental fieldwork was conducted in partnership with nanofood companies and their customers. In this research, clear evidence has been provided that customer education positively impacts on customer satisfaction and that specific mechanisms explain such effects.

You are what you eat: market citizens and the right to know about nano foods

This article considers the role of consumers in the regulation of nanotechnology. The principal regulatory response to nanotechnology to date has been to require the disclosure of information. One such mechanism currently under negotiation in the food sector is the mandatory labelling of nanomaterial ingredients, commonly justified on the ground that consumers have the right to know what they eat. Not only does this provide a vehicle for free market choice but it also offers one of the few routes to citizen engagement in the policy debate. The potential benefits of nano labelling are substantial. As this article seeks to show, however, the demands placed on nano labelling may be difficult to meet because of a range of limiting factors. By highlighting an expectation-capacity gap, this article points to the need for developing a richer choice environment and for scrutinising difficulties not fully addressed in the policy discourse.

Food nanotechnology – an overview

Food nanotechnology is an area of emerging interest and opens up a whole universe of new possibilities for the food industry. The basic categories of nanotechnology applications and functionalities currently in the development of food packaging include: the improvement of plastic materials barriers, the incorporation of active components that can deliver functional attributes beyond those of conventional active packaging, and the sensing and signaling of relevant information. Nano food packaging materials may extend food life, improve food safety, alert consumers that food is contaminated or spoiled, repair tears in packaging, and even release preservatives to extend the life of the food in the package. Nanotechnology applications in the food industry can be utilized to detect bacteria in packaging, or produce stronger flavors and color quality, and safety by increasing the barrier properties. Nanotechnology holds great promise to provide benefits not just within food products but also around food products. In fact, nanotechnology introduces new chances for innovation in the food industry at immense speed, but uncertainty and health concerns are also emerging. EU/WE/global legislation for the regulation of nanotechnology in food are meager. Moreover, current legislation appears unsuitable to nanotechnology specificity.

Preventing Diet Induced Disease: Bioavailable Nutrient-Rich, Low-Energy-Dense Diets

What the World needs is an integrated and sustainable food policy that makes the best and most appropriate use of the technologies at our disposal to promote health and help prevent disease. Diet induced diseases account for the largest burden of chronic illnesses and health problems Worldwide. Historically a lack of knowledge about human nutritional requirements (including for the brain) helped promote diet induced disease. The scientific knowledge currently exists to help prevent many of the current deficiencies and imbalances in human diet. Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and mental ill health starts, crucially, with maternal nutrition before the inception of pregnancy and continues throughout life of the new born and includes consuming more DHA and EPA omega-3 fats (and their cofactors) and other bioavailable brain nutrients and less high-energy-dense (>2 kcal g(-1)) foods (e.g. land-based cereal, chocolate, alcohol and refined sugar, fat and oil), so tissues synthesize less inflammatory mediators and to lower transient short-lived meal-induced oxidative stress, inflammation, proliferation and impaired nitric oxide (e.g. approximately 0.35-3.5 g DHA/ EPA day(-1) dependant on energy intake and noting the importance of cofactors). Micro- and nanotechnologies are already engineering nano foods for human (and livestock) consumption that may eventually (without excessive consumption) prevent the current diet induced disease epidemic, especially in future generations, by preventing the causal mechanisms of disease. Greater knowledge about the causal mechanisms of disease awaits to be discovered, which could further enhance the human desire to increase longevity in optimum health (creating more problems and challenges for society).

Nanotechnology: Nano–Food Chain Link Examined

Engineered nanomaterials—materials and even machines constructed on a nanometer scale—have enormous potential in everything from electronics to textiles to medicine. Although nanomaterials are being manufactured in ever greater numbers, little is known about their biological effects, including whether they biomagnify as they travel up food chains. Now chemical engineer David Holbrook and colleagues at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology report that certain nanomaterials may not accumulate in organisms at higher trophic levels. However, the researchers are quick to add that much more work is required before any generalizations can be made regarding environmental and human safety of nanomaterials. Holbrook’s team prepared an aqueous environment in the laboratory in which Escherichia coli provided a food source for the ciliate Tetrahymena pyriformis, which in turn provided a food source for the rotifer Brachionus calyciflorus. “This simple food chain represents what we might see in a real aquatic environment,” explains Holbrook. The team then added two types of nanomaterial to their experimental environment: carboxylated and biotinylated quantum dots (QDs) made from cadmium, selenium, zinc and sulfate, whose fluorescing properties make them easy to detect microscopically. The bacteria did not accumulate the QDs, although the ciliates did. Even so, both types of QDs accumulated at about 21–30% of the benchmark rate at which a pollutant is considered to be “very bioaccumulative.” The researchers also observed that intact QDs appeared within the gut and body cavity of the rotifers. But whether a contaminant biomagnifies depends in part on how quickly an organism eliminates the contaminant from its body. The researchers determined this rate by placing rotifers that had assimilated QDs into a clean environment, then measuring the fall in their QD content (“depuration”) over time. Holbrook says the depuration rates observed were an order of magnitude higher than the threshold that predicts biomagnification. However, the study results, which appear in the June 2008 issue of Nature Nanotechnology, are not proof that nanomaterials pose no environmental threat. “There are many types of nanomaterials, environments, organisms, and food chains—we have looked at just one type of each,” says Holbrook. “These results are interesting, but extrapolating them very far, such as to natural systems, may not be prudent.” “More work of this type is essential,” comments Robert Lee, a professor of law at Cardiff University, United Kingdom, and a member of the U.K. Nanotechnology Research Coordination Group. “More attention needs to be paid to the health risks possibly associated with different types of nanomaterial; data on toxicity is essential for governments to properly regulate their use. But information is vital for business, too, in addressing possible legal liability in the future. Companies manufacturing or using nanomaterials in their products need to track this type of work to avoid finding themselves liable for damages should nanoparticles be later shown to cause harm to human health or the environment.” “These are interesting findings,” agrees Rosa Ortega, a professor of nutrition at Complutense University in Madrid, Spain, “but the properties of different nanomaterials, the different organisms in different food chains, environmental conditions, and how organisms break down different nanomaterials all influence whether they will be bio-magnified. We need to continue work to ensure nanomaterials are safely used.”