No abstract

Milk cake is one of the most popular traditional sweets of India especially popular in Northern and Central part of India. High sugar content in milk cake poses severe restriction in its consumption. Sucrose was successfully replaced with artificial sweetener sucralose along with addition of bulking agent maltodextrin to provide a characteristic texture to the product. The level of milk fat and sucralose were optimised using response surface methodology. Central composite rotatable design was used with two independent variables i.e. milk fat (3-6%) and sucralose (0.03-0.07%). The optimisation was done on the basis of sensory profile assessment and important textural parameters i.e. hardness and adhesiveness. Milk cake prepared with 6% milk fat and 0.07% sucralose level gave optimised product.

A three factor Box-Behnken design of response surface methodology was employed to optimize spent hen meat level (600-700 g kg), oil level (25-75 g kg) and cooking time (3-5 min) for development of ready-to-eat chicken meat caruncles on the basis of sensory attributes -colour/appearance, flavour, crispiness, after-taste, meat flavour intensity and overall acceptability. The analysis of variance showed that meat and cooking time interaction showed significant effect (p <0.01; p <0.05; p <0.1) on colour/appearance and crispiness of chicken meat caruncles. Quadratically meat level showed significantly higher effect (p <0.01; p <0.05; p <0.1) on crispiness; and oil level and cooking time (p <0.05; p <0.1) on after-taste of chicken meat caruncles. Linearly meat level showed significantly higher (p <0.05; p <0.1) effect on colour/appearance, aftertaste, meat flavour intensity and overall acceptability of chicken meat caruncles. The optimized conditions were: 650 g kg Among all sensory parameters, crispiness is one of the most important sensory parameters for meat snacks, which was highest (6.68) at the optimized conditions in the final product. The other sensory parameters ranged from 6.33 to 6.68 on an eight point scale. Box-Behnken design of RSM performed well in the optimization process of development of chicken meat caruncles to produce product with very high degree of acceptability. 650 g kg −1 of spent hen meat level produced the most acceptable product in terms of sensory profile.

India accumulates 5.6 million tonnes of plastic waste every year, out of which 66% is the mixed waste polybags and pouches used for food packaging. Especially, the single‐use cups, made up of polystyrene, are not generally recycled as their process is expensive and tedious. On the other hand, biodegradable composite materials on biodegradation and composting act as fertilizers. The applicability of these biodegradable packaging materials is less in the industries as they lack mechanical barrier properties compared with plastic packaging materials. Ultrasonication is one such technology that can result in the successful enhancement of various properties. In ultrasonication, the amplitude was changed to 20%, 40%, and 60%, and time of ultrasonication was varied as 2, 4, 8, and 16 min. Mechanical properties such as tensile strength (31.38 N) and puncture strength (13.35 N) showed improvement. Other important properties such as density increased, whereas the water vapor transmission rate of biodegradable cup samples was decreased. Novelty impact statement The developed composite biodegradable cup with ultrasonication has good mechanical properties. The developed biodegradable cup can be used as a single‐use food server, thus reducing the use of plastic cups in the food industry.

The use of biodegradable films to replace the synthetic polymers prepared from natural polymers has been strongly limited owing to their poor barrier and mechanical properties. The modification was carried out with a partial replacement of natural polymers with synthetic polymer, such as PVA (poly vinyl alcohol), to increase the barrier properties of the film. The addition of an active ingredient in the form of nanoparticles such as Zinc Oxide (ZnO), enhanced the properties of the packaging materials compared to the conventional composite film, to which sonication imparted an excellent dispersion of nanoparticles in the slurry. The film thickness, water vapor permeability, film solubility, and mechanical properties of the composite, the composite with PVA, and the composite with PVA and ZnO nanoparticle film (active film) values differed significantly (p < 0.05) between the samples. The Z-average diameters of the composite slurry, the composite with PVA slurry, and the composite with PVA and ZnO nanoparticle slurry ranged from 242.20 to 1021.03 in nanometers (d-nm). The PDI and zeta potential of the samples were also analyzed. The antibacterial activity of the nanoparticles showed a distinct inhibition against Gram-positive Bacillus cereus and Gram-negative Escherichia coli in the treated films counterpart to the control films. The active film conferred excellent mechanical and barrier properties, including antibacterial properties.