Our top 10 most read research and discovery stories for 2020 features food safety concerns from COVID-19 to heavy metal contamination, to new technology and new class of colour pigments.
Click through the gallery to see them all.
See our top 10 most read research and discovery stories, featuring food safety concerns from COVID-19 to heavy metal contamination, to new technology and new class of colour pigments.
Chicken, pork and salmon samples contaminated with COVID-19 showed no decline in the virus level after 21 days in both refrigerated and frozen storage conditions.
In this preliminary report, researchers from Singapore and Ireland said this laboratory work showed that the SARS-CoV-2 can survive the time and temperatures associated with transportation and storage conditions in the international food trade.
There have been several reports of contaminated foodstuffs in the global supply chain, with China reporting SARS-CoV-2 detected on imported frozen chicken and frozen shrimp packaging material.
This ‘non-traditional’ transmission mechanism is being debated, but it is believed that contaminated persons can spread the virus on surfaces.
Fish caught from the seas surrounding Turkey were found to be contaminated with heavy metals above the recommended maximum limit, in particular, lead and cadmium.
These findings were significant because heavy metals not only destroy the ecological aquasystem, but also endangers human health.
Turkey has been urging its population to eat more fish.
As a country surrounded by four seas, Turkish people consume about 6kg of fish per year (2018 data), although this was below the average consumption of 24kg in Europe.
An intensive lifestyle intervention comprising a low-calorie diet and physical activity led to significant weight loss and diabetes remission in 61% of patients.
The study, funded by the Qatar National Research Fund, also found that the one-year lifestyle intervention improved glycaemia levels in 30% of patients.
Current type 2 diabetes care focus on drugs to control blood sugar, cholesterol, and blood pressure, with the assumption that insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas are irreversibly damaged by the time of diabetes diagnosis.
However, researchers in Qatar proposed that abdominal fat accumulation, which harms insulin-producing cells, may be reversible through weight loss.
A study on mice has again shown that a diet high in salt is bad for the brain, but experts have questioned the amount of salt that was fed to the animals, with one even claiming it is “grossly irresponsible in terms of science.”
In a study conducted by researchers from USA, mice which were given a high sodium diet consisting of four or 8% NaCl for 12 weeks (8-16 times higher in salt than normal mouse diet – 0/5% NaCl) were found to accumulate modified tau, a protein associated with conditions that cause dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease.
The researchers found that high sodium diet mice were significantly less able to navigate mazes (p<0.05) and recognise new objects (p=0.0188).
They reported in the journal Nature, “Dietary salt induces hyperphosphorylation of tau followed by cognitive dysfunction in mice, and that these effects are prevented by restoring endothelial nitric oxide production.”
The Philippines had been studying virgin coconut oil (VCO) as a potential treatment for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) which has since infected more than 80,000 people and killed more than 2,800 worldwide.
There is currently no vaccine or specific antiviral treatment for COVID-19. Researchers in The Philippines were testing VCO, according to Dr Jaime Montoya, executive director of the Philippine Council on Health Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (PCHRD-DOST).
The PCHRD-DOST had announced on February 7 that it would test a “functional food” in infected patients with COVID-19 which Dr. Montoya confirmed in late February was coconut oil.
Dr. Montoya told NutraIngredientsAsia that coconut oil and its derivatives have been studied previously for its antiviral properties. He said the VCO has yet to be tested against COVID-19, but they plan on starting clinical trials soon.
A newly-discovered class of colouring pigments called auronidins could open doors for the development of more stable and intense natural, plant-based food and beverage colourants.
The study was conducted by the New Zealand Plant and Food Research Institute and was funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Marsden Fund.
In general, the flavonoid anthocyanin has generally been acknowledged as the ‘key pigments’ of plants which provide colours (red, purple, blue) to flowers, fruit, and foliage whilst also protecting against environmental stresses.
The discovery of auronidins but not anthocyanins in liverworts, the first known land plants, has not only led scientists to rethink the evolution of plant pigments, but also opened up possibilities for the use of these new pigments as natural colourants.
A spin-off from the National University of Singapore (NUS) had created a new light technology touted as a chemical-free ‘disruptor’ to the food preservation and disinfection industries.
The firm SafeLight had developed a visible light technology of the same name to kill microorganisms and preserve food.
CEO Dr Vinayak Ghate told FoodNavigator-Asia, the technology could be used to preserve fruits and vegetables in the cold chain, as well as food surfaces in processing plants.
The company hoped to grab a slice of the local disinfection market in food processing which was valued at SG$14m (US$10m). Globally, the market size was SG$92bn (US$66m) and expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.4%.
Nearly 75% of infant and children rice snack samples in Australia were found to exceed the European Union (EU) maximum levels of inorganic arsenic levels.
Researchers in Australia said this is concerning as baby food companies are increasingly shifting to organic products for perceived healthiness, but organic rice have been shown to contain more inorganic arsenic (iAs) than inorganic rice. iAs is known as a non-threshold human carcinogen.
The current Australian guidelines for tAs in food are based on adult consumption and are not protective of high-sensitivity consumers like infants and young children.
The study was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
A proof-of-concept study by the Singapore Institute of Food and Biotechnology Innovation (SIFBI) found that high pressure processing (HPP) of plant protein could produce a clean label plant-based yoghurt with desirable texture and nutrition, comparable to commercial dairy yoghurts.
Currently, plant-based yoghurts are made by the fermentation of plant-based milk which produces flavour and probiotics, but this process is relatively long and often lead to textural issues. Hydrocolloids are often added to produce a more texturally stable product.
Published in the journal, Foods, researchers at SIFBI investigated the use of HPP as an alternative structuring solution for plant-based yoghurts.
HPP is a non-thermal processing method which subject foods to high hydrostatic pressure between 200–800 MPa, ultimately extending shelf-life of food products. HPP can also form homogenous plant protein gels and is a quicker process than fermentation.
Scientists developed a novel active coating containing chitosan, tea and cinnamon extracts to improve the quality of fish fillets during refrigerated storage.
A potential natural preservative, the coating was found to reduce oxidation, inhibit bacteria, and prevent discolouration in fish fillet samples.
In addition, treated samples had a longer shelf life of 15 days with good quality parameters, compared to untreated samples (control) of just five days.
Traditionally, fish was not a popular meat in the Iranian diet, with per capita consumption of only 1kg/year in the 1980s, rising to 9.2kg/year in 2014.