Macronutrients, Amino and Fatty Acid Composition, Elements, and Toxins in High-Protein Powders of Crickets, Arthrospira, Single Cell Protein, Potato, and Rice as Potential Ingredients in Fermented Food Products
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I want to thank you for the opportunity to participate in the review of the manuscript. The introduction is written clearly and correctly, and ends with the purpose of the research. The selection of literature is appropriate throughout the manuscript. The scope of the article has been correctly defined. The methodology is clearly written and allows the experiments to be repeated. There are a few comments to be corrected and clarified. The results and discussion are well presented. I find the whole manuscript interesting and worth reading. The article should absolutely be proofread by a native speaker.
I recommend the manuscript for further publication after taking into account the necessary corrections and clarifying a few issues.
Below are some minor comments to the manuscript that do not affect the positive evaluation of the manuscript.
Abstract – Please correct the synopsis linguistically. Some sentences are written in the past or present tense. Please unify.
Methodology
Line 151-157. The PN-ISO 1442:2000 standard describes a method for determining the water content in meat and meat products. Has this standard been applied? Is there an ISO standard in English on the basis of which it was created? The standard in Polish will not be useful to scientists from outside Poland.
Line 158. Please quote the methodology (standard or publication).
Line 167. Please correct "PN-A-79,011-4:1998" to "PN-A-79011-4:1998" (unnecessary comma). Is there an English-language equivalent of the Polish standard?
Line 183, 185, 188. Please delete the year of publication. A citation reference is sufficient.
Line 199-217. The methodology lacks citation (ISO standard, laboratory's own procedure?). Please also complete the temperatures in individual stages.
Line 217. Please change the unit from "ml" to "mL".
Line 225. The methodology refers to the PN-EN ISO 6869:2002 standard. This is the standard applicable to feed. Can it be used in food research?
Line 228. Please change the heading from "toxins" to "mycotoxins". You studied mycotoxins strictly.
Line 228-234. My guess is that the outside lab is unwilling to provide a more accurate methodology for this study. However, it is worth finding out what device the research was conducted with.
Results
Table 1. In the methodology, the authors describe the method of obtaining Carbohydrates, they do not mention Sugars. So why are the Sugars scores in the table?
Line 244, 258, 273…. Please use italics when writing "Arthrospira platensis" and "Acheta domesticus". The entire manuscript should be corrected.
Line 247, 257, 276, 289, 293, 295…. Please remove the year of publication. A citation reference is sufficient.
Table 2. The results should be presented in the same way, i.e. with the same number after the decimal point. It's wrong to compare "286.12" and "269". Please unify. The table can be enlarged to the entire width of the page.
Table 2. Amino acid abbreviations should be explained below the table.
Line 293. Table explanations should be placed below the table, not in the title. Bold amino acids are hard to read. Please mark "Essential amino acids" in a different way.
3.2. Amino composition acids. The way of writing the names of amino acids should be unified. Sometimes they are capitalized and sometimes lowercase.
Table 3. Instead of omega-3, omega-6 and omega-9 I propose to use the abbreviations n-3 n-6 and n-9. They are more correct from a scientific point of view. You use such abbreviations in the description above the table.
Table 3. I propose to leave only the sums SFA, MUFA, PUFA, n-3, n-6 and n-9 in the table. Transfer the rest of the results to the Supplement. As in table 2, the number of decimal places should be unified. There is no point in entering numbers with decimal places such as C6:0 - 0.000002 g/100 g or C23:0 - 0.0004 g/100 g. Such numbers have no meaning.
Table 5. As in the methodology, please change "toxins" to "mycotoxins". Please explain the abbreviations below the table. If a below-detection level has been used, this should also be explained.
Line 448. The wording "baby food" should be replaced with "Infant formulae".
