Nutrient criteria to achieve New Zealand’s riverine macroinvertebrate targets

Waterways worldwide are experiencing nutrient enrichment from population growth and intensive agriculture, and New Zealand is part of this global trend. Increasing fertilizer in New Zealand and intensive agriculture have driven substantial water quality declines over recent decades. A recent national directive has set environmental managers a range of riverine ecological targets, including three macroinvertebrate indicators, and requires nutrient criteria be set to support their achievement. To support these national aspirations, we use the minimization-of-mismatch analysis to derive potential nutrient criteria. Given that nutrient and macroinvertebrate monitoring often does not occur at the same sites, we compared nutrient criteria derived at sites where macroinvertebrates and nutrients are monitored concurrently with nutrient criteria derived at all macroinvertebrate monitoring sites and using modelled nutrients. To support all three macroinvertebrate targets, we suggest that suitable nutrient criteria would set median dissolved inorganic nitrogen concentrations at ~0.6 mg/L and median dissolved reactive phosphorus concentrations at ~0.02 mg/L. We recognize that deriving site-specific nutrient criteria requires the balancing of multiple values and consideration of multiple targets, and anticipate that criteria derived here will help and support these environmental goals.

Nutrient criteria to achieve New Zealand’s riverine macroinvertebrate targets

Waterways worldwide are experiencing nutrient enrichment from population growth and intensive agriculture, and New Zealand is part of this global trend. Increasing fertilizer in New Zealand and intensive agriculture have driven substantial water quality declines over recent decades. A recent national directive has set environmental managers a range of riverine ecological targets, including three macroinvertebrate indicators, and requires nutrient criteria be set to support their achievement. To support these national aspirations, we use the minimization-of-mismatch analysis to derive potential nutrient criteria. Given that nutrient and macroinvertebrate monitoring often does not occur at the same sites, we compared nutrient criteria derived at sites where macroinvertebrates and nutrients are monitored concurrently with nutrient criteria derived at all macroinvertebrate monitoring sites and using modelled nutrients. To support all three macroinvertebrate targets, we suggest that suitable nutrient criteria would set median dissolved inorganic nitrogen concentrations at ~0.6 mg/L and median dissolved reactive phosphorus concentrations at ~0.02 mg/L. We recognize that deriving site-specific nutrient criteria requires the balancing of multiple values and consideration of multiple targets, and anticipate that criteria derived here will help and support these environmental goals.

Inulin enhances nutritional, sensorial and technological characteristics of synbiotic yogurt drink

PurposeIn recent years, global demand for functional foods grew tremendously due to the rising trend of health-conscious consumers. Driven by increased awareness of probiotic products, consumption of yogurt drink is gaining popularity across all age groups. In the present study, the authors aimed to assess sensorial, nutritional and technological properties of synbiotic yogurt drink enriched with prebiotic inulin.Design/methodology/approachSensory analysis, proximate compositions, viscosity, viable count and DPPH radical scavenging activity were examined in control (without inulin) and 3 variants of inulin-supplemented synbiotic yogurt drink, namely F1 (4%, inulin), F2 (4.5% inulin) and F3 (5% inulin).FindingsEvaluated by 75 consumer panellists on 9-point hedonic scales, F3 showed significantly (p < 0.05) higher overall acceptability (5.79 ± 1.94) compared to control. In addition to lower calorie content (36.52 kcal/100 ml), nutritional and technological properties of F3 [total dietary fibre content (4.03 ± 0.04 g/100 ml), viscosity (28 ± 6.93 cP), viable count (87.00 ± 4.00 × 106 CFU/ml S. thermophilus; 14.67 ± 3.51 × 106 CFU/ml L. bulgaricus) and antioxidant activity (50.40 ± 1.80%)] were significantly (p < 0.05) improved compared to control. Remarkably, the new formulation complied with nutrient criteria for Healthier Choice Logo Malaysia in addition to meeting requirements for “low fat” and “high dietary fibre” contents according to Malaysia Guide to Nutrition Labelling and Claims. Hence, we conclude that 5% inulin improved nutritional and technological characteristic in synbiotic yogurt drink without compromising consumers' acceptance.Originality/valueThis novel study showcases the incorporation of prebiotic inulin in the development of synbiotic yogurt drink. Remarkably, this new formulation complied with the nutrient criteria for Healthier Choice Logo Malaysia in addition to meeting the requirements for “low fat” and “high dietary fibre” contents according to Malaysia Guide to Nutrition Labelling and Claims. More importantly, results have contributed knowledge to existing literature as well as benefits food manufacturers in creating healthy yogurt drinks to better meet the needs and expectations of health-conscious consumers without compromising hedonic perceptions.

