Nutrition at the Crossroads: Food at the Intersection of Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability

Societies around the world are at a critical juncture. As the planetary population grows, there are increasing demands for expanding available food, more nutritious and healthy foods, and contemporaneously the need for greater efficiencies and decreased impacts upon the environment. The sustainability of food production systems is a complex issue that requires a global and multidisciplinary approach, combining not only agronomy, ecology, nutrition, epidemiology, processing, energy use, but also marketing and sociology. It is within this context that this special issue aims to illustrate, through review articles, case studies, as well as modeling and simulation studies, some means of understanding the integration of food, in a broad sense, within our environment and society

Editorial: Nutrition at the Crossroads: Food at the Intersection of Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability

Kurt A. Rosentrater, Laetitia Palmade, and Elif Kongar's editorial about food and environmental, economic, and social sustainability

Effect of Maltodextrin Reduction and Native Agave Fructans Addition on the Rheological Behavior of Spray-Dried Juices

Agave fructans have thermal protective and encapsulating properties as well as technological functions as stabilizers. The effect of the combination of maltodextrin 10% [w/v] and native agave fructans in concentrations of 0, 2, and 4% [w/v] on the rheological properties and microstructure, of spray-dried chayote, carrot, mango and pineapple powders was evaluated. The flow behavior was analyzed in a simple shear flow and low-cutting speed in the range of 5–200 s−1. The experimental data of fresh or reconstituted juices were fitted to different flow models such as Newtonian, Bingham, and Ostwald-de-Waele. The flow behavior of all juices can be described by the Bingham model with low plastic viscosities; the addition of fructans and the step of spray drying had no significant influence on the plastic viscosity of juices as compared to fresh juices

Inhibitor and substrate binding induced stability of HIV-1 protease against sequential dissociation and unfolding revealed by high pressure spectroscopy and kinetics

High-pressure methods have become an interesting tool of investigation of structural stability of proteins. They are used to study protein unfolding, but dissociation of oligomeric proteins can be addressed this way, too. HIV-1 protease, although an interesting object of biophysical experiments, has not been studied at high pressure yet. In this study HIV-1 protease is investigated by high pressure (up to 600 MPa) fluorescence spectroscopy of either the inherent tryptophan residues or external 8-anilino-1-naphtalenesulfonic acid at 25°C. A fast concentration-dependent structural transition is detected that corresponds to the dimer-monomer equilibrium. This transition is followed by a slow concentration independent transition that can be assigned to the monomer unfolding. In the presence of a tight-binding inhibitor none of these transitions are observed, which confirms the stabilizing effect of inhibitor. High-pressure enzyme kinetics (up to 350 MPa) also reveals the stabilizing effect of substrate. Unfolding of the protease can thus proceed only from the monomeric state after dimer dissociation and is unfavourable at atmospheric pressure. Dimer-destabilizing effect of high pressure is caused by negative volume change of dimer dissociation of -32.5 mL/mol. It helps us to determine the atmospheric pressure dimerization constant of 0.92 μM. High-pressure methods thus enable the investigation of structural phenomena that are difficult or impossible to measure at atmospheric pressure. © 2015 Ingr et al.INSERM; Grant Agency of the Czech Republic [P208-12-G016

Nutrition at the Crossroads: Food at the Intersection of Health, Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability—Volume II

With the exponential growth of the world's population, increasing awareness that our natural resources are limited, a growing food justice movement; and the development of sustainable approaches to grow, process, and distribute food is essential. The processing of raw commodities into food products and their subsequent distribution and sale, is a multi-billion-dollar industry that contributes significantly to most economies throughout the world. Meanwhile, health care costs for diet-related diseases contributes detrimentally to economies. In fact, in every country, the food industry is the largest industrial sector and consequently consumes tremendous quantities of energy, water, and other natural resources, and thus has far-reaching impacts on the environment. These impacts include greenhouse gas emissions, toxic emissions, land use changes, as well as emission of other gaseous, solid, and liquid wastes.This article is published as Rosentrater KA, Palmade L and Kongar E (2022) Editorial: Nutrition at the Crossroads: Food at the Intersection of Health, Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability—Volume II. Front. Nutr. 9:856720. DOI: 10.3389/fnut.2022.856720. Copyright 2022 The Authors. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Posted with permission

Editorial: Nutrition at the Crossroads: Food at the Intersection of Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability

Kurt A. Rosentrater, Laetitia Palmade, and Elif Kongar's editorial about food and environmental, economic, and social sustainability

