Chufa Drink: Potential in Developing a New Plant-Based Fermented Dessert

Plant-based foods with desirable texture and nutritional value have attracted considerable interest from consumers. In order to meet the growing demand for more sustainable and health-focused products, new sources for plant-based products are needed. In this study, we aimed to develop an innovative plant-based dessert based on the underutilized crop chufa tubers (Cyperus esculentus). The chufa extract was fermented with plant-adapted lactic acid bacteria and formulated with the purpose of imitating the Danish summer dessert “cold butter-milk soup”. The effect of various bacterial fermentations and formulations on steady and oscillatory rheology, stability, dry matter, pH, and sugar profile of the product were studied and compared to a commercial cold buttermilk soup sample. A strain of Leuconostoc mesenteroides was found to create the most similar taste to a commercial sample. By adding lemon juice, sucrose, xanthan gum, and vanilla to the fermented chufa drink, the drink was found to mimic the pH, texture, acid profile, and stability of a commercial dairy-based sample, while containing a lower concentration of carbohydrates.

Correlation between HbA1C and D-dimer in Type 2 Diabetic with COVID-19 Patients

Background: Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) is the disease caused by 2019-nCoV/SARS-CoV-2, a novel β corona- virus of group 2B . COVID-19 has been reported to be associated with severe condition with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). D-dimer is a by product of fibrin degradation. It is widely recognized as a biomarker for thromboembolism and as a prognostic marker for critical patients. Methods: This study uses secondary data, which is obtained by looking at the contents of patient medical records at H. Adam Malik Medan Hospital between 2020-2021. The population of this study was all inpatients confirmed COVID-19 through an RT-PCR SARS-CoV-2 swab examination. The study sample was obtained by the total sampling method, where all populations that meet the criteria of inclusion and exclusion are used as research samples. Patients were triaged as per severity on basis of national guidelines: asymptomatic, Mild (respiratory rate < 24/min, SpO2 >94% at room air), moderate (respiratory rate: 24-30/min, SpO2 90-94% at room air) and severe (respiratory rate >30/min SpO2 < 90%), ARDS and septic shock [6]. HbA1c implementation using HPLC methods and D-dimer is measured by ELISA method. Result: There were 163 patients consisting of 92 men and 71 women, the average age was 56.9±10.3 years, and HbA1c, FPG and PPG remained uncontrolled. There were no differences in age parameters of blood sugar profiles and D-dimers between men and women. D-dimers are significantly negatively correlated with PPG. Conclusion: Age, blood sugar profile and D-dimer did not differ significantly between men and women, and D-dimer had a correlation significantly with PPG on T2DM with COVID-19 patients. Keywords : D-dimer, T2DM, COVID-19

Effect of Extrusion and Steam Pressure on Fiber and Nutritional Properties of Pineapple Peels

Research finding on modification of pineapple peel through extrusion and steam pressure have led to increasing fiber and nutritional properties of the pineapple powder. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of extrusion processing and steam pressure on soluble and insoluble fiber contents, antioxidant activities, sugar profile and proximate contents. The extrusion of Morris pineapple peel increased soluble dietary fiber (SDF-2.8 folds), insoluble dietary fiber (IDF-1.2 folds) and total dietary fiber (TDF-1.3 folds). Steam pressure treatment also show the same trends of fiber modification in Morris peel (SDF-3.4 folds, IDF-1 folds, TDF-1.2 folds). The sugar profile showed that fructose and glucose increased after fiber modification. Total phenolic content (TPC), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH test) had been used to determine antioxidant activity in both processing method. The results of the proximate analysis showed that protein, crude fiber and moisture content affected by extrusion and steam pressure process of pineapple peel. It can be conclude that modification of fiber through extrusion and steam pressure is able to alter fiber and nutritional properties of pineapple peel.

