Recent Advances in the Assessment of Cereal and Cereal-Based Product Quality

Dear Colleagues,

Cereal quality assessment includes the application of a series of physical, physicochemical, and chemical analyses on grain, flour, dough, and on cereal-based products. Such analyses are mostly based on wet chemistry or empirical methods, which have been found application in industry for predicting end-product quality. Even though these traditional cereal testing methods are widely accepted, there have some associated limitations. For instance, use of only wet chemistry methods without any direct in situ observations through imaging provides limited information about the interactions occurring between macromolecules during processing, which is known to affect end-product quality. The empirical methods fail in enabling fundamental interpretation of the data as the data are provided in arbitrary units. Moreover, most of these methods have been designed to measure the quality of wheat. Thus, it can be challenging to adjust them for the testing of systems based on other cereals. Therefore, recent techniques have been employed in the cereal science world for the assessment of cereals and cereal-based products. These techniques include fundamental rheology, bioinformatic modeling, imaging techniques (i.e., X-ray microtomography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)), spectroscopy techniques (i.e., FTIR, Raman, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)), and 3-D printing technology, among others.

Dr. Gamze Yazar
Prof. Dr. Jozef L. Kokini
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• grain quality
• flour quality
• physical dough testing
• baking
• cereal-based product quality

Title: Development of healthy snacks incorporating meal from Tenebrio molitor and Alphitobius diaperinus using 3D printing technology
Author: Anabela
Highlights: The study examined the nutritional properties of Tenebrio molitor and Alphitobius diaperinus using 3D printing technology. The doughs' suitability for 3D printing was evaluated through stress and frequency sweeps. The resulting snacks were classified as a "source of protein." In a sensory analysis test, A. diaperinus and the combination of both insects were preferred over the control snack.

Title: Impact of fibre ingredients on bread quality: a Response Surface Methodology approach for replacing refined wheat flour
Authors: Rebecca Sempio1, Aylin W. Sahin1, Emanuele Zannini1,2, Jens Walter3,4, Elke K. Arendt1,4
Affiliation: School of Food & Nutritional Sciences, University College Cork, Ireland 2 Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy 3 School of Microbiology, and Department of Medicine, University College Cork, Ireland 4 APC Microbiome Ireland, University College Cork, Ireland
Abstract: Dietary fibre (DF) is well-known for its health beneficial properties and diseases preventions. However, the intake of dietary fibre in most countries is below the recommended level, largely due to the excessive consumption of high calorie foods. Fortifying staple foods, such as bread, with fibre can help address such dietary deficiencies. However, including isolated and chemically modified dietary fibre represents a challenge due to the interactions of fibre in the food matrix, leading to a decrease in product quality. This study explores the fibre-fibre interaction and the impact of different insoluble and soluble fibre ingredients in a bread system using the response surface methodology (RSM). Insoluble and soluble fibre replaced a portion of the wheat flour; fibre do not only have distinct effects on human health but also influence food structure. Rheological properties, physicochemical characteristics and nutritional attributes were evaluated. In general, the inclusion of fibre ingredients correlated positively (r-value 0.29) with water absorption during dough development. The addition of water soluble arabinoxylan from corn increased the specific volume of bread due to its stabilizing properties. However, because of its colour, the maximum inclusion level was determined to be 5%. The addition of insoluble fibre ingredients (resistant starch and cellulose)increased the crumb hardness, leading to a maximum addition level of 40% and 20%, respectively. The inclusion of fibre ingredients reduced the gluten network strength by up to 12.38% and the gluten network development time by up to 24.40% compared to the control. However, CO2 retention coefficient during dough fermentation did not show a significant impact of fibre ingredients; the fibre inclusion, putatively, provided a different structure formation to trap the CO2 produced. The partial replacement of flour in the fibre-enriched product results in a significant decrease in the total sugar content, which led to a lower release of reducing sugar during in vitro starch digestion. This study illustrates the application of the synergy of different types of fibre ingredients in a bread system to advance in closing the fibre gap.