Applications of Thermal Imaging in Agriculture and Food Industry��A Review

Thermal imaging is a technique to convert the invisible radiation pattern of an object into visible images for feature extraction and analysis. Infrared thermal imaging was first developed for military purposes but later gained a wide application in various fields such as aerospace, agriculture, civil engineering, medicine, and veterinary. Infrared thermal imaging technology can be applied in all fields where temperature differences could be used to assist in evaluation, diagnosis, or analysis of a process or product. Potential use of thermal imaging in agriculture and food industry includes predicting water stress in crops, planning irrigation scheduling, disease and pathogen detection in plants, predicting fruit yield, evaluating the maturing of fruits, bruise detection in fruits and vegetables, detection of foreign bodies in food material, and temperature distribution during cooking. This paper reviews the application of thermal imaging in agriculture and food industry and elaborates on the potential of thermal imaging in various agricultural practices. The major advantage of infrared thermal imaging is the non-invasive, non-contact, and non-destructive nature of the technique to determine the temperature distribution of any object or process of interest in a short period of time.     

Modified Atmosphere Packaging Technology of Fresh and Fresh-cut Produce and the Microbial Consequences—A Review

Modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) technology offers the possibility to retard the respiration rate and extend the shelf life of fresh produce, and is increasingly used globally as value adding in the fresh and fresh-cut food industry. However, the outbreaks of foodborne diseases and emergence of resistant foodborne pathogens in MAP have heightened public interest on the effects of MAP technology on the survival and growth of pathogenic organisms. This paper critically reviews the effects of MAP on the microbiological safety of fresh or fresh-cut produce, including the role of innovative tools such as the use of pressurised inert/noble gases, predictive microbiology and intelligent packaging in the advancement of MAP safety. The integration of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points-based programs to ensure fresh food quality and microbial safety in packaging technology is highlighted.     

Understanding the Impact of Nonthermal Plasma on Food Constituents and Microstructure—A Review

Nonthermal plasma (NTP) is superior to thermal technologies as a technique that provides a satisfactory microbial safety and maintains reasonable standards in food quality attributes. Currently, the effects of NTP on some food components is regarded as beneficial, such as effects on starch and protein modification. For other food components, such as lipid oxidation, NTP is regarded as an undesirable treatment because it leads to quality deterioration and formation of off-flavor. An overview of the basic principles of NTP and food microstructure in relation to NTP-treated food and the underlying mechanisms are discussed. The review further highlights the latest research on plasma application in food and the related impact on food matrices. Efforts were made to outline the research findings in terms of NTP application on foods with an emphasis on the impacts on the food microstructure and their related qualities. In this review, the industrial capacity of NTP to improve the functional properties of starch, proteins, and lipids as well as provide little or no alteration in food quality compared to other technologies are emphasized. Some oxidative breakdown in relation to starch, proteins, and lipids are discussed and documented in this paper as a review of representative available publications.     

Detection of Adulterants and Contaminants in Liquid Foods—A Review

Milk and fruit juices have paramount importance in human diet. Increasing demand of these liquid foods has made them vulnerable to economic adulteration during processing and in supply chain. Adulterants are difficult to detect by consumers and thus necessitating the requirement of rapid, accurate and sensitive detection. The potential adulterants in milk and fruit juices and their limits set by different regulatory bodies have been briefly described in this review. Potential advantages and limitations of various techniques such as physicochemical methods, chromatography, immunoassays, molecular, electrical, spectroscopy with chemometrics, electronic nose, and biosensors have been described. Spectroscopy in combination with chemometrics has shown potential for rapid, precise, and sensitive detection of potential adulterants in these liquid foods.     

A taste of Hopetoun: Food and drink in a Scottish household, 1754–55

The 1988 West German film, Bagdad Cafe (Out of Rosenheim), was based on a screenplay co-authored by director Percy Adlon, producer Eleanor Adlon, and screenwriter Christopher Doherty.1 Given the primary craftspeople involved, when Bagdad Cafe was released in the U.S., it was considered a European film, even though the international co-production was in English, had a predominately American cast, and was set in California s Mojave Desert. For a foreign, independent film in competition with expensive Hollywood productions like Rain Man, the Tom Cruise-Dustin Hoffman show piece that swept the Oscars in 1989, Bagdad Cafe was rather successful. It was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 1989 Independent Spirit Awards and grossed $3.6M in its initial North American release, a very respectable performance for a foreign film.2 Today, Bagdad Cafe is still a noteworthy specialty film that appeals primarily to an older, more highly educated segment of the moviegoing audience interested in work that offers an unusual aesthetic or dramatic experience (Rosen 1987: 6).     

