Background: The black soldier fly (BSF, Hermetia illucens L.) is one of the most promising insects for bioconversion of organic waste, which often carry a high microbial load with potential foodborne pathogens. Although horizontal transmission (from rearing substrate to larvae) has been extensively studied, less is known about vertical transmission of microorganisms, and particularly of foodborne pathogens, across different BSF life stages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSome insect species have gained attention as efficient bioconverters of low-value organic substrates (i.e., residual streams) into high-value biomass.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Texture Stud
December 2023
For cookie batters, there is a strong interaction between ingredient formulation and processing. Changing the amounts and types of sugar and fat in a recipe to change taste or healthiness influences the type of product formation in a production plant. In this study, the applicability of three measurement methods, a rheometer, a forward extrusion cell, and the Foodtexture Puff Device (FPD), was evaluated to measure the extrudability of cookie batters.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSupermarket food waste, constituting 13% of global food waste, can be upcycled as substrate for black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) and converted into larval biomass. Since presence of food pathogens in supermarket food waste is likely, microbiological safety should be ensured when using waste as insect substrate. Heat treatment provides a suitable pre-treatment to reduce microbiological contaminations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince black soldier fly larvae (BSFL, ) are being produced at substantial volumes, concomitantly large amounts of the resulting by-product, called frass, are generated. This frass can potentially be applied as valuable plant fertilizer or soil improver. Since frass carries high microbial counts, potentially including foodborne pathogens, safety problems for consumers should be prevented.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBlack soldier fly larvae () are currently reared at an industrial scale, mainly as a feed ingredient. The logistic chain not only involves the production of larvae, but also stabilisation, storage, and transport. The aim of this work was to study fermentation and vacuum packaging of larvae as potential preservation technologies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: This study evaluated pH reduction and microbial growth during fermentation of maize stover (MS) mixed with banana pseudostem (BPS) under South Ethiopian conditions.
Materials And Results: The MS and BPS were chopped and mixed into six treatments (T): 80% BPS plus 20% DMS (T1), 70% BPS plus 30% DMS (T2), 40% BPS plus 60% FMS (fresh MS) (T3), 20% BPS plus 80% FMS (T4), 100% FMS (T5), and 95% BPS plus 5% molasses (T6). At 0, 7, 14, 30, 60, and 90 days, pH and dry matter were determined.
Introduction: The use of robotics in bariatric surgery is increasing worldwide, with as main objective reducing complications and optimising surgical outcome. This study presents the results of a single surgeon 8-year experience with a totally robotic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB).
Methods: A total of 183 consecutive patients underwent a robotic bariatric procedure.
With edible insects being increasingly produced, food safety authorities have called for the determination of microbiological challenges posed to human health. Here, we find that the bacterial endospore fraction in industrially reared mealworm and cricket samples is largely comprised of Bacillus cereus group members that can pose insect or human health risks. Hepatitis A virus, hepatitis E virus and norovirus genogroup II were not detected in the sample collection, indicating a low food safety risk from these viral pathogens.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, six commercial meat starters, each consisting of a pure strain of a lactic acid-fermenting bacterium (including , , , and ), were tested for their ability to ferment a paste produced from the yellow mealworm (). During fermentation, microbial counts, pH, and the bacterial community composition were determined. In addition, UPLC-MS was applied to monitor the consumption of glucose and the production of glutamic (Glu) and aspartic (Asp) acid.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe occurrence of antibiotic resistance genes in foodstuffs involves a human health risk. Fresh edible insects present an emerging source of human food but they were not yet assessed in a quantitative way for antibiotic resistances as a matter of food safety. In this study, a real-time quantitative PCR assessment was optimised to detect and quantify relevant transferable antibiotic resistance genes [tet(O, K, M, S) and erm(B)] in edible insects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, the microbiota during industrial rearing, processing, and storage of the edible tropical house cricket, , was investigated. To this end, we analyzed samples from the cricket feed, obtained before feeding as well as from the cages, and from the crickets during rearing, after harvest, and after processing into frozen, oven-dried, and smoked and oven-dried (smoked/dried) end products. Although the feed contained lower microbial numbers than the crickets, both were dominated by the same species-level operational taxonomic units, as determined by Illumina MiSeq sequencing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Traditionally a 1-cm margin has been accepted as the gold standard for resection of colorectal liver metastases. Evidence is emerging that a lesser margin may provide equally acceptable outcomes, but a critical margin, below which recurrence is higher and survival poorer, has not been universally agreed. In a recent publication, we reported peri-operative morbidity and clear margin as the two independent prognostic factors.
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