Soy protein has beneficial effects on lowering body weight and blood glucose in patients with diabetes who have overweight or obesity. In addition, soy protein, as complementation medical food material, improves lipid abnormalities such as high triglyceride and cholesterol levels. Kidney disease can cause dyslipidemia, which is considered to be difficult to treat with hypolipidemic agents, statins, and fibrates owing to the impaired renal function. Soy protein improves lipid abnormality in nephropathy patients without concomitant renal function decline. Soy peptide can help with the palliation of pain and improve cytokine levels in combination with medications in rheumatoid arthritis. Furthermore, soy peptide can help to ameliorate inflammatory bowel disease. Thus, soy protein and peptide not only help prevent disease, but may also serve as a complementation medical food material to assist with the treatment of several diseases and disorders.

Tartary Buckwheat dried noodles were prepared by substituting wheat flour with 0–80% content of Tartary Buckwheat flour mixtures (TBFM), which comprised extruded-micronized Tartary Buckwheat flour and micronized Tartary Buckwheat flour (1:1, w/w). Cooking properties, texture, colour, flavonoid content and antioxidant activities were investigated to evaluate the effect of Tartary Buckwheat flour content on the quality of the Tartary Buckwheat noodles. Hardness of the noodle samples increased slightly and the internal networks became more compact with content increase of TBFM. The noodles with 10–60% levels of TBFM performed similar or better cooking qualities including cooked breaking rate, cooking loss, optimal cooking time and water adsorption rate. The colour of whiteness of the noodles decreased, and the flavonoid content and antioxidant activities of ABTS and DPPH values increased significantly with the content increase of Tartary Buckwheat flour. 10–60% contents of TBFM can be used for noodle formulation with improved qualities.

This study investigated the production of erythritol by Trichosporonoides oedocephalis in response to the varying osmotic pressure. Osmotic pressure was exerted by adding NaCl or KCl into the fermentation broth. It was demonstrated that appropriate raise in osmotic pressure enhanced erythritol production, wherein 5 g/L KCl addition increased erythritol yield by 44.21% compared to the control. The reason for the significant increase in the erythritol production showed that the 5 g/L KCl addition accelerated the glucose utilization in the late period of fermentation time. It was also revealed that 5 g/L KCl increased the activity of erythrose reductase (ER) in the same fermentation period. In bioreactor, the erythritol yield with initial 5 g/L KCl addition was up to 50.54 g/L, which was 47.69% higher than the control (34.22 g/L). The study provided a novel fermentation regulation, that is, economical addition of KCl made more effective production of erythritol when using T. oedocephalis.

The objective of the work was to examine changes in the content of ellagitannins and anthocyanins, which are the main polyphenolic fractions of blackberries, during osmotic dehydration of the fruit in 50 – 65°Bx sucrose solutions. Frozen blackberries were found to be readily dehydrated under mild temperature conditions (30°C), with dry matter content more than doubling after 1 h, and reaching 48% after 3 h in 65°Bx solution. Total ellagitannin retention after 1 h of processing amounted to at least 80%, while after 3 h it ranged from 63.6% to 82.4%. The concentrations of the two main ellagitannins, lambertianin C (a trimer) and sanguiin H-6 (a dimer), revealed similar patterns of variation. The greatest losses, reaching up to 50% after 1 h of dehydration, were recorded for ellagic acid. After the same treatment time, the decrease in anthocyanin concentration was approx. 30 – 40%. The loss of polyphenolic compounds from fruit was attributable to their migration to the syrup. After 3 h of osmotic dehydration, ellagitannin concentration in the syrup amounted to 13.6 – 22.1 mg/100 mL, and that of anthocyanins was 6.7 – 11.2 mg/100 mL.

Polyphenols are well known to possess diverse physiological functions. We have reported that luteolin suppressed tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interleukin (IL)-8 secretions in an in vitro co-culture system composed of RAW264.7 cells stimulated with lipopolysaccharide and Caco-2 cells, respectively. It was also reported that luteolin possessed anti-allergic activity with in vitro co-culture of Caco-2/RBL-2H3 cells. In this work, we investigated the activity of luteolin in combination with other polyphenols using both in vitro co-culture systems. Caco-2 cells were treated with the maximum concentration of luteolin (75 µM) that did not produce anti-inflammatory activity, in combination with other polyphenols such as quercetin, kaempferol, curcumin, galangin and chrysin (each 75µM). All combinations of the tested polyphenols except chrysin significantly increased luteolin hyperpermeability to the basolateral side, curcumin in particular. The co-culture system analysis demonstrated that curcumin or quercetin in combination with luteolin significantly suppressed TNF-α production and IL-8 mRNA expression. Moreover, the combination of luteolin and quercetin suppressed β-hexosaminidase activity as an index of anti-allergic activity. Combination of quercetin and luteolin was demonstrated to increase luteolin permeability to the basolateral compartment of the in vitro co-culture systems, resulting in the observed anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic activities.