Classification and Prediction of Bee Honey Indirect Adulteration Using Physiochemical Properties Coupled with K-Means Clustering and Simulated Annealing-Artificial Neural Networks (SA-ANNs)

The higher demand and limited availability of honey led to different forms of honey adulteration. Honey adulteration is either direct by addition of various syrups to natural honey or indirect by feeding honey bees with sugar syrups. Therefore, a need has emerged for reliable and cost-effective quality control methods to detect honey adulteration in order to ensure both safety and quality of honey. In this study, honey is adulterated by feeding honey bees with various proportions of sucrose syrup (0 to 100%). Various physiochemical properties of the adulterated honey are studied including sugar profile, pH, acidity, moisture, and color. The results showed that increasing sucrose syrup in the feed resulted in a decrease in glucose and fructose contents significantly, from 33.4 to 29.1% and 45.2 to 35.9%, respectively. Sucrose content, however, increased significantly from 0.19 to 1.8%. The pH value increased significantly from 3.04 to 4.63 with increase in sucrose feed. Acidity decreased slightly but nonsignificantly with increase in sucrose feed and varied between 7.0 and 4.00 meq/kg for 0% and 100% sucrose, respectively. Honey’s lightness (L value) also increased significantly from 59.3 to 68.84 as sucrose feed increased. Other color parameters were not significantly changed by sucrose feed. K-means clustering is used to classify the level of honey adulteration by using the above physiological properties. The classification results showed that both glucose content and total sugar content provided 100% accurate classification while pH values provided the worst results with 52% classification accuracy. To further predict the percent honey adulteration, simulated annealing coupled with artificial neural networks (SA-ANNs) was used with sugar profile as an input. RBF-ANN was found to provide the best prediction results with SSE = 0.073, RE = 0.021, and overall R2 = 0.992. It is concluded that honey sugar profile can provide an accurate and reliable tool for detecting indirect honey adulteration by sucrose solution.

Characteristic changes in malt, wort, and beer produced from different Nigerian rice varieties as influenced by varying malting conditions

Gluten-free beer could be produced with rice, although the latter would primarily serve as adjunct in combination with barley malt in today’s brewing. However, the recent growing realisation of the potential and applications of rice malt for brewing an all-rice malt beer through varying malting conditions cannot be overlooked. In this study, therefore, the characteristic changes in malt, wort, and beer from different Nigerian rice varieties (FARO 44, FARO 57, NERICA 7) as influenced by varying malting conditions (steeping duration (18, 24 and 30 h), germination periods (2, 3 and 4 days) and kilning temperatures (50 and 55 °C)), were investigated. Rice (grain) samples were examined by thousand kernel weight (TKW), germinative energy (GE), germinative capacity (GC), and degree of steeping (DoS). To ensure that rice wort/beer with unique beer style and enhanced attributes, comparable to barley wort/beer is produced, malting conditions that produced rice malts with peak diastatic power (DP), cold water extract (CWE), and hot water extract (HWE) were selected. Peak DP, CWE and HWE were obtained at FARO 44 (18 h steeping, 3 days germination, 55 °C kilning (S18G3K55°)), FARO 57 (30 h steeping, 2 days germination, 50 °C kilning (S30G2K50°)) and NERICA 7 (24 h steeping, 3 days germination, 55 °C kilning (S24G3K55°)). Selected malts were further tested for moisture content, total nitrogen, malt yield and malting loss and subsequently progressed to wort and beer production. Wort’s pH, total soluble nitrogen (TSN), brix, kolbach index (KI), free amino nitrogen (FAN), dextrose equivalent (DE), original extract (OE) and sugar profile were determined, as well as beer’s pH, colour, apparent extract (AE), alcohol by volume (%ABV), turbidity and sensory attributes. Rice grain varied significantly (p < 0.05) in TKW, GE, GC and DoS across varieties. Despite wort’s pH, TSN, DE, OE as well as beer pH, colour, AE and turbidity resembling (p > 0.05) across varieties, wort’s brix, KI, FAN, sugar profile as well as beer’s %ABV, differed significantly (p < 0.05). Sensory attributes of appearance, colour, mouthfeel, and overall acceptability in beer differed noticeably (p < 0.05), except for aroma and taste (p > 0.05). Overall, the rice beer, though very slightly hazy, represented a pale yellow light lager, which is indicative of its peculiar beer style. Besides increased DP and enhanced hydrolysis, varying malting conditions of current study could serve as a pathway of reducing the cost of exogenous (commercial) enzymes or barley malt imports, together with decreasing barley’s dependency for brewing in the tropics.