Children\u27s exposure to food advertising on free-to-air television: an Asia-Pacific perspective

There is an established link between food promotions and children\u27s food purchase and consumption. Children in developing countries may be more vulnerable to food promotions given the relative novelty of advertising in these markets. This study aimed to determine the scope of television food advertising to children across the Asia-Pacific to inform policies to restrict this marketing. Six sites were sampled, including from China, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea. At each site, 192 h of television were recorded (4 days, 16 h/day, three channels) from May to October 2012. Advertised foods were categorized as core/healthy, non-core/unhealthy or miscellaneous, and by product type. Twenty-seven percent of advertisements were for food/beverages, and the most frequently advertised product was sugar-sweetened drinks. Rates of non-core food advertising were highest during viewing times most popular with children, when between 3 (South Korea) and 15 (Indonesia) non-core food advertisements were broadcast each hour. Children in the Asia-Pacific are exposed to high volumes of unhealthy food/beverage television advertising. Different policy arrangements for food advertising are likely to contribute to regional variations in advertising patterns. Cities with the lowest advertising rates can be identified as exemplars of good policy practice

Conjugated linoleic acid: Techniques for analysis and effects on PUFA formation in rat hepatocytes

This study focused on developing techniques for the analysis of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and determining the effects of CLA on PUFA formation in suspension cultures of rat hepatocytes. First, two methylation procedures were established for analyzing neutral or polar lipids containing CLA, regardless of the free fatty acid level. Both methods showed less alteration of CLA isomeric distribution compared to conventional methods of methylation. Second, the positional isomers of CLA in commercial preparations and the neutral lipids isolated from rat hepatocyte cultures were determined by GC-MS analysis. All 18:2[7,9], 18:2[8,10], 18:2[9,11], 18:2[10,12], and 18:2[11,13] isomers were detected in the commercial CLA mixture and in the neutral lipid fraction isolated from hepatocytes. Third, the effects of CLA on rat hepatocyte fatty acid composition, and cell physiology were investigated. CLA enrichment did not affect LDH activity or lactate oxidation to produce CO2. Greater amounts of CLA isomers were detected in neutral lipids compared to that found in polar lipids of the hepatocytes. Individual CLA isomers tended to be incorporated into different lipid classes. Enrichment of rat hepatocytes with 200 μM CLA resulted in a greater CLA incorporation compared to 100 μM CLA enrichment. Greater amounts of CLA isomers were detected in the hepatocyte cultures at 120 minutes of incubation. In addition, no c,c-CLA was detected in hepatocyte polar lipids. The formation of arachidonic acid (AA) from 14C-linoleic acid was reduced by treating the hepatocytes with 100 μM of CLA. Compared to the control, a maximal 28% suppression of AA formation was observed with 100 μM CLA enrichment for 120 min. Therefore, CLA may directly affect membrane structure and function by altering membrane lipid composition, and indirectly influence cell physiology by down-regulating arachidonic acid production

Active and Robust Composite Films Based on Gelatin and Gallic Acid Integrated with Microfibrillated Cellulose

Background: Gelatin is a renewable, biodegradable, and inexpensive food polymer. The insufficient mechanical and functional properties of gelatin-based films (GBF) restrict their commercial application in food packaging. This work proposed a facile strategy to prepare an active and robust GBF that has the potential to be used in food packaging. Methods: A strong and active GBF was prepared based on the principle of supramolecular chemistry via the incorporation of gallic acid (GA) as an active crosslinking agent and of microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) as a reinforcing agent. Results: Under the appropriate concentration (1.0 wt%), MFC was evenly dispersed in a gelatin matrix to endow the film with low surface roughness and compact structure. Compared with the GF, the tensile strength and elongation at break of the resultant film reached 6.09 MPa and 213.4%, respectively, representing the corresponding improvement of 12.8% and 27.6%. Besides, a significantly improved water vapor barrier (from 3.985 × 10−8 to 3.894 × 10−8 g·m−1·Pa−1·s−1) and antioxidant activity (from 54.6% to 86.4% for ABTS radical scavenging activity; from 6.0% to 89.1% for DPPH radical scavenging activity) of GBFs were also observed after introducing the aromatic structure of GA and nano-/microfibrils in MFC. Moreover, the UV blocking performance and thermal stability of GGF and GGCFs were also enhanced. Conclusions: this work paves a promising way toward facile preparation of multifunctional GBFs that have great potential to be used in fabricating active and safe food packaging materials for food preservation

Detection of olive oil adulteration with vegetable oils by ultra‐performance convergence chromatography‐quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry (UPC2‐QTOF MS) coupled with multivariate data analysis based on the differences of triacylglycerol compositions

Abstract Three different vegetable oils, including soybean, corn, and sunflower oils, were differentiated from olive oil by using ultra‐performance convergence chromatography coupled with quadrupole time‐of‐flight (UPC2‐QTOF MS) and multivariate data analysis based on their differences in triacylglycerol compositions. Then, olive oil was adulterated by adding these three vegetable oils in 1%, 0.75%, and 0.5% (v/v), and the adulterated olive oils were differentiated from the pure olive oils using the similar analytical strategies but different data processing approaches. After that, the representative markers in differentiating the adulterations were selected, and a mathematical model was created to detect the olive oil adulteration based on these specific markers. These results indicated that UPC2‐QTOF MS coupled with multivariate data analysis is a sensitive and accurate method in detecting olive oil adulteration, even in 0.5% adulteration level (v/v). This method could be applied in olive oil adulteration detection, and potentially beneficial to the oil industry