Inulin-fortification of a processed meat product attenuates formation of nitroso compounds in the gut of healthy rats

Analysis of NADES and its water tailoring effects constructed from inulin and L-proline based on structure, physicochemical and antifreeze properties

The structure, physicochemical and anti-freeze properties of natural deep eutectic solvent (NADES) composed of inulin and L-proline (molar ratio of 1:11) were investigated. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR), Fourier infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and Raman spectroscopy revealed extensive hydrogen bonding in the pure NADES system, and the addition of water weakens the hydrogen bonding interactions between the components. The smaller transverse relaxation time (T2) represents the stronger hydrogen bond strength, and NADES+40 % H2O exhibited a large T2 (71.68 ms). When 10 % water was added, the viscosity decreased from 3620 mPa·s to 1777 mPa·s, but the conductivity increased to approximately twice the original value. Furthermore, adding 10 % water lowered the glass transition temperature (Tg) of NADES by 5.6 °C. NADES+10 % H2O exhibited favorable thermal stability and freezing resistance, as evidenced by the fact that approximately 82.61 % of the ice crystals area <200 μm2 after 30 min of crystallization. The changes in the structure, physicochemical, and anti-freezing properties of water-tailored NADES are expected to enable the design of novel antifreeze agents.

Probiotics: Health benefits, food application, and colonization in the human gastrointestinal tract

Probiotics have become increasingly popular over the past two decades due to the continuously expanding scientific evidence indicating their beneficial effects on human health. Therefore, they have been applied in the food industry to produce functional food, which plays a significant role in human health and reduces disease risk. However, maintaining the viability of probiotics and targeting the successful delivery to the gastrointestinal tract remain two challenging tasks in food applications. Specifically, this paper reviews the potentially beneficial properties of probiotics, highlighting the use and challenges of probiotics in food application and the associated health benefits. Of foremost importance, this paper also explores the potential underlying molecular mechanisms of the enhanced effect of probiotics on gastrointestinal epithelial cells, including a discussion on various surface adhesion‐related proteins on the probiotic cell surface that facilitate colonization.

Development of Chinese-Style Sausage Enriched with Djulis (Chenopodium formosanum Koidz) Using Taguchi Method: Applying Modern Optimization to Indigenous People's Traditional Food

Djulis (Taiwanese quinoa) has gained popularity among researchers due to its biological characteristics and rich nutritional value. Incorporating Djulis is expected to enhance the sausage's texture, flavor, and storage stability due to the presence of antioxidants and nutritional components. However, limited studies focus on product development based on this emerging health-promoting ingredient in the food industry. This study aims to develop Chinese-style sausage enriched with Djulis using the Taguchi L9(34) orthogonal matrix methodology and evaluate the influence of four factors, including un-hulled to hulled Djulis ratios of 0, 50, 100% (A), backfat-to-lean meat ratios of 0/100, 30/70, 50/50% (B), cooking temperature of 55, 75, 95 °C (C), and nitrite content of 0.03, 0.05, 0.07 g/kg (D) on products' sensory and physicochemical properties. The optimal Taguchi formulation was then verified and compared with conventionally formulated sausage (original sausage) in terms of hardness, springiness, gumminess, CIE color values, and peroxide value (POV). The optimal formulation was A3B2C2D3, which consisted of 16.8% hulled Djulis, 30/70 backfat-to-lean meat ratio, 75 °C cooking temperature, and 0.03 g/kg nitrite content. The most influential independent parameters were identified as B > A > C > D, placing Djulis incorporation as the first runner-up, just after the backfat-to-lean meat ratio. Optimized condition verification identified the Signal-to-Noise ratio (S/N) of 16.63. Comparing the optimized Djulis-enriched sample and the original sausage indicated similar CIE L*, a*, b*, hardness, and springiness but different gumminess according to Texture Profile Analysis (TPA). The Djulis-enriched sausage at the optimized formulation had a significantly lower POV compared to the control sample (4.65 vs. 9.64 meq/kg), which was found to be correlated with Djulis antioxidant effects with 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl-hydrate (DPPH) free radical antioxidant activity of 62.37%. This suggests that Djulis effectively mitigates sausage organoleptic deterioration. Djulis sausage, with natural antioxidants and reduced fat content, could cater to consumer preferences and enhance the market for the food industry and indigenous farmers.

