A low-cost ultrasonic spray dryer to produce spherical microparticles from polymeric matrices

The spray-drying technique has been widely used for drying heat-sensitive foods, pharmaceuticals, and other substances, because it leads to rapid solvent evaporation from droplets. This method involves the transformation of a feed from a fluid state into a dried particulate, by spraying the feed into a hot medium. Despite being most often considered a dehydration process, spray drying can also be used as an encapsulation method. Therefore, this work proposes the use of a simple and low-cost ultrasonic spray dryer system to produce spherical microparticles. This equipment was successfully applied to the preparation of dextrin microspheres on a laboratory scale and for academic purposes.

Produção de isomaltulose, um substituto da sacarose, utilizando glicosiltransferase microbiana

Isomaltulose, a functional isomer of sucrose, is a non-cariogenic reducing disaccharide; has a low glycemic index; selectively promotes growth of beneficial bifidobacteria in the human intestinal microflora; and has greater stability than sucrose in some foods and beverages. Isomaltulose is a nutritional sugar that is digested more slowly than sucrose, and has health advantages for diabetics and nondiabetics. Immobilization techniques, especially entrapment of the cells, are widely used for conversion of sucrose into isomaltulose. Immobilization offers advantages such as minimum downstream processing, continuous operation and reusability of cells. Isomaltulose is currently considered to be a promising sugar substitute.

Propriedades e aplicações recentes das ciclodextrinas

Cyclodextrins (CDs) are cyclic oligosaccharides comprised of six or more glucose units connected by alpha-1,4 bonds. They have hydrophobic cavities with a hydrophilic exterior, and are versatile receptors for a variety of substrates. This ability allows them to be applied in many fields, as distinct as supramolecular chemistry, nanotechnology, pharmaceuticals, green chemistry, agrochemicals, analytical chemistry, toiletries, foods, and cosmetics. This review summarizes several aspects related to the physico-chemical properties of CDs and discusses their potential applications illustrated by recent examples. The prospects for their use in several areas are also described.

Validação de métodos cromatográficos por clae para análise das vitaminas B1, B2, B6 e niacina naturalmente presentes em farinha de cereais

Complex B vitamins are present in some cereal foods and the ingestion of enriched products contributes to the recommended dietary intake of these micronutrients. To adapt the label of some products, it is necessary to develop and validate the analytical methods. These methods must be reliable and with enough sensitivity to analyze complex B vitamins naturally present in food at low concentration. The purpose of this work is to evaluate, with validated methods, the content of vitamins B1, B2, B6 and niacin in five cereal flours used in food industry (oat, rice, barley, corn and wheat).

Simultaneous determination of B-Group vitamins in enriched cookies

The objective of this research was to determine the levels of enrichment of vitamins B1, B2, B6 and B3 in different types and brands of enriched cookies. The chromatographic separation was performed in a C18 column with gradient elution and UV detection at 254 and 287 nm. The results show that only 5 of the 24 brands evaluated are in accordance with the Brazilian legislation with respect to the vitamin content declared on the labels. However, consumption of approximately 100-150 g of most of the brands supplies the recommended dietary intake for children and adults of the vitamins evaluated.

Efeito antagônico do ferro e do zinco em uma formulação de alimentação enteral utilizando planejamento de misturas da metodologia de superfície de resposta

Nutritional therapy with enteral diets became substantially specialized over the last years. This work's aim was to study the effect of the components of a formulation: fiber, calcium and medium-chain triglycerides for dialysability of minerals. Analysis of multiple variables was carried out using response surface methodology. The level curve showed an antagonic effect of interaction between iron and zinc. TCM was the variable responsible for characterizing competition between the two minerals in the formulation. More studies on foods are needed for knowing the effecs of minerals in formulations.

Alginato bacteriano: aspectos tecnológicos, características e produção

Alginate is a biopolymer used for a variety of industrial applications, for example, in the textiles, cosmetics, foods, agricultural and biotechnological industries. This biopolymer is traditionally extracted from some brown seaweeds (Phaeophyceae) and can be produced by bacteria isolated from soil, as Azotobacter vinelandii, like capsular polysaccharide using glucose, sucrose, among others as carbon sources. The main difference between the alginate of seaweed and the bacterial ones, is the biggest degree of acetylation of this last one, with great influence in the gel force. These chemical characteristics and production of bacterial alginate are presented in this work.

Avaliação de uma proposta contextualizada sobre o ensino de polarimetria nos cursos de farmácia e engenharia de alimentos, na Universidade Federal do Ceará

This work deals with an evaluation of an experimental application about polarimetry for pharmacy and food engineering courses. Foods obtained from the undergraduate students were used for demonstrating multidisciplinary concepts and these concepts were associated to the teaching of polarimetry. According to the results, the benefits of the contextualization are beyond the class and the undergraduating students became interested in control of quality of foods. From these results, it can be concluded that the experimental emphasis given is valid and creates motivation and interest for learning physico-chemistry, in comparison with the traditional methodology applied to teach polarimetry.

