Strategies to Increase the Value of Pomaces with Fermentation

The generation of pomaces from juice and olive oil industries is a major environmental issue. This review aims to provide an overview of the strategies to increase the value of pomaces by fermentation/biotransformation and explore the different aspects reported in scientific studies. Fermentation is an interesting solution to improve the value of pomaces (especially from grape, apple, and olive) and produce high-added value compounds. In terms of animal production, a shift in the fermentation process during silage production seems to happen (favoring ethanol production rather than lactic acid), but it can be controlled with starter cultures. The subsequent use of silage with pomace in animal production slightly reduces growth performance but improves animal health status. One of the potential applications in the industrial context is the production of enzymes (current challenges involve purification and scaling up the process) and organic acids. Other emerging applications are the production of odor-active compounds to improve the aroma of foods as well as the release of bound polyphenols and the synthesis of bioactive compounds for functional food production.

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Potential Pharmaceutical and Food Applications of Postbiotics: A Review

Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology ◽

10.2174/1389201021666200516154833 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 21 (15) ◽

pp. 1576-1587 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Aziz H. Rad ◽

Amin Abbasi ◽

Hossein S. Kafil ◽

Khudaverdi Ganbarov

Keyword(s):

Functional Foods ◽

Animal Health ◽

Pharmaceutical Formulations ◽

Live Cells ◽

Beneficial Effects ◽

Safe Product ◽

Potential Applications ◽

Food Applications ◽

Potential Alternative ◽

Bioactive Agents

In recent decades, functional foods with ingredients comprising probiotics, prebiotics and postbiotics have been gaining a lot of attention from scientists. Probiotics and postbiotics are usually applied in pharmaceutical formulations and/or commercial food-based products. These bioactive agents can be associated with host eukaryotic cells and have a key role in maintaining and restoring host health. The review describes the concept of postbiotics, their quality control and potential applications in pharmaceutical formulations and commercial food-based products for health promotion, prevention of disease and complementary treatment. Despite the effectiveness of probiotic products, researchers have introduced the concept of postbiotic to optimize their beneficial effects as well as to meet the needs of consumers to provide a safe product. The finding of recent studies suggests that postbiotics might be appropriate alternative agents for live probiotic cells and can be applied in medical, veterinary and food practice to prevent and to treat some diseases, promote animal health status and develop functional foods. Presently scientific literature confirms that postbiotics, as potential alternative agents, may have superiority in terms of safety relative to their parent live cells, and due to their unique characteristics in terms of clinical, technological and economical aspects, can be applied as promising tools in the drug and food industry for developing health benefits, and therapeutic aims.

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Edible Energy Production and Energy Return on Investment—Long-Term Analysis of Global Changes

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14041011 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (4) ◽

pp. 1011

Author(s):

Bartłomiej Bajan ◽

Joanna Łukasiewicz ◽

Agnieszka Poczta-Wajda ◽

Walenty Poczta

Keyword(s):

Energy Efficiency ◽

Return On Investment ◽

Food Production ◽

Energy Production ◽

Crop Production ◽

Fossil Fuels ◽

Animal Production ◽

Global Changes ◽

Energy Return On Investment

The projected increase in the world’s population requires an increase in the production of edible energy that would meet the associated increased demand for food. However, food production is strongly dependent on the use of energy, mainly from fossil fuels, the extraction of which requires increasing input due to the depletion of the most easily accessible deposits. According to numerous estimations, the world’s energy production will be dependent on fossil fuels at least to 2050. Therefore, it is vital to increase the energy efficiency of production, including food production. One method to measure energy efficiency is the energy return on investment (EROI), which is the ratio of the amount of energy produced to the amount of energy consumed in the production process. The literature lacks comparable EROI calculations concerning global food production and the existing studies only include crop production. The aim of this study was to calculate the EROI of edible crop and animal production in the long term worldwide and to indicate the relationships resulting from its changes. The research takes into account edible crop and animal production in agriculture and the direct consumption of fossil fuels and electricity. The analysis showed that although the most underdeveloped regions have the highest EROI, the production of edible energy there is usually insufficient to meet the food needs of the population. On the other hand, the lowest EROI was observed in highly developed regions, where production ensures food self-sufficiency. However, the changes that have taken place in Europe since the 1990s indicate an opportunity to simultaneously reduce the direct use of energy in agriculture and increase the production of edible energy, thus improving the EROI.

