Food science is an integrated science that contributes to people's health and well-being by processing biological resources into foods and food materials and analyzing the phenomena that occur in the body when food is ingested. Food science consists of several disciplines including food technology and food engineering that are related to food manufacturing. Food technology is a field in which the purposes and principles of each process are studied to understand the processing of foodstuffs. On the other hand, food engineering is based on chemical engineering for studying and understanding the principles of unit operations that are common to many food manufacturing processes. Knowledge and approaches in both fields are required for mass production of safe and delicious foods at low cost. About 60 years have passed since the field of food engineering was introduced in Japan. Since food engineering is a purpose-oriented science, it is necessary to incorporate the technologies of many fields. Since its introduction in Japan, food engineering has developed to match the actual situation of the food industry in our country. In this special issue, four articles focus on the devices or processes with new functionality that have been successfully developed in Japan based on the ideas and methods of food engineering.

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In Japan, coffee has been consumed in large quantities for a long time and is a popular beverage in our everyday lives. Freshly brewed coffee at convenience stores has recently expanded its market presence in this context. This paper describes the extraction technology of coffee machines to support freshly brewed coffee at convenience stores. The history of coffee and the extraction technology will be firstly introduced with the background of how we chose drip coffee, followed by the description of the technology for design of the coffee machine. The challenges for machine design were, of course, to make tasty coffee and to serve it stably and quickly with ensuring good hygiene, and, furthermore, maintenance of its function for a long time. We have been able to meet these demands by developing technologies for the coffee mill (i.e., grinder) and coffee brewer (i.e., extractor) which are the most important components of the machine. For the coffee mill, we achieved good taste of coffee with less miscellaneous unpleasant flavors and tastes by stabilizing the particle size of the ground coffee beans and reducing heat generation, and we then standardized the quality of the beverage by taking measures including anti-static electricity. For the brewer, we have also improved the technologies such as mixing hot water and ingredients, stirring them and using pressurized extraction of coffee to achieve rapid and stable extraction. The technology for high volume extraction which has been increasingly demanded in recent years has been developed as well.

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Rice milling technology has a large influence on sake brewing as well as edible rice quality. The purpose of rice milling for edible rice is to remove the embryo, pericarp, seed coat and aleurone layers. A part of the endosperm is also polished for sake brewing to improve flavor and color. Since large amounts of lipids and minerals are contained on the surface layer of brown rice, most of them are removed in the early stage of rice milling. On the other hand, although the amount of protein is higher on the surface layer, it also is present in the endosperm, so the decrease in protein due to rice milling is only partial. Therefore, in the production of ginjo and daiginjo, the protein is reduced as much as possible by polishing to a ricepolishing ratio of 60% or 50% or less.
In recent years, a new type of brewing milling machine was developed, which has rolls in which abrasive grains of cubic boron nitride are electrodeposited on base metals as an abrasive. By selecting rolls with a small abrasive grain size, it has become possible to get flat polished rice that can reduced protein efficiently without significantly taking a long rice milling time. If flat polished rice or original-shaped polished rice is selected according to rice variety, shape of shimpaku, and the rice-polishing ratio, it is possible to mill rice that can efficiently reduce protein without problems in the remaining embryos using a low ricepolishing ratio and with generation of crushed grains during a high rice-polishing ratio. Therefore, we believe this will contribute to higher quality sake brewing.

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Various studies are continuing in the coffee industry on effective utilization of coffee spent grounds discharged in large quantities. Inspired by mannan contained in coffee spent grounds, we succeeded in industrialized extraction and purification of mannooligosaccharides produced by thermal hydrolysis treatment. Mannooligosaccharides extracted from coffee spent grounds are a highly stable ingredients that have no flavor and color and do not degrade even in harsh environments. While these mannooligosaccharides contribute to intestinal health and body fat reduction, present research is proceeding to investigate new functionalities. In the future, mannooligosaccharides are expected to be applied to various foods with multifunctional properties.

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The simulated moving-bed chromatographic separation system, which was invented for the advanced refining of petrochemical products in the 1960s, has been expanded to its full-fledged application in the food industry in the 1970s with refining high fructose (corn) syrup. After that, this system has been widely used for refining various functional foods such as oligosaccharides, vitamins and highly unsaturated fatty acids mainly in the sugar manufacturing industry and has also played a part in the progressive development of the food industry. This paper briefly describes the principle and the features of the simulated moving-bed chromatographic separation system which enables efficient separation and refinement through continuous operation, as well as the history of its contribution to the food industry.

