Pulsed electric field processing of edible insect slurries induces thermally-assisted microbial inactivation.

Insect-based food ingredients are emerging as sustainable protein sources, but their production requires ensuring microbial safety and inactivation of endogenous enzymes to avoid undesirable proteolysis, without compromising protein structure. While traditional thermal processing affects the protein structure, the potential of pulsed electric field (PEF) technology to inactivate microorganisms in lesser mealworm and house cricket slurries at pH 3 while simultaneously retaining the native protein structure is yet unexplored. Lesser mealworm and house cricket slurries at pH 3 were subjected to continuous and batch PEF treatments with varying intensities (0-450 kJ/kg).

Evaluating and Validating the Fluorescent Probe Methodology for Measuring the Effective Hydrophobicity of Protein, Protein Hydrolyzate, and Amino Acid.

The fluorescent probe method with 8-anilino-1-naphthalenesulfonic acid ammonium salt (ANSA) and 6-propionyl-2-(,-dimethylamino) naphthalene (PRODAN) was validated to determine the effective hydrophobicity of the whey protein isolate. The focus was on charge and hydrophobic interactions due to the complexation between the proteins and probes. Using ANSA could overestimate the effective hydrophobicity of positively charged proteins.

New Food Technologies - Addressing Challenges at Food Systems Level.

By 2050, the global population is expected to reach close to 10 billion people, increasing the demand for food. To ensure sustainability in food production to meet this population increase, alternative approaches such as reducing meat consumption and incorporating plant-based alternatives are being explored. Cellular agriculture, an interdisciplinary field merging engineering and biology offers a potential solution.

Protein-phenolic interactions and reactions: Discrepancies, challenges, and opportunities.

Although noncovalent interactions and covalent reactions between phenolic compounds and proteins have been investigated across diverse scientific disciplines, a comprehensive understanding and identification of their products remain elusive. This review will initially outline the chemical framework and, subsequently, delve into unresolved or debated chemical and functional food-related implications, as well as forthcoming challenges in this topic. The primary objective is to elucidate the multiple aspects of protein-phenolic interactions and reactions, along with the underlying overwhelming dynamics and possibilities of follow-up reactions and potential crosslinking between proteins and phenolic compounds.

Laying the foundations for a theory of consciousness: the significance of critical brain dynamics for the formation of conscious states.

Empirical evidence indicates that conscious states, distinguished by the presence of phenomenal qualities, are closely linked to synchronized neural activity patterns whose dynamical characteristics can be attributed to self-organized criticality and phase transitions. These findings imply that insight into the mechanism by which the brain controls phase transitions will provide a deeper understanding of the fundamental mechanism by which the brain manages to transcend the threshold of consciousness. This article aims to show that the initiation of phase transitions and the formation of synchronized activity patterns is due to the coupling of the brain to the zero-point field (ZPF), which plays a central role in quantum electrodynamics (QED).