Fontes vegetais naturais de antioxidantes

Growing knowledge on the health-promoting impact of antioxidants in everyday foods, combined with the assumption that a number of common synthetic preservatives may have hazardous side effects has led to increased investigations in the field of natural antioxidants, principally those found in plants. Food industries normally discard plant residues that could benefit the human health and diminish undesirable environmental impact. Once estimated the content of antioxidants in these residues, advantageous economical and social alternatives to the discard are possible, for example, their use for preparation of nutraceuticals to be offered to low-income populations. We present here a broad, although not complete, account of the continuously growing knowledge on the antioxidant capacity of whole fruits, seeds and peels, cereals, vegetal oils and aromatic plants, at several physical forms, as well as a description of the usual methods for evaluating their antioxidant capacity and examples of agroindustrial processes that could be harnessed for the production of antioxidant supplement food, along with research perspectives in the area.

Resíduos de agrotóxicos em alimentos: uma preocupação ambiental global - Um enfoque às maçãs

This paper describes the use of pesticides in agriculture. Research has shown that significant quantities of pesticide residues have been found in many types of foods. Thus, an overview is given of pesticide residue determinations in fruits and vegetables, with special attention to apples. The toxicity and the adverse effects possibly caused by the exposure of these compounds are alerting the scientific community to develop studies about the validation of analytical methods for multiresidue pesticide determination in these samples. This review shows that pesticide-residue determination in apples is becoming a very important and challenging issue.

Tocoferois e tocotrienois em óleos vegetais e ovos

The distribution and content of vitamin E isomers was investigated in vegetable oils and raw and cooked egg yolk in commercial restaurants. The analysis of the eight vitamin E isomers was carried out by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) with fluorescence detection. The tocopherol and tocotrienol composition of foods varied considerably. Tocopherols were detected in greater quantity and frequency. The α-tocopherol predominated in egg yolks and olive oil while γ-tocopherol was found in high quantities in soybean and canola oils. Cooking did not cause major losses for most of the vitamin E isomers in egg yolks.

O valor energético dos alimentos: exemplo de uma determinação experimental, usando calorimetria de combustão

The energies involved in the combustion, under atmosphere of oxygen, of breakfast cereals and dehydrate powdered whole milk samples, were determined by combustion calorimetry. This practical work, in the field of human nutrition, involved the characterization of the nutritional composition and the combustion of samples of the two foods that are part of the alimentary diet, namely, at breakfast. The obtained results allowed to assess the energy value printed in the foods labels and discuss the way those values are estimated.

Um método verde, rápido e simples para determinar o valor energético de farinhas e cereais matinais

The Energy Value (EV) corresponds to the sum of the energetic contributions from food macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates and fats) and is required on the labels of pre-packaged foods. The determinations of these parameters are based on distinct analytical procedures, each one being time-consuming, laborious and producing residues. This work presents multivariate models to determine the EV contents of industrialized foods for human consumption by using X-ray fluorescence spectra of samples with known parameters, determined through conventional methods. The proposed method is an alternative to conventional analytical methods and does not require any reagent, given the demands of the "green chemistry".

Foam-forming properties of Ilex paraguariensis (mate) saponin: foamability and foam lifetime analysis by Weibull equation

Saponins are natural soaplike foam-forming compounds widely used in foods, cosmetic and pharmaceutical preparations. In this work foamability and foam lifetime of foams obtained from Ilex paraguariensis unripe fruits were analyzed. Polysorbate 80 and sodium dodecyl sulfate were used as reference surfactants. Aiming a better data understanding a linearized 4-parameters Weibull function was proposed. The mate hydroethanolic extract (ME) and a mate saponin enriched fraction (MSF) afforded foamability and foam lifetime comparable to the synthetic surfactants. The linearization of the Weibull equation allowed the statistical comparison of foam decay curves, improving former mathematical approaches.

Aspectos analíticos da resposta do detector de ionização em chama para ésteres de ácidos graxos em biodiesel e alimentos

The analysis of fatty acid (FA) esters by gas chromatography and flame ionization detector (FID) normally uses the normalization method. However, if one FA is wrongly estimated, the results could be greatly affected. In this study, methodologies using internal standards and correction factors for the FID response are described. The results show that by using theoretical correction factors associated to the internal standardization, the quantitative analyses of the FAs are expressed in mass, increasing the accuracy and facilitating the interpretation and comparison of the results for foods and biodiesels.