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Thelephora vialis is a mushroom that grows in symbiosis with pine trees in Yunnan, China, which is known to have some of the richest and most diverse bioresources in the world. T. vialis is a highly prized edible mushroom as it has a special flavor and taste. In our screening for bioactive compounds from in this mushrooms, we isolated a novel potent antioxidant, vialinin A, along with known compounds, from the dry fruiting body of T. vialis. Vialinin A is a terphenyl derivative and was elucidated by spectroscopic and chemical methods. In RBL-2H3 cells, vialinin A showed anti-allergic activities, inhibited the release of β-hexosaminidase, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α). Of note, it inhibited TNF-α production from RBL- 2H3 cells more strongly than tacrolimus, which is used as an immunosuppressant in organ transplantation (halfmaximal inhibitory concentrations: 0.09 nM and 0.25 nM, respectively). In addition, ubiquitin-specific peptidase 5, a deubiqutinating enzyme, was identified as a target molecule of vialinin A and its enzymatic activity was inhibited by vialinin A. The potent inhibitory activity of vialinin A against TNF-α production indicates that it is a promising candidate as a new anti-allergic agent.

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The purpose of food packaging is to benefit producers, sellers and consumers. The benefits of food packaging include (1) prevention of food putrefaction and deterioration, (2) prevention of adhesion of undesirable microorganisms, dust, and foreign matter, (3) labor saving in processing, (4) rationalization and planning of distribution and transportation, and (5) increased commercial value. Food spoilage and deterioration include 1) microbial spoilage and deterioration, 2) chemical deterioration, and 3) physical deterioration. In order to prevent spoilage and deterioration due to microorganisms (bacteria and fungi), heat sterilization after packaging, low temperature distribution, use of food additives for regulation of microorganisms and shelf-life improvement are used. Gram-negative aerobic bacteria, such as Pseudomonas, have been regarded as major spoilage bacteria in fresh foods. On the other hand, in the case of processed foods that are packaged under hypoxic conditions and distributed at low temperatures, bacteria with endospores and lactic acid bacteria that are resistant to salt and heat are the major spoilage bacteria. For example, various lactobacilli, Leuconostoc spp., and Enterococcus spp., are reported as spoilage bacteria in ham and sausage. Furthermore, carbohydrate rich and low water content packaged foods, such as raw noodles, confectionery and flour are often contaminated and/or undergo deterioration due to yeast, causing spots, ethanol odor, and other offensive odors.

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Today, the demand for Japanese traditional herbal medicines, the so-called Kampo medicines, and their crude drug components has dramatically increased due to increased interest in health foods and complementary and alternative medicines. Since the content of active compounds in crude drugs affects their various pharmacological activities, quality control related to the content of these active components is required. To date, various methods have been developed for their quantitative analysis, including HPLC-UV, gas chromatography, and quantitative NMR. However, these methods require large amounts of eco-unfriendly organic solvents, costly instruments, and time-consuming sample pretreatment. Immunoassays overcome these drawbacks by taking advantage of principles based on antigen−antibody reactions, thus enabling establishment of simple, specific, and sensitive quantitative analysis without sample pretreatment procedures. In one of our previous studies, we focused on two natural products, plumbagin and amarogentin, isolated mainly from Plumbago zeylanica (Plumbaginaceae) and the plants genus, Swertia and Gentiana (Gentianaceae), respectively. We produced specific antibodies (monoclonal antibody (mAb), single-chain variable fragment (scFv), and fluobody) and developed immunoassays, including enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), fluorescence-linked immunosorbent assay (FLISA), immunochromatographic strip assay (ICA), and magnetic particles-based enzyme immunoassay (MPs-EIA). In this review article, production of these antibodies and their applications in immunoassays are described. In addition, an application of scFv in plant molecular breeding is also described.

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Baking soda and baking powder are indispensable ingredients as leavening agents for making wheat flour confectionery. Methods to cause wheat flour to rise include a method using yeast fermentation, a method using the foaming property of food, and a method using water vapor pressure. Among them, the use of a chemical leavening agent is considered an excellent method in terms of simplicity and low cost. I investigated when leavening agents called Fukurashi-ko, Jūsō and Tansan began to be used in flour confectionery in Japan and associated global trends.
The use of baking soda in Japanese foods is described in the "Kairyō Kashi Seizō-hō :Improved Confectionery Manufacturing Method" in 1893 (Meiji 26). It is thought that it came to be used with the spread of flour confectionery and bread. In "Shoku Do Raku" by Gensai Murai, which was serialized in newspaper articles from 1903 (Meiji 36) to 1904 (Meiji 37), there is a description of ‹Jūsō› (baking soda) and ‹Yaki-ko› (baking powder). Baking powder at that time was an imported product. In 1922 (Taisho 11), the first domestically produced baking powder was released. It was about 60 years behind the development of baking powder in the United States.

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