Ferroptosis open a new door for colorectal cancer treatment

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third highest incidence and the second highest mortality malignant tumor in the world. The etiology and pathogenesis of CRC are complex. Due to the long course of the disease and no obvious early symptoms, most patients are diagnosed as middle and late stages. CRC is prone to metastasis, most commonly liver metastasis, which is one of the leading causes of death in CRC patients. Ferroptosis is a newly discovered cell death form with iron dependence, which is driven by excessive lipid peroxides on the cell membrane. It is different from other form of programmed cell death in morphology and mechanism, such as apoptosis, pyroptosis and necroptosis. Numerous studies have shown that ferroptosis may play an important role in the development of CRC. For advanced or metastatic CRC, ferroptosis promises to open a new door in the setting of poor response to chemotherapy and targeted therapy. This mini review focuses on the pathogenesis of CRC, the mechanism of ferroptosis and the research status of ferroptosis in CRC treatment. The potential association between ferroptosis and CRC and some challenges are discussed.

Main animal fat replacers for the manufacture of healthy processed meat products

The technological, sensory, and nutritional characteristics of meat products are directly related to their animal fat content. Adding animal fat to meat products significantly influences their sensory properties, such as color, taste, and aroma. In addition, the physicochemical properties of fat decisively contribute to the texture of meat products, playing a fundamental role in improving the properties of viscosity, creaminess, chewiness, cohesiveness, and hardness. However, meat products' high animal fat content makes them detrimental to a healthy diet. Therefore, reducing the fat content of meat products is an urgent need, but it is a challenge for researchers and the meat industry. The fat reduction in meat products without compromising the product's quality and with minor impacts on the production costs is not a simple task. Thus, strategies to reduce the fat content of meat products should be studied with caution. During the last decades, several fat replacers were tested, but among all of them, the use of flours and fibers, hydrocolloids, mushrooms, and some animal proteins (such as whey and collagen) presented promising results. Additionally, multiple strategies to gel oils of vegetable origin are also a current topic of study, and these have certain advantages such as their appearance (attempts to imitate animal fat), while also improving the nutritional profile of the lipid fraction of the products meat. However, each of these fat substitutes has both advantages and limitations in their use, which will be discussed in subsequent sections. Therefore, due to the growing interest in this issue, this review focuses on the main substitutes for animal fat used in the production of meat products, offering detailed and updated information on the latest discoveries and advances in this area.

NMR-Based Metabolomics to Decipher the Molecular Mechanisms in the Action of Gut-Modulating Foods

Metabolomics deals with uncovering and characterizing metabolites present in a biological system, and is a leading omics discipline as it provides the nearest link to the biological phenotype. Within food and nutrition, metabolomics applied to fecal samples and bio-fluids has become an important tool to obtain insight into how food and food components may exert gut-modulating effects. This review aims to highlight how nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolomics in food and nutrition science may help us get beyond where we are today in understanding foods’ inherent, or added, biofunctionalities in relation to gut health.

Development of Healthier and Functional Dry Fermented Sausages: Present and Future

In recent years, consumer perception about the healthiness of meat products has changed. In this scenario, the meat industry and the scientific and technological areas have put their efforts into improving meat products and achieving healthier and functional formulations that meet the demands of today’s market and consumers. This article aims to review the current functional fermented meat products, especially on sausage development. Firstly, an emphasis is given to reducing and replacing traditional ingredients associated with increased risk to consumer’s health (sodium, fat, and nitrites), adding functional components (prebiotics, probiotics, symbiotics, and polyphenols), and inducing health benefits. Secondly, a look at future fermented sausages is provided by mentioning emerging strategies to produce innovative healthier and functional meat products. Additional recommendations were also included to assist researchers in further development of healthier and functional sausages.