Nutrition at the Crossroads: Food at the Intersection of Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability

Societies around the world are at a critical juncture. As the planetary population grows, there are increasing demands for expanding available food, more nutritious and healthy foods, and contemporaneously the need for greater efficiencies and decreased impacts upon the environment. The sustainability of food production systems is a complex issue that requires a global and multidisciplinary approach, combining not only agronomy, ecology, nutrition, epidemiology, processing, energy use, but also marketing and sociology. It is within this context that this special issue aims to illustrate, through review articles, case studies, as well as modeling and simulation studies, some means of understanding the integration of food, in a broad sense, within our environment and society.This article is published as Rosentrater, Kurt A., Laetitia Palmade, and Elif Kongar. "Nutrition at the Crossroads: Food at the Intersection of Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability." Frontiers in Nutrition 6 (2019): 158. DOI: 10.3389/fnut.2019.00158. Posted with permission.</p

Enhancement of the in vitro bioavailable carotenoid content of a citrus juice combining crossflow microfiltration and high-pressure treatments

International audienceHigh-pressure treatments combined with crossflow microfiltration were used to obtain citrus concentrates enriched in carotenoids. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of this process combination on carotenoid bioaccessibility and uptake by intestinal Caco-2 cells. Two high-pressure processes, high hydrostatic pressure treatment (HHP) and ultra-high-pressure homogenization (UHPH) were compared to conventional pasteurization. Processing effects on carotenoid content and bioaccessibility, on physicochemical and structural characteristics of the product, on methylation degree of pectins and micelle size after in vitro digestion were assessed. UHPH at 400 MPa drastically enhanced carotenoid bioaccessibility compared to HHP and pasteurization. Moreover, carotenoid uptake by Caco-2 cells was significantly improved by UHPH underlining the importance of the micelle size after in vitro digestion and the degree of methylation of pectins in this uptake. Finally, the in vitro bioavailable carotenoid content of different concentrates was evaluated, taking into account carotenoid content, bioaccessibility and uptake. Combining crossflow microfiltration with UHPH increased by 4–6 fold the bioavailable carotenoid content in the final product. The process led to a concentrate of high nutritional quality compared to the original juice, raw or pasteurized concentrates

Design of an ohmic reactor to study the kinetics of thermal reactions in liquid products

International audienceAn ohmic reactor was developed at a laboratory-scale to study the kinetics of thermal reactions in liquid products such as milk and infant formula in the UHT domain. Temperature mapping revealed good thermal homogeneity with a maximum difference of 3 °C in the treatment cell. The ohmic reactor enabled determination of the electrical conductivity of the product under the real thermal conditions with a precision of ±15%. Reproducible thermal profiles were obtained with a 2.3% relative variation for the heating phase, 1% for holding and 20% for cooling. The FAST index, giving a global measurement of the extent of the Maillard reaction in dairy products, was used to estimate the reproducibility of a thermal reaction with an average standard deviation of 3.8%. Finally, a semi-empirical model was developed to predict product temperature history during a complete thermal treatment with good adjustment for heating and holding and acceptable adjustment for cooling

Enhancement of the in vitro bioavailable carotenoid content of a citrus juice combining crossflow microfiltration and high-pressure treatments

International audienceHigh-pressure treatments combined with crossflow microfiltration were used to obtain citrus concentrates enriched in carotenoids. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of this process combination on carotenoid bioaccessibility and uptake by intestinal Caco-2 cells. Two high-pressure processes, high hydrostatic pressure treatment (HHP) and ultra-high-pressure homogenization (UHPH) were compared to conventional pasteurization. Processing effects on carotenoid content and bioaccessibility, on physicochemical and structural characteristics of the product, on methylation degree of pectins and micelle size after in vitro digestion were assessed. UHPH at 400 MPa drastically enhanced carotenoid bioaccessibility compared to HHP and pasteurization. Moreover, carotenoid uptake by Caco-2 cells was significantly improved by UHPH underlining the importance of the micelle size after in vitro digestion and the degree of methylation of pectins in this uptake. Finally, the in vitro bioavailable carotenoid content of different concentrates was evaluated, taking into account carotenoid content, bioaccessibility and uptake. Combining crossflow microfiltration with UHPH increased by 4–6 fold the bioavailable carotenoid content in the final product. The process led to a concentrate of high nutritional quality compared to the original juice, raw or pasteurized concentrates