Asian Food Science Journal

This study aimed to investigate the impact of heat treatment on the properties of soy protein isolate film-forming solutions. The solutions, consisting of soy protein isolate, glycerol, and phosphate buffer solution (pH 7.4), were subjected to heat treatment at 65, 75, and 85°C for 2, 4, or 6 h. The resulting films were then analyzed for tensile strength, elongation at break, film solubility, color parameters, and transparency. The results indicated that increasing the heat-curing temperature increased tensile strength, film transparency, and yellowish color in the films, as well as decreased water solubility and elongation at break. Notably, the film cured at 85°C for 2 h exhibited the highest tensile strength, film solubility, and elongation at break compared to both the control and other heat-cured films. However, the film heated at 75°C showed a better elongation at break. Overall, the findings suggest that heat curing of film-forming solutions at temperatures between 75 and 85°C has the potential to improve the properties of soy protein isolate films.

Aim: The need for formulating and developing smart baby-led weaning (BLW) foods from millet, soybean and ripe banana flour blends as alternative complementary foods inspired this study, which had no documentation in literatures.

Place and Duration of Study: Department of Food Technology, Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi, Nigeria from June 2022 to January 2023.

Methodology: Smart BLW foods were formulated from millet, soybean and ripe banana flour blends and coded as WMF (100% whole millet flour), MSB1 (60% millet; 20% soybean; 20% ripe banana) and MSB2 (50% millet; 30% soybean; 20% ripe banana). The sensory, proximate and mineral compositions of the foods formulated were compared with those of commercial weaning food (CWF).

Results: MSB1 and MSB2 competed favourably with CWF in terms of texture, general acceptability, colour, aroma and taste attributes with high negative deviation most noticeable in WMF (P < 0.05), and exhibited acceptable shelf-life and stability. The ash contents ranged from 1.16±0.02% (WMF) to 2.83±0.02% (MSB2). Increase in fat content in MSB1 to CWF was ≈534%, MSB2 to CWF was ≈492%, MSB1 to WMF was ≈385% and MSB2 to WMF was ≈353% while their protein abundances were in the ratios 1:3.6 for CWF:MSB1, 1:5.9 for CWF:MSB2, 1:2.4 for MWF:MSB1 and 1:3.9 for MWF:MSB2. Generally, MSB1 and MSB2 were appropriate sources of Na, K, Ca, Mg and Zn compared to CWF and WMF in providing adequate intake (AI) and recommended daily allowance (RDA) of these minerals in both infants and children in the age classes of 0-6 months, 7-12 months and 1-3 years.

Conclusion: MSB1 and MSB2 exhibited better intrinsic properties than WMF when compared with CWF. MSB1, however had better general performances than MSB2 and therefore, was recommended as the best smart BLW food formulation from this research.

In this study, there were two groups, namely liquid smoke of kusambi and liquid smoke of coconut shells with various treatments of adsorbent filtration with 3 replications. There are three kind of treatment for each liquid smoke groups, first is liquid smoke without filtration process with adsorbent, liquid smoke with zeolite adsorbent treatment, liquid smoke with silica adsorbent treatment, and liquid smoke with activated charcoal adsorbent treatment. Analysis of variance showed that different types of liquid smoke and different adsorbent filtration had a very significant effect (P0.01) on antioxidants, total acid, specific gravity, tar, phenol content, pH, salinity, TDS, total yield, L* and b* color, hedonic color and smokey scent in the resulting liquid smoke. Analysis of variance showed that the different types of liquid smoke had no significant effect (P0.05), but the filtration treatment with different adsorbents had a very significant effect (P0.01) on viscosity. And the analysis of variance also showed that the different types of liquid smoke and the filtration of different adsorbents had no significant effect (P0.05) on the color a* of the resulting liquid smoke. The differences in the types of liquid smoke and the treatment of liquid smoke filtration with adsorbents had a very significant effect (P0 .01) on antioxidant, total acid, specific gravity, tar, phenol content, pH, salinity, TDS, total yield, L* and b* color, hedonic color, and smoke aroma in the liquid smoke produced. However, the different types of liquid smoke did not have a significant effect on the resulting viscosity (P0.05) and the different types of adsorbents in the liquid smoke filtration process had a very significant effect on the viscosity (P0.01). Meanwhile, the different types of liquid smoke and the different types of adsorbents in the liquid smoke filtration process did not have a significant effect on the value of the color a* or the reddish color of the liquid smoke (P0.05).

Consumers are concerned about the authenticity and general quality of honey in Yewaland, Nigeria. Physicochemical (moisture, protein, ash, fructose, sucrose contents; total titratable acidity, total soluble solids, specific gravity, viscosity, electrical conductivity, refractive index and pH), microbial tests (total plate and identification), and sensory properties of honey samples were evaluated. Samples were collected from bee breeders in the different areas of the region. The results ranged from 13.6-15.0% moisture, 0.2-5.2% protein, 0.24-0.38% ash, 40.5-45.6% fructose, 3.0-5.8% sucrose, 1.40-1.47 specific gravity, 1607-2037 viscosity, 6.3-14.9 \(\mu\)S/cm electrical conductivity, 40.3-75.5mg/l total soluble solids, 3.60-4.2 pH, 0.39-0.46 titratable acidity and 1.34-1.35 refractive index. Staphylococcus, shigella, and Bacillus spp were identified in some samples. The appearance of the samples was lighter. Samples from Oja-Odan and Iwoye had the best overall acceptance scores of 8.7 and 8.5 respectively. Thus honey samples were of good quality compared to the international standard and their acidic pH values reveal that they are unadulterated and have good shelf stability potentials. Their characterization will make it possible to obtain Nigerian quality labels.

Biscuits are one of the world's most consumed foods and are highly demanded. On this basis, for its functional properties, attempts were made to develop biscuits incorporating Aloe-vera gel. For the making of the composite flour, defatted soya flour and rice bran were blended with refined wheat flour (Maida) in various proportions before being fortified with Aloe vera gel at amounts ranging from 5 to 20%. The possibility of fortified the Aloe-vera gel to formulate the functional biscuit which have the ability to improve the quality of food product due to different functional attributes. The study's main objective was to characterise the nutritional and sensory qualities of Aloe-vera-based biscuits. The immediate structure and sensory evaluation of biscuits with 10%,20%and 30% Aloe-vera were studied to determine the optimal formulation. It has been found that biscuits containing 20% Aloe-vera gel are the superior to biscuits containing 20% and 30% Aloe-vera. Protein enrichment of biscuit satisfies the demand for a higher content of the nutrient, as these product tend to have lower content of protein (7-10%). Due to their useful features,It would be helpful to provide more specific details about the functional attributes of Aloe vera gel and how it contributes to the improvement of the quality of the food product.The biscuits based on Aloe vera can also be beneficial to the most vulnerable population in poor countries. Biscuits are popular and convenient food product due to ready to eat nature.