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Heavy-Metal Phytoremediation from Livestock Wastewater and Exploitation of Exhausted Biomass

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18052239 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (5) ◽

pp. 2239

Author(s):

Monika Hejna ◽

Elisabetta Onelli ◽

Alessandra Moscatelli ◽

Maurizio Bellotto ◽

Cinzia Cristiani ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Heavy Metals ◽

Heavy Metal ◽

Water Conservation ◽

Anaerobic Fermentation ◽

Biogas Production ◽

Animal Health ◽

Livestock Production ◽

Animal Production ◽

Feed Additives ◽

Livestock Wastewater

Sustainable agriculture is aimed at long-term crop and livestock production with a minimal impact on the environment. However, agricultural practices from animal production can contribute to global pollution due to heavy metals from the feed additives that are used to ensure the nutritional requirements and also promote animal health and optimize production. The bioavailability of essential mineral sources is limited; thus, the metals are widely found in the manure. Via the manure, metallic ions can contaminate livestock wastewater, drastically reducing its potential recycling for irrigation. Phytoremediation, which is an efficient and cost-effective cleanup technique, could be implemented to reduce the wastewater pollution from livestock production, in order to maintain the water conservation. Plants use various strategies for the absorption and translocation of heavy metals, and they have been widely used to remediate livestock wastewater. In addition, the pollutants concentrated in the plants can be exhausted and used as heat to enhance plant growth and further concentrate the metals, making recycling a possible option. The biomass of the plants can also be used for biogas production in anaerobic fermentation. Combining phytoremediation and biorefinery processes would add value to both approaches and facilitate metal recovery. This review focuses on the concept of agro-ecology, specifically the excessive use of heavy metals in animal production, the various techniques and adaptations of the heavy-metal phytoremediation from livestock wastewater, and further applications of exhausted phytoremediated biomass.

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The benefits of ‘One Health’ for pastoralists in Africa

Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research ◽

10.4102/ojvr.v81i2.726 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 81 (2) ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Helena Greter ◽

Vreni Jean-Richard ◽

Lisa Crump ◽

Mahamat Béchir ◽

Idriss O. Alfaroukh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Vaccination Coverage ◽

Health Care Services ◽

One Health ◽

Q Fever ◽

Animal Health ◽

Added Value ◽

Care Services ◽

Mobile Pastoralists ◽

Serological Studies ◽

Health Studies

‘One health’ is particularly suited to serve mobile pastoralists. Dinka pastoralists in Sudan inspired Calvin Schwabe to coin the term ‘one medicine’, indicating that there is no difference in paradigm between human and veterinary medicine. Our contemporary definition of ‘one health’ is any added value in terms of improved health of humans and animals or financial savings or environmental services resulting from a closer cooperation of human and animal health sectors. Here we present a summary of ‘one health’ studies with mobile pastoralists in Africa which were done in research partnership, demonstrating such an added value. Initial joint human and animal health studies revealed higher livestock vaccination coverage than in the pastoralist community, leading to joint animal and human vaccination intervention studies which demonstrated a better access to primary health care services for pastoralists in Chad. Further simultaneous animal and human serological studies showed that camel breeding was associated with human Q-fever seropositivity. In Borana communities in Ethiopia, human cases of Mycobacterium bovis infection could be related to strains isolated from cattle. A challenge remained with regard to how to assess vaccination coverage in mobile populations. With the advent of mobile phones, health and demographic surveillance could be established for mobile pastoralists and their animals. This presents vast possibilities for surveillance and control of human and animal diseases. Pastoralists prefer a ‘one health’ approach and therefore contribute toward the validation of this concept by showing real added value of the cooperation between human and animal health services.

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Evaluation of Fatty Acids Profile as a Useful Tool towards Valorization of By-Products of Agri-Food Industry

Foods ◽

10.3390/foods10112867 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (11) ◽

pp. 2867

Author(s):

Rui Ferreira ◽

Sílvia Lourenço ◽

André Lopes ◽

Carlos Andrade ◽

José S. Câmara ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fatty Acids ◽

