Acrylamide, a probable human carcinogen, is found in a wide range of high-temperature processed and/or cooked foods. Acrylamide is formed mainly from asparagine in Maillard reaction in the presence of reducing sugar such as fructose and glucose. While this compound can be metabolized to glutathione conjugates, it is also oxidized to glycidamide, a genotoxic compound. Glycidamide forms DNA adducts. Acrylamide is also known to have genotoxicity, neurotoxicity, and reproductive and developmental toxicity. The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) evaluated health risk of acrylamide in food. The major contributing foods to total intake of acrylamide were found to be French fries, potato chips, coffee, pastry and sweet biscuits, and bread and rolls/toasts. The committee concluded based on national estimates that an intake of 1μg/kg bw per day of acrylamide could be taken to represent the average for the general population. The Committee selected 0.18mg/kg body weight per day as the most sensitive carcinogenicity estimate from animal study data. The margin of exposure (MOE) for the general population was thus calculated to be ca. 200, which is low for carcinogen and indicates human health concern. The Code of Practice for the Reduction of Acrylamide in Foods was published by Codex Alimentarius Commission in 2009 based on scientific analytical data obtained worldwide. Although acrylamide level in foods is decreasing owing to mitigation measures taken by food industry, the MOE is considered to be still staying less than 1000.

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[Objective]　The aim of this study is to provide an accurate method for assessing nutrient contents to aid nutritional surveillance and menu preparation.
[Methods]　Vegetable products and Animal products in the “Standard Tables of Food Composition Japan –2010–” were categorized by food group, method of cooking, and other factors. The rate of change of each element (Minerals) in each food group due to cooking by various methods was examined.
[Results]　27 kinds of the rates of element change were found to be useful for therapeutic diets. The rates of element change by cooking in vegetable products could be divided into 32 levels. The rates of element change by cooking in animal products could be divided into 17 levels.
　We were found to be useful for nutritional calculations diet.
　Differences in the rates of element change by cooking were apparent between the groups, even within the same food group.
[Conclusions]　The evaluated rates of component change by cooking can be used for estimating the amount of nutritional components that remain after cooking. It is therefore possible to compute the amount of nutritional components for cooked food with no nutritional component value. This improves the accuracy for calculating the nutritional value in nutritional assessment and menu preparation.

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　The characteristics of flavonoids in ten sour citrus fruits (lemon, niihime, genko, yuukou, kabosu, sudachi, yukou, yuzu, nagato-yuzukichi, hebesu) of local special products in Japan were studied. The content of eleven flavonoids (eriocitrin, neoeriocitrin, narirutin, naringin, hesperidin, neohesperidin, diosmin, didymin, poncirin, nobiletein, tangeretin) in whole fruit and juice of each sour citrus was determined by HPLC. The contents of the flavonoids in each whole fruit were studied for the characteristics of the flavonoid composition in the citrus by principal component analysis of multiple classification analyses. Based on the results, each lemon and niihime was shown to have flavonoid compositions different from other citrus based on the principal component analysis. Lemon contained abundant amount of eriocitrin and diosmin, while niihime contained abundant amount of heperidin, dydmin, and nobiletin in comparison to the other citrus by HPLC analysis. These compounds were shown to be the characteristic flavonoids of each citrus fruit by the principal component analysis. Furthermore, the antioxidative activity of the flavonoid fraction from the whole fruit of the sour citrus was examined by measurement of the scavenging activity of the DPPH radical. Niihime, lemon, and sudachi exhibited high activities. The total amount of ten flavonoids in sour citrus (whole fruit) had a positive correlation with the antioxidative activity (R=0.772). Especially, the amount of eriocitrin, neoeriocitrin, hesperidin, and neohesperidin had a high correlation with the antioxidative activity (R=0.899).

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　Milk gels were prepared by incubating a mixture of ginger juice (1.5 mL) and milk (50 g) obtained from Jersey dairy cattle (JM), Guernsey dairy cattle (GM) or Holstein dairy cattle (HM) at 60℃ for 60 min to determine the resulting effects on hardness, adhesiveness, and cohesiveness. The hardness and adhesiveness exhibited a positive correlation with the concentration of protein, lipid, and calcium present in milk. The values of hardness and adhesiveness of milk gels prepared using milk from HM, GM, and JM increased sequentially, whereas the values of cohesiveness increased in the opposite order. Compared to gelatin gels, gels prepared using a mixture of milk and ginger juice have promising applications as foods for elderly people or as swallowing training foods.

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　The changes in the color of sliced or grated fresh ginger stored at room temperature for 0-180 minutes were investigated.
　The gingers included the cultivars Tosaichi and Koganenosato harvested in Kochi and an unknown cultivar harvested in China. The raw sliced or grated gingers were prepared and their color measured by a colorimeter. It was found that the grated Koganenosato and the Chinese cultivar had a more vivid yellow hue than the Tosaichi 30 minutes later.
　Tosaichi showed activities of polyphenol oxidase and peroxidase; these enzymes, related to enzymatic browning, were approximately twice as high as those in the Koganenosato or Chinese cultivars. However, no significant difference was observed in the chlorogenic acid contents, a substrate of polyphenol oxidase.
　These results suggested that Tosaichi showed higher activities by these browning enzymes compared to the other two cultivars, which contributed to the more obvious color changes.

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