Several food technologists from academia took part in a panel discussion at IFT FIRST in Chicago this summer, covering recent innovations in food processing researchers have made for the purpose of developing new nutraceutical ingredients.

The session included: Vermont P. Dia, associate professor at the Department of Food Science at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture; Xiaolei Shi, adjunct professor at Iowa State University; Fereidoon Shahidi, professor at the Memorial University of Newfoundland; and Maaike Bruins, lead scientist at DSM Nutrition.

Upcycled Biopeptides

Dia discussed the development of an isolation process which took the bioactive peptide lunasin from a wastewater processing stream from tofu. The process to create a source for this peptide that has minimal environmental impact began in lab-scale tofu wastewater, prior to being applied to a small-scale tofu processing plant.

“In recent years the consumption of soybean has been increasing mostly because of its association with high nutritional quality,” Dia said. “The health promoting properties of soybean, and soybean products are associated with different phytochemicals such as isoflavones, saponins, and bioactive peptides.”

“It is estimated that for every kilogram of soybean used, 9 kilograms of wastewater are produced. Tofu whey still contains some of the nutrients […] because of the presence of these nutrients, the tofu whey or tofu wastewater must be depleted, and there is a need to find cost-effective ways to utilize this waste,” Dia continued.

According to Dia, more than 100 papers have been published on lunasin since its accidental discovery, including those investigating its inflammatory-modulating and antioxidant properties. So, the team set out to develop this extraction process due to the potential high value of this ingredient in health and wellness products.

Following this, the team investigated in different in vitro and in vivo models the effect that the lunasin extract would have on gastrointestinal conditions through its inflammatory-modulating activities. Specifically, the researchers looked at an in vitro model of colitis, and an in vivo model of colitis-associated colorectal cancer, and found potential anti-inflammatory and chemopreventive activity of lunasin in the bowel, with the research serving as a potential basis for investigation of lunasin for irritable bowel disease management.

3D Printing and Hydrogels

Shi was part of a team of researchers who investigated the use of 3D printing to create hydrogels that could encapsulate a number of active ingredients, and her team specifically looked at the role this technology could play in encapsulating probiotics.

With probiotics, health benefits are often strain- and condition-specific, and each strain is sensitive to temperatures and acidic conditions to varying degrees. For this reason, encapsulating them through 3D printing allows for multi-layered protection by a 3D structure that is under digital control, according to Shi.

She and a team of researchers explored whether 3D-printing a biopolymer-based material containing the probiotic strain B. lactis would serve as a delivery system for the bacteria, and found that the hydrogel was efficacious in preserving the bacteria at 10⁹ CFU/g after 3D printing following eight weeks of storage at room temperature; this shelf life extended even further upon the freeze-drying of the product, which took the hydrogel from a semi-solid to a fully solid state. The study demonstrated that the integrated manufacturing consisting of encapsulation, 3D printing, and freeze-drying could produce supplements or snack foods that can deliver live probiotics with greater customization of strains and dosages.

With 3D printing, manufacturers have no need to change a facility when manufacturing objects, Shi said. Rather, the only changes needed are to add coding in order to produce custom products with complex structures and precise ingredient dosages. Further, extrusion-based 3D printing takes things a step further, with machinery capable of creating what is known as a bio-scaffold as a delivery system that can print filaments containing live cells, pharmaceuticals, nutrients, fertilizer, enzymes, and more, with applications ranging from pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, agriculture, animal feed, and more.

Upcycling Seed Waste

Upcycling, or salvaging food production waste for use in other food applications, is quickly garnering buzz. At IFT FIRST, Fereidoon Shahidi, professor at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, identified seed processing as one of the biggest untapped streams of nutritive ingredients, ranging from phenolic antioxidants and beyond.

Seeds are often subjected to processing that removes their skins or coats, which are disposed of despite their richness in phenolic compounds and fibers that may have health promoting effects. Shahidi discussed information on the bioactive components present in seed by-products, and proposed a number of strategies to use them in foods and nutraceutical ingredients.

“Obviously, the action of phenolic antioxidants and their health effects is rendered by different mechanisms,” Shahidi said. “They provide mechanisms by which stress-related diseases are alleviated.

“When we refer to phenolics as antioxidants this is a very simplistic view as they may behave in much different ways and by different mechanisms.”