Food Industry ◽

Saturated Fatty Acids ◽

Monounsaturated Fatty Acids ◽

Scientific Basis ◽

Grape Pomace ◽

Added Value ◽

Fatty Acids Profile ◽

Potential Applications ◽

By Products

Worldwide, the food industry generates a large number of by-products from a wide variety of sources. These by-products represent an interesting and economical source of added value components with potential functionalities and/or bioactivities, which might be explored for industrial purposes, encouraging and promoting the circular economy concept. In this context, the current work aimed to evaluate the fatty acids (FAs) profile using gas chromatography–flame ionization detector (GC–FID) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), as well as the determination of related health lipid indices (e.g., atherogenic (AI) and thrombogenic (TI)) as a powerful strategy to investigate the potential applications of different agri-food by-products for human nutrition and animal feeding. This work results showed that polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are the predominant group in grape pomace (72.7%), grape bunches (54.3%), and brewer’s spent grain (BSG, 59.0%), whereas carrot peels are dominated by monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs, 47.3%), and grape stems (46.2%), lees (from 50.8 to 74.1%), and potato peels (77.2%) by saturated fatty acids (SFAs). These findings represent a scientific basis for exploring the nutritional properties of agri-food by-products. Special attention should be given to grape pomace, grape bunches, and BSG since they have a high content of PUFAs (from 54.3 to 72.7%) and lower AI (from 0.11 to 0.38) and TI (from 0.30 to 0.56) indexes, suggesting their potential to provide a variety of health benefits against cardiovascular diseases including well-established hypotriglyceridemia and anti-inflammatory effects, products to which they are added.

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Role of Cooperative Societies in Boosting Agricultural Production & Entrepreneurship in the Kebbi State of Nigeria.

NICE Research Journal ◽

10.51239/nrjss.v0i0.27 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 234-351

Author(s):

Kamelshewer Lohana Et al.,

Keyword(s):

Local Government ◽

Sample Size ◽

Agricultural Production ◽

Null Hypothesis ◽

Food Production ◽

Sampling Technique ◽

Added Value ◽

Cluster Sampling ◽

Survey Results

The study Assess the Role & contributions of cooperative societies in boosting agricultural production & Entrepreneurship in the Kebbi State of Nigeria. A total of 120 sample size was used for the study. Cluster sampling technique was used to obtaining information from sample respondents (members of farmers’ cooperative societies). Sixty (60) questionnaires were administered to sixty respondents, each in both Zuru and Yauri Local Government Areas. Data collected was analysed and interpreted using simple percentage and descriptive methods. The major conclusions drawn from this research were: survey results, regarding effectiveness of cooperative societies in improving agricultural production & Entrepreneurship, have shown that 33.3% and 25% of the respondents in Zuru and Yauri Local Government Areas reported promoting farmers’ participation in agriculture, while 25% and 46% agreed to boost agricultural production in the study areas. About 36.6% and 35% believed in the effectiveness of cooperative societies in increasing food production. Sample respondents in the two Local Government Areas 5% and 3.3% reported all of the above indicators increase the effectiveness of cooperatives to agriculture. Survey results regarding the role of cooperatives in boosting Entrepreneurship in the study areas shows that 75% Zuru 88.3% Yauri agreed that cooperatives have added value to boosting Agric production & Entrepreneurship and only 15% and 11.6% did not agree with the above opinion. Many problems were identified that affects the smooth functioning of cooperatives and solutions for addressing the problems were recommended. Therefore it was concluded that Null Hypothesis HO is rejected and Alternate Hypothesis HA is accepted.

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Silk Polymers and Nanoparticles: A Powerful Combination for the Design of Versatile Biomaterials

Frontiers in Chemistry ◽

10.3389/fchem.2020.604398 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

Author(s):

Cristina Belda Marín ◽

Vincent Fitzpatrick ◽

David L. Kaplan ◽

Jessem Landoulsi ◽

Erwann Guénin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Silk Fibroin ◽

Textile Industry ◽

Volume Ratio ◽

Inorganic Nanoparticles ◽

Added Value ◽

Digital Light Processing ◽

Potential Applications ◽

Manufacturing Techniques ◽

And Performance

Silk fibroin (SF) is a natural protein largely used in the textile industry but also in biomedicine, catalysis, and other materials applications. SF is biocompatible, biodegradable, and possesses high tensile strength. Moreover, it is a versatile compound that can be formed into different materials at the macro, micro- and nano-scales, such as nanofibers, nanoparticles, hydrogels, microspheres, and other formats. Silk can be further integrated into emerging and promising additive manufacturing techniques like bioprinting, stereolithography or digital light processing 3D printing. As such, the development of methodologies for the functionalization of silk materials provide added value. Inorganic nanoparticles (INPs) have interesting and unexpected properties differing from bulk materials. These properties include better catalysis efficiency (better surface/volume ratio and consequently decreased quantify of catalyst), antibacterial activity, fluorescence properties, and UV-radiation protection or superparamagnetic behavior depending on the metal used. Given the promising results and performance of INPs, their use in many different procedures has been growing. Therefore, combining the useful properties of silk fibroin materials with those from INPs is increasingly relevant in many applications. Two main methodologies have been used in the literature to form silk-based bionanocomposites: in situ synthesis of INPs in silk materials, or the addition of preformed INPs to silk materials. This work presents an overview of current silk nanocomposites developed by these two main methodologies. An evaluation of overall INP characteristics and their distribution within the material is presented for each approach. Finally, an outlook is provided about the potential applications of these resultant nanocomposite materials.

