Production of liquid biofuels from renewable resources

In the 21st century, climate changes, water scarcity, increasing world population, rising food prices, and other socioeconomic impacts are expected to generate a great threat to agriculture and food security worldwide, especially for the poorest people who live in arid and subarid regions. These impacts present a challenge to scientists and nutritionists to investigate the possibilities of producing, processing, and utilizing other potential food sources to end hunger and poverty. Cereal grains are the most important source of the world's food and have a significant role in the human diet throughout the world. As one of the most important drought-resistant crops, millet is widely grown in the semiarid tropics of Africa and Asia and constitutes a major source of carbohydrates and proteins for people living in these areas. In addition, because of their important contribution to national food security and potential health benefits, millet grain is now receiving increasing interest from food scientists, technologists, and nutritionists. The aim of this work was to review the recent advances in research carried out to date for purposes of evaluation of nutritional quality and potential health benefits of millet grains. Processing technologies used for improving the edible and nutritional characteristics of millet as well as challenges, limitations, and future perspectives to promote millet utilization as food for a large and growing population are also discussed.

Millet Grains: Nutritional Quality, Processing, and Potential Health Benefits

Increasing utilisation of plant protein is required to support the production of protein-rich foods that can replace animal proteins in the human diet so as to reduce the strain that intensive animal husbandry poses to the environment. From a nutritional standpoint, with the right combination, plant proteins can supply sufficient amounts of essential amino acids for human health requirements. In addition to their role as a macronutrient, proteins play an integral role in structural formation of foods through processes such as emulsification, foaming, gelation and dough formation. This review aims to provide an overview of the major sources of plant proteins, their physiochemical functionalities and nutritional properties, with emphasis on the research needed to support technology innovation for more plant protein to meet world nutritional requirements and as food sources to feed the growing world population.

Proteins from land plants – Potential resources for human nutrition and food security

Nutritional value of bread: Influence of processing, food interaction and consumer perception

https://sites.evergreen.edu/townhalls/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2015/02/Food-Microbiology_Nutritional-Perspective.pdf

Sourdough and cereal fermentation in a nutritional perspective.

Novel food and non-food uses for sorghum and millets.

This study was conducted to improve the quality and theoretical understanding of gluten-free sorghum bread. The addition of 2% hydroxypropyl methylcellulose improved bread based on 105% water, 70% sorghum flour, and 30% potato starch. Nevertheless, a flat top and tendency toward a hole in the crumb remained. Sourdough fermentation of the total sorghum flour eliminated these problems. Size-exclusion high-performance liquid chromatography demonstrated that during sourdough fermentation, proteins from the dough liquid were degraded to peptides smaller than kafirin monomers (<19 kDa). Laser scanning confocal microscopy showed aggregated protein in bread crumb without sourdough fermentation, whereas with sourdough fermentation, only small isolated patches of protein bodies embedded in matrix protein remained. In oscillatory temperature sweeps, sourdough fermentation caused a significantly higher resistance to deformation (|G*|) after gelatinization of the above batter relative to batters without sourdough. Results suggest that a strong starch gel, without interference of aggregated protein, is desirable for this type of bread.

Tilman J. Schober

Papers

Novel food and non-food uses for sorghum and millets.

Gluten-free sorghum bread improved by sourdough fermentation: biochemical, rheological, and microstructural background.

Improved viscoelastic zein-starch doughs for leavened gluten-free breads: Their rheology and microstructure

Gluten proteins from spelt (Triticum aestivum ssp. spelta) cultivars: A rheological and size-exclusion high-performance liquid chromatography study

Manufacture of Gluten‐Free Specialty Breads and Confectionery Products