Author Response
University of Life Sciences in Lublin
Faculty of Food Sciences and Biotechnology
Department of Dairy Technology and Functional Foods
Skromna 8, 20-704 Lublin, Poland
Phone: +48 81 4623350
Fax: +48 81 4623345
E-mail: [email protected]
December 09, 2022,
Dear Reviewer,
Our manuscript entitled “Macronutrients, amino and fatty acids composition, elements, and toxins in high-protein powders of crickets, Arthrospira, Single Cell Protein, potato, and rice as potential ingredients in fermented food products” (Manuscript ID: applsci-2048334) has been revised and is being re-submitted for publication in “Applied Sciences.”.
We have carefully considered each of the comments and made the appropriate revisions in the manuscript. An itemized list of our responses to each of the comments is included below.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Yours faithfully,
Bartosz Sołowiej
Reviewer #1: Review of Manuscript ID: applsci-2048334
Title: Macronutrients, amino and fatty acids composition, elements, and toxins in high-protein powders of crickets, Arthrospira, Single Cell Protein, potato, and rice as potential ingredients in fermented food products.
Reviewer #1: yellow color
Comments to the authors:
I want to thank you for the opportunity to participate in the review of the manuscript. The introduction is written clearly and correctly, and ends with the purpose of the research. The selection of literature is appropriate throughout the manuscript. The scope of the article has been correctly defined. The methodology is clearly written and allows the experiments to be repeated. There are a few comments to be corrected and clarified. The results and discussion are well presented. I find the whole manuscript interesting and worth reading. The article should absolutely be proofread by a native speaker.
I recommend the manuscript for further publication after taking into account the necessary corrections and clarifying a few issues.
Below are some minor comments to the manuscript that do not affect the positive evaluation of the manuscript.
Thank you for your positive evaluation of our article and recommendation for publication. We are also grateful for any comments and suggestions on the manuscript. They are extremely valuable. We have responded to each comment below and tried to improve our manuscript accordingly.
Abstract – Please correct the synopsis linguistically. Some sentences are written in the past or present tense. Please unify.
Thank you for your suggestion. Abstract has been unified according to the comments. Lines 13-15.
Methodology
Line 151-157. The PN-ISO 1442:2000 standard describes a method for determining the water content in meat and meat products. Has this standard been applied? Is there an ISO standard in English on the basis of which it was created? The standard in Polish will not be useful to scientists from outside Poland.
Thank you for your comment. The method described in PN-ISO 1442:2000 is available in the Polish version. We have not found a European equivalent, so a translation of the Polish standard remains for those interested. The method refers to meat and meat products, while the principle of the method is so universal that it can also be applied to other products. The method was proposed by specialists at the accredited laboratory, after reviewing the properties of the samples.
Line 158. Please quote the methodology (standard or publication).
Thank you for your comment. We added the number of the standard that formed the basis for the analysis. Line 164.
Line 167. Please correct "PN-A-79,011-4:1998" to "PN-A-79011-4:1998" (unnecessary comma). Is there an English-language equivalent of the Polish standard?
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Comma removed. Unfortunately, we did not find an English equivalent, so only the translation of the Polish standard remains. The analysis was performed in an accredited laboratory, which is based on the above standard. Lines 171-172.
Line 183, 185, 188. Please delete the year of publication. A citation reference is sufficient.
Thank you for this suggestion. The year has been removed.
Line 199-217. The methodology lacks citation (ISO standard, laboratory's own procedure?). Please also complete the temperatures in individual stages.
We obtained the described procedure for the determination of fatty acids from the accredited laboratory performing this test. Unfortunately, there is no reference to specific literature or standard in the description of the method. Hence, a more extensive description of the procedure itself. Unfortunately, the information provided is all the information we received about this method, so we cannot add the temperatures.
Line 217. Please change the unit from "ml" to "mL".
Thank you for your attention. Corrected.
Line 225. The methodology refers to the PN-EN ISO 6869:2002 standard. This is the standard applicable to feed. Can it be used in food research?
Thank you for this comment. We believe that in this case it does not matter much. This is a fairly accurate method for determining the content of individual elements and comparing them between samples. At this stage, the tested protein sources are not yet food, we are only evaluating their application potential. The method was proposed by the laboratory after reviewing the samples.