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A One Health Research Framework for Animal-Assisted Interventions

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph16040640 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (4) ◽

pp. 640 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Karin Hediger ◽

Andrea Meisser ◽

Jakob Zinsstag

Keyword(s):

One Health ◽

Synergistic Effects ◽

Animal Health ◽

Health Assessment ◽

Integrated Approach ◽

Research Field ◽

Added Value ◽

Health Study ◽

Research Designs ◽

Animal Assisted Intervention

Background: The integration of animals into healthcare, referred to as animal-assisted intervention, is a rapidly growing research field and was previously related to One Health. However, the assessment of synergistic effects of animal-assisted interventions (AAI) has been poorly addressed to date. Method: We discuss experiences in integrated human and animal assessments in AAI and provide a methodical framework for One Health approaches in AAI research. We propose theoretical consideration of an integrated human and animal health assessment, as well as the use of such an integrated approach in research. Based on the existing research, we argue that, for a deeper understanding of AAI mechanisms, parallel research designs are needed. Results and Conclusion: Our paper shows that a One Health study design is necessary to ensure that a tradeoff in health of animals is prevented and that an added value, or synergistic benefit, can be achieved on both sides during animal-assisted interventions.

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Serological Screening of Influenza A Virus Antibodies in Cats and Dogs Indicates Frequent Infection with Different Subtypes

Journal of Clinical Microbiology ◽

10.1128/jcm.01689-20 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 58 (11) ◽

Author(s):

Shan Zhao ◽

Nancy Schuurman ◽

Malte Tieke ◽

Berit Quist ◽

Steven Zwinkels ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Influenza A ◽

Close Contact ◽

Animal Health ◽

Companion Animals ◽

Added Value ◽

Influenza A Viruses ◽

Serum Samples ◽

Serological Screening ◽

H1n1 Outbreak

ABSTRACT Influenza A viruses (IAVs) infect humans and a variety of other animal species. Infections with some subtypes of IAV were also reported in domestic cats and dogs. In addition to animal health implications, close contact between companion animals and humans also poses a potential risk of zoonotic IAV infections. In this study, serum samples from different cat and dog cohorts were analyzed for IAV antibodies against seven IAV subtypes, using three distinctive IAV-specific assays differing in IAV subtype-specific discriminatory power and sensitivity. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays against the complete hemagglutinin (HA) ectodomain or the HA1 domain were used, as well as a novel nanoparticle-based, virus-free hemagglutination inhibition assay. Using these three assays, we found cat and dog sera from different cohorts to be positive for antibodies against one or more IAV subtypes and/or strains. Cat and dog serum samples collected after the 2009 pandemic H1N1 outbreak exhibit much higher seropositivity against H1 compared to samples from before 2009. Cat sera, furthermore, displayed higher reactivity for avian IAVs than dog sera. Our findings show the added value of using complementary serological assays, which are based on reactivity with different numbers of HA epitopes, to study IAV antibody responses and for improved serosurveillance of IAV infections. We conclude that infection of cats and dogs with both human and avian IAVs of different subtypes is prevalent. These observations highlight the role of cats and dogs in IAV ecology and indicate the potential of these companion animals to give rise to novel (reassorted) viruses with increased zoonotic potential.

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Effect of Supplementation with Antioxidants on the Quality of Bovine Milk and Meat Production

The Scientific World JOURNAL ◽

10.1155/2013/616098 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2013 ◽

pp. 1-8 ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

Cristina Castillo ◽

Víctor Pereira ◽

Ángel Abuelo ◽

Joaquín Hernández

Keyword(s):

Animal Health ◽

Antioxidant Properties ◽

Bovine Milk ◽

Preventive Treatment ◽

Point Of View ◽

Added Value ◽

Meat Production ◽

Antioxidant Supplementation ◽

Transition Cow

From a clinical point of view, oxidative stress (OS) is considered the primary cause of numerous metabolic processes intransition cow.Thus, the addition of antioxidants has been considered a palliative or preventive treatment. But beyond the clinical perspective, antioxidant supplementation provides an added value to the product obtained being either milk or meat. This paper reviews the beneficial aspects that provide antioxidant supplementation on quality of both products and that fit into the new concept that the consumer has a functional and healthy food. Our approach is from a veterinary standpoint, by reviewing the studies conducted to date and the new perspectives that are interesting and need to be studied in the following years. One of the highlights is that sustainable farming, one in which production is combined with animal health, also impacts positively on the quality of the final products, with beneficial antioxidant properties to human health.

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