Nitrogen and Phosphorus Concentration Thresholds toward Establishing Water Quality Criteria for Pennsylvania, USA

Nutrient enrichment is currently a leading cause of impairment to streams in Pennsylvania. Evaluating the water quality condition and eutrophic status of streams and rivers is a challenge without established thresholds for nutrient concentrations, which can vary depending on climate and landscape characteristics. The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has published nutrient criteria for nutrient ecoregions nationwide that are used as regional baseline values; and has encouraged states to develop more refined values if better data are available. In this study, we quantified long-term nutrient concentrations observed in streams and rivers across Pennsylvania using a robust water quality dataset compiled from monitoring data collected over the past two decades (2000–2019) by multiple agencies. We estimated nutrient criteria concentration thresholds for each ecoregion using USEPA’s percentile approach. The 25th percentile median concentrations observed in streams and rivers ranged from 0.27 to 2.30 mg/L for total nitrogen (TN), and from 0.010 to 0.053 mg/L for total phosphorus (TP). The percent of sites with available data that exceeded the 25th percentile was 53% for TN and 60% for TP, reflecting longstanding problems with nutrient pollution of rivers and streams in Pennsylvania. The 25th percentile may overestimate background condition levels, as nutrient conditions vary substantially within and among ecoregions. We compared our contemporary concentrations at the threshold values to other published recommended criteria for the region and explored the influence of landscape heterogeneity and seasonality on nutrient concentrations. The spatial and temporal variability of nutrient conditions emphasizes the importance of using percentile analysis as only a guide toward more robust response-based methods, rather than as a method for setting nutrient criteria in Pennsylvania. Our results provide environmental managers with new insights regarding the status of nutrient conditions in streams and rivers across Pennsylvania ecoregions toward further developing numeric nutrient criteria.

Evaluating the Canadian Packaged Food Supply Using Health Canada’s Proposed Nutrient Criteria for Restricting Food and Beverage Marketing to Children

Federally mandated restrictions on food and beverage marketing to kids (M2K) have been re-introduced as a national public health priority in Canada by the newly elected government, following the failure to implement a similar policy first proposed in 2016. This study examined the extent to which Canadian packaged foods, including products already displaying M2K on the packaging, would be permitted to be marketed, based on the nutrient criteria for marketing restrictions defined by Health Canada (in December 2018) as part of the previous policy proposal. Products from the University of Toronto Food Label Information Program 2013 database (n = 15,200) were evaluated using Health Canada’s published criteria: thresholds for sodium, sugars and saturated fats that products cannot exceed in order to be M2K. The proportion of products exceeding no thresholds (i.e., permitted to be M2K), the number of thresholds exceeded, and the proportion exceeding each individual threshold were calculated overall and in the subsample of products displaying M2K on the packaging (n = 747). Overall, 18.0% of products would be permitted to be M2K, versus 2.7% of products displaying M2K. Sodium was the most exceeded threshold overall (57.5% of products), whereas sugars was the most exceeded by products displaying M2K (80.1%). Only 4.7% of all products versus 10.4% of products displaying M2K exceeded all three thresholds. These results highlight the importance of reintroducing federal regulations restricting M2K in Canada and including marketing on product packaging in the regulatory scope.