Microalgae are not only potential feed stock of biodiesel, but also an important source of high biological value products. Polysaccharide, as a family member of microalgae, has several important biological activities. In this paper, the culture conditions were optimized by response surface methodology for the production of intracellular water-soluble polysaccharide (IWSP). The highest IWSP yield of 88.1013 mg/L was obtained with the culture condition of NaNO₃ 362.5 mg/L, NaCl 85.4 mg/L and NaHCO₃ 2.4925 g/L. Gravimetric analysis revealed a total lipid content of 27.56% in this culture. IWSP was composed of mannose, xylose, galactose and glucose. The fatty acid of lipid was rich in unsaturated fatty acids contributed 55.38%; the main saturated fatty acids were C16:0, which counted for 41.98%. The antimicrobial activity of IWSP showed that antibacterial activity is higher than antifungal activity. It showed the highest antibacterial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and weak antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus albus, Staphylococcus aureus and Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Nanoparticle modified films (NMFs) were prepared by blending low-density polyethylene (LDPE) with nano-TiO₂ or nano-ZnO. Migration of Ti or Zn into four kinds of food simulants were performed under 40°C for 1, 4 and 7 d, as well as 70°C for 2 h. Furthermore, the effect of microwave or ultraviolet treatment on migration was investigated. Results showed that Ti or Zn migration increased with time, and the highest migration occurred in acid simulant, whereas the least occurred in fatty simulant. Temperature promoted the migration process. The amounts of Ti migrated into food simulants ranged from 0.0046 mg kg⁻¹ to 0.61 mg kg⁻¹. For Zn, the amounts were from 0.52 mg kg⁻¹ to 14.17 mg kg⁻¹. Microwaves facilitated the migration of nanoparticles, while ultraviolet did not. These results indicated that nano-TiO₂ modified LDPE films might be safe commercial food packaging films, while nano-ZnO modified LDPE films might require further investigation.

The drying of jelly palm pulp with hot air (HA) or microwave (MW) radiation was evaluated at three temperatures (50, 60 and 70°C), and the physicochemical and sensory properties of the dried pulp were considered. Drying using MW increased the drying rate and a reduction in the drying time compared with HA. Infrared thermography showed heterogeneous heating using MW. The water activity of the dried pulp ranged from 0.43 to 0.51. The colour of the dried pulps at 50 and 60°C after using both techniques suffered less thermal degradation than drying at 70°C, which generated darker pulp. The best results were obtained using MW at 60°C, because this presented no significant sensory differences and required a shorter drying time than MW at 50°C.

Proteins from taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott, Betelnut) and sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam, Tainong No. 57) were hydrolyzed with pepsin and the antioxidative capacities of hydrolysates were analyzed. Hydrolysates of taro or sweet potato were further fractionated into different molecular weight fractions, namely >10 kDa, 5–10 kDa, 1–5 kDa, <1 kDa, and the antioxidative capacity and angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory ability of these fractions were determined. Results indicated peptic hydrolysates from taro and sweet potato proteins exhibited antioxidative capacity and ACE inhibition. High ACE inhibition was found for taro hydrolysate with molecular weight fraction of 1–5 kDa with an IC₅₀ of 0.2571 mg/mL. Antioxidative capacity of molecular weight fraction of taro decreased with decreasing molecular weight. Molecular weight fraction of > 10 kDa from sweet potato was found to have better antioxidative capacity. Regardless species, molecular weight fraction with >10 kDa had the highest antioxidative capacities.

This paper described a modified HPLC method for the determination of eight acylated anthocyanins in purple-fleshed sweet potato tuber samples, including lyophilized powder and concentrated juice. Recoveries determined for two materials spiked with anthocyanin levels of 71 µg g⁻¹ to 8.8 mg g⁻¹ ranges 91.8–105.0%. For repeatability, the relative standard deviation and intermediate precision ranged from 0.8% to 5.0% and 1.9% to 8.2%, respectively. HorRat values ranged from 0.3 to 1.0, except for YGM-1a and YGM-1b in two samples, which were well within the limits of performance acceptability. The proposed method showed good intralaboratory reproducibility in the range from 0.10 ± 0.0027 (mean ± expanded measurement uncertainty, k = 2) to 0.51 ± 0.016, 0.10 ± 0.0084 to 0.21 ± 0.011, 0.40 ± 0.017 to 4.5 ± 0.12, 0.21 ± 0.0066 to 0.96 ± 0.021, 0.23 ± 0.014 to 0.57 ± 0.026, 0.15 ± 0.0087 to 1.3 ± 0.040, 0.94 ± 0.021 to 6.5 ± 0.19, and 0.63 ± 0.016 to 2.4 ± 0.061 mg g⁻¹ for YGM-1a, YGM-1b, YGM-2, YGM-3, YGM-4b, YGM-5a, YGM-5b, and YGM-6, respectively.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of organic acids, sugars, and oils used as food additives on histamine production by a halotolerant histamine-producing bacterium, Staphylococcus epidermidis TYH1, isolated from fermented fish paste. The test strain was incubated in LB medium (pH 5.0) containing 0.5% histidine and various concentrations of organic acids, sugars, or oils. TYH1 proliferated and produced significant amounts of histamine in the medium containing 1–10% (w/v) glucose or soybean oil. Histamine production was markedly accelerated in the medium with 30 mM acetic acid, 30 mM malic acid, and 10 mM citric acid. However, histamine accumulation was suppressed by the addition of higher concentrations of organic acids to the medium. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of acetic, malic, citric and lactic acids for both histamine accumulation in the medium and proliferation of TYH1 were 80, >100, 30, and >100 mM, respectively. These findings may contribute to the development of techniques to prevent histamine food poisoning.