Line 228. Please change the heading from "toxins" to "mycotoxins". You studied mycotoxins strictly.
Thank you for your comment. Changed as suggested. Line 243, 469, 472.
Line 228-234. My guess is that the outside lab is unwilling to provide a more accurate methodology for this study. However, it is worth finding out what device the research was conducted with.
Unfortunately, this laboratory does not want to provide more accurate information as speculated. We know that the samples were tested at the main laboratory AGROLAB in Germany, which gives rather laconic information. Lines 241-243.
Results
Table 1. In the methodology, the authors describe the method of obtaining Carbohydrates, they do not mention Sugars. So why are the Sugars scores in the table?
Thank you for your comment. Of course, it is our mistake that the description of the method of determining sugars was missing. As we are not able to get the method description from the laboratory, we decided to remove the content of simple sugars from the table. The content was mostly irrelevant anyway, below the detection threshold.
Line 244, 258, 273…. Please use italics when writing "Arthrospira platensis" and "Acheta domesticus". The entire manuscript should be corrected.
Thank you for pointing out this mistake. It has been corrected. Lines: 264, 265, 278, 292, 377 and elsewhere.
Line 247, 257, 276, 289, 293, 295…. Please remove the year of publication. A citation reference is sufficient.
Thank you for your comment. It has been corrected.
Table 2. The results should be presented in the same way, i.e. with the same number after the decimal point. It's wrong to compare "286.12" and "269". Please unify. The table can be enlarged to the entire width of the page.
Thank you for your comment. It has been unified.
Table 2. Amino acid abbreviations should be explained below the table.
We have added the full names of the amino acids to the Table 2. This will be more readable than adding the meaning of abbreviations. Lines 312-313.
Line 293. Table explanations should be placed below the table, not in the title. Bold amino acids are hard to read. Please mark "Essential amino acids" in a different way.
Thank you for this comment. We have changed the labeling of the essential amino acids to make it clearer. Lines 312-313.
3.2. Amino composition acids. The way of writing the names of amino acids should be unified. Sometimes they are capitalized and sometimes lowercase.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Error corrected. Lines 324-340.
Table 3. Instead of omega-3, omega-6 and omega-9 I propose to use the abbreviations n-3 n-6 and n-9. They are more correct from a scientific point of view. You use such abbreviations in the description above the table.
Thank you, of course we agree with this comment. The abbreviations have been changed. Table 3. Lines 359-360.
Table 3. I propose to leave only the sums SFA, MUFA, PUFA, n-3, n-6 and n-9 in the table. Transfer the rest of the results to the Supplement. As in table 2, the number of decimal places should be unified. There is no point in entering numbers with decimal places such as C6:0 - 0.000002 g/100 g or C23:0 - 0.0004 g/100 g. Such numbers have no meaning.
Thank you for this suggestion. Of course, some of the numbers are extremely small, but in a few cases, they can make a difference, so it's better if the reader has an overview of the entire fatty acid profile. This is also what the authors of similar studies have done.
Table 5. As in the methodology, please change "toxins" to "mycotoxins". Please explain the abbreviations below the table. If a below-detection level has been used, this should also be explained.
Thank you for this comment. We have marked the results that are below detection and added an annotation below the Table. We did not change the names of the individual mycotoxins because we used the nomenclature used in similar scientific papers for uniformity. Lines: 463-466.
Line 448. The wording "baby food" should be replaced with "Infant formulae".
Thank you for your comment. We have corrected that. Line 475.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
In Materials and Methods section, please describe the methodology used for elements determination (lines 219-226).
Author Response
University of Life Sciences in Lublin
Faculty of Food Sciences and Biotechnology
Department of Dairy Technology and Functional Foods
Skromna 8, 20-704 Lublin, Poland
Phone: +48 81 4623350
Fax: +48 81 4623345
E-mail: [email protected]
December 09, 2022,
Dear Reviewer,
Our manuscript entitled “Macronutrients, amino and fatty acids composition, elements, and toxins in high-protein powders of crickets, Arthrospira, Single Cell Protein, potato, and rice as potential ingredients in fermented food products” (Manuscript ID: applsci-2048334) has been revised and is being re-submitted for publication in “Applied Sciences.”.
