Innovating a new food evaluation technique based on biological information must allow us to develop high-valued food products on the occasion of food design. We particularly focus on a small intestine and assume that the digestive activity varies depending on an individual constitution, health condition and compatibility between an individual and a food. We have studied a method to estimate the activity level of peristaltic movements of a small intestine using an ultrasonograph. Ultrasonograph is widely prevalent and the systematized techniques to observe morphology and motion of digestive tracts have been highly established. They are inherently established not to investigate body organs and tissues of a healthy human for objectives being not concerned in disorders but to diagnose body organs and tissues with organic or functional disorders. However, for the new food design, we need to develop a new technique to monitor digestive activity of people with various physical conditions: healthy people, the elderly, patients with lifestyle-related diseases and patients who are critically ill. Therefore, we propose a new technique to analyze digestive activity of a small intestine by time-varying ultrasound image processing. The new technique helps us to quantitatively analyze the appearance that a small intestine transfers digested materials.

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Bacterial spores attached to the surfaces of food processing equipment may lead to contamination of food to be processed. In this study, spores of Geobacillus stearothermophilus and Bacillus subtilis were attached to stainless steel (SS) and polypropylene (PP) surfaces by drying with milk, and then subjected to rinsing in water with agitation to evaluate the residual fraction of spores as a measure of their removability. Three types of milk products with different fat contents were found to give low residual fractions of spores with no significant differences. However, dilution of milk with water increased the residual fraction of spores. To identify factors affecting the removability of spores, rinsing experiments were performed for spores attached by drying with whey or lactose solutions of different concentrations. The residual fraction of spores after rinsing decreased with increasing whey concentration. However, the increase in lactose concentration gave no significant effect; approximately 90% of spores remained on SS and PP surfaces after water rinsing irrespective of lactose concentration. These results indicate that whey protein is a factor reducing adhesive interaction between spores and solid surfaces.

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We describe a method for imparting corn starch with antioxidant activity by roasting it with tartaric acid. Carbohydrate-based food ingredients produced by this method were called ANOX sugars. Because of this method, raw food materials used in the production of carbohydrate-based food ingredients have high antioxidant activity in addition to quality, color, and flavor. Different temperatures and durations for roasting with varying amounts of tartaric acid were investigated to obtain the optimal conditions for the production of carbohydrate-based food ingredients derived from corn and rice. This production method confirmed that antioxidant activity increased with roasting temperature. The highest antioxidant activity (28.75μmol trolox/g) was obtained when 5 g of tartaric acid was added to 100 g of carbohydrate-based food ingredient, followed by roasting at 200℃ for 180 minutes. ANOX sugars have high antioxidant activity, acidity, and color, and can be used as food ingredients.

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