Recent advances in the development of healthier meat products

Meat products are an excellent source of high biological value proteins, in addition to the high content of minerals, vitamins, and bioactive compounds. However, meat products contain compounds that can cause a variety of adverse health effects and pose a serious health threat to humans. In this sense, this chapter will address recent strategies to assist in the development of healthier meat products. The main advances about the reduction of sodium and animal fat in meat products will be presented. In addition, strategies to make the lipid profile of meat products more nutritionally advantageous for human health will also be discussed. Finally, the reduction of substances of safety concern in meat products will be addressed, including phosphates, nitrites, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, heterocyclic aromatic amines, as well as products from lipid and protein oxidation.

Inulin as a functional ingredient and their applications in meat products

Inulin, a fructan-type non-digestible carbohydrate, is a natural functional dietary fiber found in selected plants including chicory, garlic, onion, leeks and asparagus. Due to increasing popularity of inulin and rising awareness toward its low calorie value and prebiotic related health implications, consumers are becoming more conscious on consuming inulin incorporated foods. In this review, the scientific studies published in recent years regarding potential applications of inulin in meat products; and their effects on physicochemical and sensory properties, and health implications are discussed. Meat based functional foods with inulin can lead to enhance digestive health by reducing the risk of diseases like constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer. Inulin can be an interesting prebiotic ingredient in healthier meat formulations, apart from being a fat replacer and dietary fiber enhancer.

Gut microbiota can utilize prebiotic birch glucuronoxylan in production of short-chain fatty acids in rats

Birch-derived polyphenol and fiber (glucuronoxylan, GX)-rich extract and highly purified GX-rich extract support the growth of beneficial gut bacteria, suppress the harmful ones, and increase the production of total short-chain fatty acids (SCFA).

Inulin and milk mineral fortification of a pork sausage exhibits distinct effects on the microbiome and biochemical activity in the gut of healthy rats

This study investigated inulin and calcium-rich milk mineral incorporation into a pork sausage in order to examine the effects on microbiome and biochemical activity in the gastrointestinal tract upon ingestion. Rats (n = 48) were fed one of four sausages; a pork sausage enriched with 1) inulin (6.0%) and milk mineral (3%), 2) inulin (6.0%), 3) milk mineral (3%) or 4) control sausages without enrichment. NMR-based metabolomics revealed that inulin-enrichment increased the fecal concentration of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). Milk mineral-enrichment also increased SCFA concentrations, although less pronounced. In addition, milk mineral reduced the concentration of nitroso compounds in feces and small intestinal content. Combined enrichment with both inulin and milk mineral showed no cumulative effect on SCFA formation and seemed to oppose the milk mineral-induced reduction of nitroso compound formation. 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing indicated that alterations of the gut microbiome contributed to the observed effects.

Synthesis and Characterization of Inulin-Based Responsive Polyurethanes for Breast Cancer Applications

In this study, new polyurethanes (PUs) were prepared by using inulin and polycaprolactone as polyols. Their structure and morphology were determined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman dispersive spectroscopy, Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H NMR and ¹³C NMR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), whereas their mechanical properties were evaluated by a universal testing machine. Additionally, their water uptake, swelling behavior, and degradation were evaluated to be used as drug delivery carriers. Therefore, an anti-cancer drug was loaded to these PUs with 25% of loading efficiency and its release behavior was studied using different theoretical models to unveil its mechanism. Finally, the ability of the new PUs to be used as a clip marker in breast biopsy was evaluated. The results clearly demonstrate that these PUs are safe and can be used as intelligent drug release matrices for targeted drug delivery and exhibits positive results to be used for clip marker and in general for breast cancer applications.