We have carefully considered each of the comments and made the appropriate revisions in the manuscript. An itemized list of our responses to each of the comments is included below.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Yours faithfully,
Bartosz Sołowiej
Reviewer #2 Review of Manuscript ID: applsci-2048334
Title: Macronutrients, amino and fatty acids composition, elements, and toxins in high-protein powders of crickets, Arthrospira, Single Cell Protein, potato, and rice as potential ingredients in fermented food products.
Reviewer #2: green color
Comments to the authors:
In Materials and Methods section, please describe the methodology used for elements determination (lines 219-226).
Thank you for your valuable comment. We have rewritten the elemental determination methodology section by adding the names of the methods used for analysis. We have added as much information as we can, according to the laboratory procedures. Lines 277-235.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Editors
Dear Authors
Original article entitled "Macronutrients, Amino and Fatty Acid Composition, Elements and Toxins in High Protein Powders from Crickets, Arthrospira, Single Cell Protein, Potato and Rice as Potential Ingredients for Fermented Foods"provides valuable research on new sustainable food sources, including protein sources and their applications in food. As a reviewer, I suggest the following improvements:
The article did not use any statistical methods, including standard deviation.
The number of repetitions of each analysis is not given.
The captions above the tables are too laconic.
In the section on mycotoxin testing, the authors should list which mycotoxins were considered.
The article is written reliable.
I recommend this article for publication in Applied Sciences -Special Issue afrer corrections.
Author Response
University of Life Sciences in Lublin
Faculty of Food Sciences and Biotechnology
Department of Dairy Technology and Functional Foods
Skromna 8, 20-704 Lublin, Poland
Phone: +48 81 4623350
Fax: +48 81 4623345
E-mail: [email protected]
December 09, 2022,
Dear Reviewer,
Our manuscript entitled “Macronutrients, amino and fatty acids composition, elements, and toxins in high-protein powders of crickets, Arthrospira, Single Cell Protein, potato, and rice as potential ingredients in fermented food products” (Manuscript ID: applsci-2048334) has been revised and is being re-submitted for publication in “Applied Sciences.”.
We have carefully considered each of the comments and made the appropriate revisions in the manuscript. An itemized list of our responses to each of the comments is included below.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Yours faithfully,
Bartosz Sołowiej
Reviewer #3 Review of Manuscript ID: applsci-2048334
Title: Macronutrients, amino and fatty acids composition, elements, and toxins in high-protein powders of crickets, Arthrospira, Single Cell Protein, potato, and rice as potential ingredients in fermented food products.
Reviewer #3: grey color
Dear Authors
Original article entitled "Macronutrients, Amino and Fatty Acid Composition, Elements and Toxins in High Protein Powders from Crickets, Arthrospira, Single Cell Protein, Potato and Rice as Potential Ingredients for Fermented Foods" provides valuable research on new sustainable food sources, including protein sources and their applications in food. As a reviewer, I suggest the following improvements:
The article did not use any statistical methods, including standard deviation.
Thank you for this comment. Where possible, we have added statistical analysis along with standard deviations performed using Statistica 13.0. Lines 248-253.
Table: 2, 4 (lines 311-312 and 399-400).
The number of repetitions of each analysis is not given.
Thank you for your comment. We have added information about the number of repetitions of testing each sample. Lines 201-202, 223, 235, 245-246.
The captions above the tables are too laconic.
Thank you for this comment. We have adjusted the captions with regard to the Table:1, 3, 4, 5.
Lines: 259-260, 358-359, 398-399, 463-464.
In the section on mycotoxin testing, the authors should list which mycotoxins were considered.
Thank you for your very valuable comment. We have added information on the mycotoxins that were considered in the methods section. Line 239-240.
The article is written reliable.
I recommend this article for publication in Applied Sciences -Special Issue after corrections.
Thank you for your comments and suggestions.