In millet, wheat, barley, and many other cases, Shahidi explained that plant phenolics are typically located in the hulls of grains and seeds, in an insoluble-bound form. “If we look at the antioxidant potential we find that if we go from the outer part to the inner part of a cereal we have less and less phenolics. We’re giving all of the richest sources to our animals in feed, and they’re having all of the health benefits,” Shahidi noted.

Importantly, bioactivity can only be determined through research into how one can make these various phytonutrients and bioactive compounds more readily absorbed by the body, Shahidi said.

“Processing waste is not really a waste, it’s an important source of raw material for multiple purposes and we must be fully extracting them to have a valuable and accurate determination of their potential,” Shahidi added.

Enhancing With Enzymes

“While enzymes are well known for improving the efficiency of food processing and saving some costs, it’s less well-known what they can do to improve the safety and nutritional value of foods,” said Maaike Bruins, lead scientist at DSM Nutrition. “While they’ve been used for decades in brewing, dairy, baking, the use of enzymes in food waste retention and creating foods that are more nutritious is really an emerging field.”

Enzymes of animal, plant, and microbial origin are proteins that act as catalysts and have a part to play in food processing. Bruins discussed the role that these compounds can play in breaking down the unwanted components of food such as anti-nutrients or pathogens, while also reducing intolerances to food, improving nutrient absorption, unlocking bound minerals (through the use of an enzyme called phytase, which has been shown to increase iron absorption two-fold), and even reducing allergens in foods such as wheat and milk protein.

“We also have evidence that phytase can reduce 80% of the phytic acid bound to minerals in oat-based drinks. This would translate into better bioavailability of calcium, magnesium, and manganese, unlocking opportunities for nutrient content related claims,” Bruins said.

Microogranisms make about 95% of those used in food processing, according to Bruins, as they can be produced in large quantities under controlled conditions, and act on a wide range of substrates in a very selective way. With a wide array of selective processes, microbial enzymes can tackle a variety of food quality and safety issues, Bruins noted.

“Enzymes are more than just something that can cleave molecules; they can create certain compounds, whether those compounds are sweeteners, supportive of digestive health, or more. We can use them to synthesize and produce very specific molecules, but it requires a great deal of overhead research and engineering.”

Saved from Waste

The panelists at the event were each asked about challenges and opportunities that lay ahead for those in developing technology aimed at food waste reduction.

One of the biggest variables, Dia noted, is that the quality of the raw byproduct coming from food manufacturers is often highly variable. Without a consistent input of raw “waste” material, it’s impossible to have a consistent output of upcycled foods.

Other times, Shi noted, upcycling food waste is not possible due to the fact that toxins may be concentrated within certain byproducts to the point where they cannot be used in human food products. However, often, the toxins are not too condensed to be used in animal feed.

“Regulations are often one of the biggest constraints when it comes to leftovers making their way back to retail,” Bruins concurred.

Often, it can be hard to determine in advance what the scalability of a certain upcycling process could be.

“Scaling up is a very big challenge, and could amount to millions of dollars in investments. For our projects we’ll require funding from the government and industry collaboration with the intention to buy our products so that we can raise money,” Shi said. “The first limitation we encounter is always money to support our novel research. Collaboration with industry is where the real revenue stream to support research is, but without widespread education about the innovations that are happening, who will buy into it?

“In our case, we were able to start with a lab-produced tofu whey, and using whey from a commercial plant we were able to replicate production on a scalable level—the most difficult part for us is often finding a funding source from within the industry,” Dia noted.

One way to bridge the gap between applicability in research and in industry could be regionalizing the production of byproducts, Shahidi noted. Producing food in places that are hard to reach, and taking advantage of the material where it’s produced instead of relying on globalized supply chains can both reduce the carbon footprint and the costs of production for an upcycled product. “Ultimately, it’s very important to fully consider the financial return if you’re going to go through with something. But also, make sure you’re going for full food utilization. The product must have a bioactivity that hits the limit where it’s necessary for health benefits, and the money spent and the return on investment must justify it.”

Dia noted that the need to protect trade secrets can sometimes hinder the rate at which these technologies progress. With non-disclosure elements in place, certain pieces of research simply cannot be published, because a company supporting the research isn’t ready to reveal certain details due to those that might “piggyback” on a patent with similar technologies. “The problem with filing patents for a novel process is that you tell everyone else how you did something, and they can do it just a little bit differently. It becomes something that everyone else can figure out.”