Exploring Pathways to Food Science Careers in Southern California: A Case Study in Food Science Career Development

Southern California is a diverse region that is home to a high concentration of food science companies, with an increasing demand for additional food scientists and technologists to join this workforce. Despite this abundance of food science companies and the high demand for jobs, there is currently a shortage in the number of qualified food scientists and technologists in the region. This shortage is also observed within higher education, with declining enrollments in the food science graduate and undergraduate programs across Southern California. Here, we conduct a case study to explore the factors that influence students from Southern California to pursue or not pursue careers in food science. We surveyed both undergraduate and graduate students currently enrolled in food science as well as industry professionals in the region to determine sources of knowledge about the discipline, and motivations and barriers for pursuing careers in food science. We also surveyed high school educators in the region to gain additional perspectives on how food science is being introduced at the secondary level, if at all. Our results demonstrate that many students and high school educators are not knowledgeable about career options within food science and that students who are pursuing food science largely report similar motivations for pursuing the discipline as those currently working in the food science industry. We conclude by discussing implications for the food science education community within Southern California and beyond

Hydrolysis of Chlorogenic Acid in Sunflower Flour Increases Consumer Acceptability of Sunflower Flour Cookies by Improving Cookie Color

Sunflower meal, a byproduct of sunflower oil pressing, is not commonly used in alkaline baking applications. This is because chlorogenic acid, the main phenolic antioxidant in sunflower seeds, reacts with protein, giving the baked product a green discoloration. Our group previously demonstrated that a chlorogenic acid esterase from Lactobacillus helveticus hydrolyzes chlorogenic acid in sunflower dough cookie formulations, resulting in cookies that were brown instead of green. This study presents a sensory analysis to determine the acceptability of enzymatically upcycled sunflower meal as an alternative protein source for those allergic to meals from legumes or tree nuts. We hypothesized that the mechanism of esterase-catalyzed chlorogenic acid breakdown does not influence the cookies’ sensory properties other than color and that consumers would prefer treated, brown cookies over non-treated cookies. Cookies made from sunflower meal were presented under green lights to mask color and tested by 153 panelists. As expected, the sensory properties (flavor, smell, texture, and overall acceptability) of the treated and non-treated cookies were not statistically different. These results corroborate proximate analysis, which demonstrated that there was no difference between enzymatically treated and non-treated cookies other than color and chlorogenic acid content. After the cookie color was revealed, panelists strongly preferred the treated cookies with 58% indicating that they “probably” or “definitely” would purchase the brown cookies, whereas only 5.9% would buy green, non-treated cookies. These data suggest that esterase-catalyzed breakdown of chlorogenic acid represents an effective strategy to upcycle sunflower meal for baking applications

Preventing Chlorogenic Acid Quinone-Induced Greening in Sunflower Cookies by Chlorogenic Acid Esterase and Thiol-based Dough Conditioners

Sunflower seeds contain a high concentration of chlorogenic acid (CGA), which reacts with amino acids to form green pigments under alkaline conditions during food processing. Here, we present two approaches to prevent green pigment formation in sunflower cookies by (A) Addition of free thiols from cysteine and glutathione to sunflower cookie dough and (B) hydrolyzing CGA into caffeic acid and quinic acid with a CGA esterase from Lactobacillus helveticus. Greening occurred more slowly with cysteine; however, neither cysteine nor glutathione prevented greening in the cookies during storage. Chlorogenic acid esterase hydrolyzed CGA in both sunflower butter and flour, resulting in the complete elimination of greening in the sunflower cookies. CGA esterase treatment was efficient as the enzyme could be applied in low amounts (\u3c100 ppm) directly to the dough without needing to pretreat either sunflower butter or flour. Overall, our data indicate that CGA esterase treatment was an effective method of eliminating unwanted greening in sunflower cookies made with baking soda. Long term, these results may represent a method of increasing the use of sunflower butter and flour in high pH baking applications by enabling their use in neutrally colored baked products such as cookies and muffins