•Ultrasonic treatment can remove pesticide residues efficiently and achieve better cleaning.•Ultrasonic treatment can sterilize and reduce fruits and vegetables rot caused by ...microorganism.•Ultrasonic treatment can inhibit the activity of PPO, POD and cell wall-degrading enzymes.•Ultrasonic treatment maintain physicochemical quality of fruits and vegetables.•Ultrasonic treatment can increase the stability of cell wall polysaccharides.
It has been an important research topic and a serious applicable issue to extend storage time of fruits and vegetables using advanced scientific and effective technology. Among various approaches, ultrasound has been regarded as one of the most pollution-free and effective technical means to significantly improve the preservation of fruits and vegetables. This paper summarizes the application of ultrasonic technology in fruits and vegetables storage in recent years, including removal of pesticide residues and cleaning, sterilization, enzyme inactivation, effect on physico-chemical indexes. Additionally, we also discussed limitations and negative effects of ultrasonic treatment on fruits and vegetables such as damages to tissues and cells. Furthermore, a proper application of ultrasonic technology has been proven to effectively extend the storage period of postharvest fruits and vegetables and maintain the quality. Moreover, the combination of ultrasound and other conventional preservation technologies can further improve the preservation in a coordinate manner and even have a broader application prospect.
Inflammation is the first biological response of the immune system to infection, injury or irritation. Evidence suggests that the anti-inflammatory effect is mediated through the regulation of ...various inflammatory cytokines, such as nitric oxide, interleukins, tumor necrosis factor alpha-α, interferon gamma-γ as well as noncytokine mediator, prostaglandin E
. Fruits, vegetables, and food legumes contain high levels of phytochemicals that show anti-inflammatory effect, but their mechanisms of actions have not been completely identified. The aim of this paper was to summarize the recent investigations and findings regarding in vitro and animal model studies on the anti-inflammatory effects of fruits, vegetables, and food legumes. Specific cytokines released for specific type of physiological event might shed some light on the specific use of each source of phytochemicals that can benefit to counter the inflammatory response. As natural modulators of proinflammatory gene expressions, phytochemical from fruits, vegetables, and food legumes could be incorporated into novel bioactive anti-inflammatory formulations of various nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. Finally, these phytochemicals are discussed as the natural promotion strategy for the improvement of human health status. The phenolics and triterpenoids in fruits and vegetables showed higher anti-inflammatory activity than other compounds. In food legumes, lectins and peptides had anti-inflammatory activity in most cases. However, there are lack of human study data on the anti-inflammatory activity of phytochemicals from fruits, vegetables, and food legumes.
Spray-drying is one of the highly utilized techniques to increase the shelf-life of food products. However, there are problems during spray-drying of sugar-rich fruit and vegetable juices due to the ...low glass transition temperature of sugars present in these products (Bhandari, Datta, & Howes, 1997). The sugars transform into a sticky form which increases the deposition at the surface of the drying chamber, which eventually decreases product yield. To achieve an effective drying and to obtain an acceptable product, drying conditions must be optimized.
Product yield and physical properties of the final powder are affected by various factors, including carrier material and its concentration added into the feed, feed flow rate, atomization speed/pressure, and drying temperature. This paper reviews the effects of these conditions on yield and the physical properties of the final product.
Recent studies have clearly shown that milk-based protein isolates as carrier materials are more effective, according to product yield in lower ratios, than carbohydrate-based carrier materials. Physical characteristics of the final powder vary according to process parameters.
•Effect of spray drying conditions on physical properties were reviewed.•Protein based wall materials provides better product yield.•Physical properties of final product widely varied by drying conditions.
