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Foaming and Other Functional Properties of Freeze-Dried Mare’s Milk
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the freeze-drying process on the preservation of mare’s milk. This was achieved through the characterization of the functional properties of reconstituted freeze-dried mare’s milk. The chemical composition, bulk density, foam capacity, and ability to form emulsions of the atherogenic, thrombogenic, and hypercholesterolemic fatty acid index were investigated. The freeze-drying process did not change the proportion of the milk components in the dry matter. The moisture content of the freeze-dried mare’s milk was 10.3 g/kg and the bulk was below 0.1 g/mL. The foaming capacity was 111.3%; hence, the foaming capacity of the milk was very poor. The oil binding capacity was 2.19 g/g of protein. The freeze-drying process improves the binding degree and retention of oil by milk proteins, but produced foam was unstable, short-lived, and lacked the ability to retain air fractions. The atherogenic index and thrombogenic index values calculated for reconstituted milk were 1.02 and 0.53, respectively. The hypercholesterolemia fatty acid index was 25.01.
Application of artificial neural network for the quality-based classification of spray-dried rhubarb juice powders
AbstractThe aim of the study was to develop a neural model enabling classification of fruit spray dried powders, on the basis of graphic data acquired from a bitmap received in the process of spray drying. The neural model was developed with multi-layer perceptron topology. Input variables were expressed in 46 image descriptors based on RGB, YCbCr, HSV (B) and HSL models. Sensitivity analysis of input variables and principal component analysis determined the significance level of each attribute. The optimal model with the lowest error value root mean square, at the level of 0.04 contained 46 neurons in the input layer, 11 neurons in the hidden layer, 10 neurons in the output layer. The results allowed to show that dyeing force (color features) had influence on effective differentiation of the research material consisting of spray-dried powders of rhubarb juice with various dried juice content levels: 30, 40 and 50% as well as high (“H”) and low (“L”) level of saccharification a chosen carrier (potato maltodextrin).
Energy-Saving Dried Game Meat as a Sustainable Alternative to Farmed Dried Meat Products
The aim of this study was to confirm the suitability of game meat as a sustainable substitute for farmed meat for use as a raw material in the production of dried meat products. Red deer and wild boar meat were selected for the study, and a hybrid drying method was employed, i.e., hot air drying (HAD) assisted by microwave–vacuum drying (MVD). The selection of the research material was guided by the assumed low carbon footprint of game meat (as there are no precise LCA (life cycle assessment) data), while the selection of processing methods was guided by the possibility of obtaining high-quality products with reduced energy consumption. All these aspects were intended to support sustainability in the dried meat products industry. The dried game meat obtained in this study is microbiologically stable (water activity 0.62–0.68, moisture content approx. 10% w.b.) and characterized by high quality, confirmed by high sensory quality index scores (SQI > 4.5 on a 5-point scale). The process parameter optimization of the applied hybrid three-stage drying method (HAD-MVD-HAD) also allowed for a reduction in energy consumption of almost 40% compared to the most commonly used single-stage HAD method. These achievements confirm the great potential of using game meat in the food industry, which in turn may contribute to more sustainable production practices.