Prediction of Wheat Quality—Past,Present, Future. A Review

Since the discovery of gluten by Beccari in the 18^th century, wheat producers, millers, and bakers have tried to find relatively simple methods of prediction of wheat quality, particularly during the breeding stages. Bearing in mind that endosperm proteins play the governing role in determination of wheat quality, this prediction is generally based on these proteins. Early research concentrated on relations among the macrofractions (i.e., gliadin:glutenin ratio, ratio of acetic acid soluble proteins, etc.). Later, the gliadin polypeptides, the genes coding for these polypeptides, and variety identification became the focus of research.

More recent predictions are based on the high-molecular-weight glutenin subunits. Although such predictions are successfully applied in many countries for wheat breeding, the low correlation between predicted and practical quality observed in many cases, and the variability of quality of different wheat varieties, suggests that further studies are needed to improve the reliability of this particular prediction.

In the framework of such studies, more attention should be paid to the synthesis and interactions of gluten-forming polypeptides—particularly with respect to the polymerization process of glutenin subunits; the role of redox-system of kernel in the gluten formation; and the formation of gluten complex, including role of nonprotein constituents; consequently, the wheat kernel should be treated as a biological unit. From the methodological point of view, the uses of new techniques such as immunochemistry, nondestructive evaluation methods, etc., hold promise for improved quality prediction.     

A Review on the Fermentation of Foods and the Residues of Pesticides—Biotransformation of Pesticides and Effects on Fermentation and Food Quality

Residues of pesticides in food are influenced by processing such as fermentation. Reviewing the extensive literature showed that in most cases, this step leads to large reductions in original residue levels in the fermented food, with the formation of new pesticide by-products. The behavior of residues in fermentation can be rationalized in terms of the physical-chemical properties of the pesticide and the nature of the process. In addition, the presence of pesticides decrease the growth rate of fermentative microbiota (yeasts and bacterias), which provokes stuck and sluggish fermentations. These changes have in consequence repercussions on several aspects of food sensory quality (physical-chemical properties, polyphenolic content, and aromatic profile) of fermented food. The main aim of this review is to deal with all these topics to propose challenging needs in science-based quality management of pesticides residues in food.     

Review of cocoa butter and alternative fats for use in chocolate—Part A. Compositional data

This work reviews the literature on the compositional data of vegetable fats used or proposed as alternatives to cocoa butter in chocolate and confectionery products. Cocoa butter is the only continuous phase in chocolate, thus responsible for the dispersion of all other constituents and for the physical behaviour of chocolate. Unique to cocoa butter is its brittleness at room temperature and its quick and complete melting at body temperature. There were, and are, strong efforts to replace cocoa butter in part for chocolate production for technological and economic reasons. Such cocoa butter alternatives are the so-called cocoa butter equivalents (CBEs), cocoa butter substitutes (CBSs) and cocoa butter replacers (CBRs). These are mostly mixtures of various vegetable fats (often modified) and can consist of palm and palm kernel oil, illipé fat, shea butter, sal fat and kokum butter. In addition, a large variety of other vegetable oils can be used. Their composition according to triglycerides, fatty acids, sterols and other unsaponifiable components is discussed in this report.     

Effect of Processing on Phenolic Antioxidants of Fruits,Vegetables, and Grains—A Review

Understanding the influence of processing operations such as drying/dehydration, canning, extrusion, high hydrostatic pressure, pulsed electric field, and ohmic heating on the phytochemicals of fruits, vegetables, and grains is important in retaining the health benefiting properties of these antioxidative compounds in processed food products. Most of the previous investigations in the literature on the antioxidants of fruits, vegetables, and grains have shown that food-processing operations reduced the antioxidants of the processed foods, which is also the usual consumer perception. However, in the last decade some articles in the literature reported that the evaluation of nutritional quality of processed fruits and vegetables not only depend on the quantity of vitamin C but should include analyses of other antioxidant phytochemicals and antioxidant activity. Thermal processing increased the total antioxidant activity of tomato and sweet corn. Most importantly, analysis also depends on the condition, type, and mechanism of antioxidant assays used. This review aims to provide concise information on the influence of various thermal and nonthermal food-processing operations on the stability and kinetics of health beneficial phenolic antioxidants of fruits, vegetables, and grains.