One of the most promising renewable fuels proposed as an alternative to fossil diesel is biodiesel. The competitive potential of biodiesel is limited by the price of vegetable oils, which strongly ...influences the final price of this biofuel. On the other hand, extensive use of vegetable oils may cause other significant problems such as starvation in developing countries. Appropriately planning and designing the whole production process, from the seed to the biodiesel end-product, is essential to contain the influence of energy inefficiencies on the high price of the end-product. The present study reviews the technologies currently used in the production of biodiesel. We first discuss the technologies for extracting the vegetable oil from the seed, and its subsequent refining and conversion into biodiesel. This study focuses on the characteristics of the production processes currently used in the sector, illustrating the technological options and emphasizing the drawbacks of certain practices and the best choices available. The vegetable oils tend to be processed using procedures that are well established, but oriented more towards obtaining products suitable for the foodstuffs industry, and that consequently use technologies that are sometimes excessive for energetic purposes. The processes for extracting the vegetable oil from the seed generally include a set of steps, the complexity of which depends on the raw material. Basically, the two extraction technologies involved rely on the use of pressure or solvents. In practice, the two systems are often combined. Using the vegetable oils as a source of energy makes some of these steps superfluous and enables technologies to be used that would be unsuitable for foodstuffs production. This study focuses on feasible technological improvements that would give rise to oil that is still suitable for use as a source of energy, but at a lower cost. The refined vegetable oil can subsequently be converted into biodiesel by means of a great variety of technologies, many of which are still not suitable for applications on an industrial scale. The solution that has met with the greatest favor is homogeneous alkaline transesterification with KOH and methanol. Even when dealing with this type of conversion alone, it is impossible to establish a universal schema to describe the conversion or purification stages because there are numerous possible different solutions. When we then look more closely at the state of the art in industrial biodiesel production plants, we encounter the potential problems introduced by the type and characteristics of the original raw material. Comparing some of the reference solutions that have inspired numerous installations, a sensitivity analysis is conducted on the main elements involved in the process, focusing on their behavior in different working conditions to obtain products with the characteristics required by the international standards (EN 14214:2008, ASTM D 6751 07b).
Systems differed by annual compost additions (0 vs. 7.6 Mg ha-1 before each vegetable crop), cover crop type (legume-rye, mustard or cereal rye alone) and cover cropping frequency (quadrennially vs. ...annually planted). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307250.g005 thumbnail Download: * PPT PowerPoint slide * PNG larger image * TIFF original image Fig 10. Carbon inputs, soil organic carbon and permanganate oxidizable carbon ANOVA F-statistics and significance. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307250.t001 Supporting information S3 Fig. Soil organic carbon stocks over 8 years in three organic vegetable systems in Salinas, CA that all received annual compost additions (7.6 Mg ha-1 before each vegetable crop) and differed by annually planted cover crop type. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307250.s001 (TIF) S1 Table.
The demand for organic food products, especially for organic vegetables has been growing rapidly in the last few decades. However, the risk of introducing more antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) and ...antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) to the vegetables by organic production procedures has long been overlooked. In our study, by using high-throughput quantitative PCR and 16sRNA Illumina sequencing technology, we investigated the abundance and diversity of ARGs and the microbial communities in conventionally (CPL) and organically produced lettuce (OPL). A total of 134 ARGs were detected in the phyllosphere and leaf endophyte of the samples. Absolute copy numbers of ARGs in phyllosphere were 8-fold higher in the OPL than in CPL. We also observed a significant difference in the microbial communities between OPL and CPL, and a lower diversity of both phyllosphere and leaf endophytic bacteria in OPL than in CPL. The Mantel test and variation partitioning analysis (VPA) suggested that the profile of ARGs is strongly affected by bacterial community compositions. Network analysis between ARGs and bacterial taxa indicated that eight bacterial families were implicated to be the potential hosts of ARGs. These results provide insights into the impacts of organic farming on the profiles of bacterial and ARG compositions in vegetables.
•Organically produced lettuce harbors higher abundance and diversity of ARGs than conventionally produced.•HT-qPCR is an effective approach to investigate the ARGs in environmental samples.•Bacterial community shifts, is the major driver shaping the antibiotic resistome in vegetables.•Network analysis can provide new insights into ARGs and their possible hosts in complex environmental scenarios.
: Antioxidants are abundant compounds primarily found in fresh fruits and vegetables, and evidence for their role in the prevention of degenerative diseases is continuously emerging. However, the ...bioaccessibility and bioavailability of each compound differs greatly, and the most abundant antioxidants in ingested fruit are not necessarily those leading to the highest concentrations of active metabolites in target tissues. Fruit antioxidants are commonly mixed with different macromolecules such as carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins to form a food matrix. In fruits and vegetables, carbohydrates are the major compounds found, mainly in free and conjugated forms. Dietary fiber, the indigestible cell wall component of plant material, is considered to play an important role in human diet and health. Most studies on antioxidant bioavailability are focused on foods and beverages from which antioxidants are easily released. There is evidence indicating that food microstructure affects the bioaccessibility and bioavailability of several nutrients, referring mostly to antioxidants. Nevertheless, the specific role of dietary fiber in the absorption of antioxidants has not been widely discussed. In this context, the purpose of the present review is to compile and analyze evidence relating to the association between dietary fiber and antioxidants, and the physical and chemical interactions that modulate their release from the chyme in the gastrointestinal tract.
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