Lianliang Liu
Jin Wang
Zhongbin Deng3*- 1State Key Laboratory for Managing Biotic and Chemical Threats to the Quality and Safety of Agro-products, Key Laboratory of Animal Protein Deep Processing Technology of Zhejiang, Zhejiang-Malaysia Joint Research Laboratory for Agricultural Product Processing and Nutrition, School of Food and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China
- 2Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine and Engineering, Ministry of Education, Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- 3Division of Immunotherapy, Department of Surgery, Brown Cancer Center, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, United States
Editorial on the Research Topic
Changes in food functional components during innovative processing technologies and delivery systems, digestion, and metabolism
Active peptides, phenolic acid, polysaccharides, oligosaccharides, exopolysaccharides, free amino acids, organic acids, and vitamins are classified as functional food components, which actively function to decrease and eliminate microbes, oxidation, and hypersensitivities of ingested foods.
Innovative technologies recently developed have shown abilities to reduce the damage to functional food components, compared to traditional food processing methods. These new technologies include pulsed electric field, microwave, ohmic heating, ultrasound, high pressure, and subcritical water/supercritical fluid methods (1, 2).
Besides, it has focused on embedding the functional components in macromolecules to enhance the bioavailability of functional food components. Proteins, polysaccharides, dietary fiber, pectin, and polyunsaturated fatty acids are used as macromolecules to protect the functional components from degradation that occurs during digestion and metabolism (3).
In this collection, a total of four papers were published. Zhao et al. found that dihydromyricetin and myricitrin, as main active compounds in the vine tea, synergistically inhibited the tyrosinase activity in B16F10 cells and could regulate signaling pathways such as melanogenesis, NF-κB, and apoptosis. Accordingly, it was beneficial to applying low-toxicity vine tea extract for the prevention and treatment of melanoma (Zhao et al.). Packaging material can influence the quality of food products during transportation. The microbial variation on bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) has been evaluate based on the effects of the packaging material to maintain a high quality product during transportation. Cheng et al. proved aluminum foil paper packaging could efficiently prevent TVB-N, redness value, metmyoglobin content increase to keep better color, and flavor of bigeye tuna. Moreover, aluminum foil had excellent barrier properties on water, oxygen, light, and microorganisms, which were the main factors causing food spoilage. Thereby, aluminum foil paper packaging could effectively inhibit microbial diversity and growth (such as Pseudomonas), guaranteeing the quality of bigeye tuna preferably during transportation (Cheng et al.).
Traditional hot processing methods, such as boiling treatment, affected protein digestibility with the degree of doneness in the meat. Yu et al. showed that heat processing reduced the protein digestibility and the bioavailability of amino acids, which had a negative influence on the nutritional values of meat. Besides, it was found that the digestibility of meat protein in the inner layer was higher than middle and outer layers (Yu et al.). On the other hand, non-thermal processing techniques, such as cold plasma processing, have garnered a great deal of attention in the food processing industry. However, debate remains as to whether protein oxidation and heme degradation occurs with cold plasma processing. Wang et al. indicated that dielectric barrier discharge cold plasma promoted protein oxidation, changed the secondary structure of protein, and accelerated lipid oxidation.
Stimulus-responsive smart hydrogels prepared by polysaccharides are used as targeted delivery systems for bioactive substances, such as curcumin, quercetin, and probiotics, helping to control the release rate and improve intestinal stability during their digestion and metabolism (4). These cases show that innovative processing technology and delivery system can improve the functional properties of functional food components by maintaining the integrity of their structure, compared with traditional processing technologies according to the changes of functional food components in processing, transportation, digestion, and metabolism.
New processing techniques and delivery systems reduce the disruption of the original compositional structure and functional properties of foods. In the meanwhile, the quality and nutritional integrity should to be achieved. However, related work in the future should focus more on the following items:
(i) The effect of changing the operation time and intensity of new processing technology on the nutrition and shelf life of food functional ingredients.
(ii) The effect of using non-heating techniques on the sensory properties of food while ensuring time and energy. Further exploration is needed to achieve a balance between quality and sensory properties.
(iii) Interactions between functional components of foods using innovative processing techniques or delivery systems and their impact on bioavailability.
(iv) In food delivery system, compare the advantages of gel and emulsion in delivering functional ingredients of food, and explore the future development direction of targeted delivery.
Author contributions
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.
Funding
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31601476) and Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (LY21C200005).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
References
1. Liu YH, Weng PF, Liu YA, Wu ZF, Wang L, Liu LL, et al. Citrus pectin research advances: derived as a biomaterial in the construction and applications of micro/nano-delivery systems. Food Hydrocoll. (2022) 133:107910. doi: 10.1016/j.foodhyd.2022.107910
2. Chen Q, Dong LZ, Li Y, Liu YH, Xia Q, Sang SY, et al. Research advance of non-thermal processing technologies on ovalbumin properties: the gelation, foaming, emulsification, allergenicity, immunoregulation and its delivery system application. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. (2023) doi: 10.1080/10408398.2023.2179969. [Epub ahead of print].
3. Li Y, Dong LZ, Mu ZS, Liu LY, Yang JS, Wu ZF, et al. Research advances of lactoferrin in electrostatic spinning, nano self-assembly, and immune and gut microbiota regulation. J Agric Food Chem. (2022) 70:10075–89. doi: 10.1021/acs.jafc.2c04241
Keywords: innovative processing technologies, delivery systems, digestion, metabolism, functional food
Citation: Liu L, Wang J and Deng Z (2023) Editorial: Changes in food functional components during innovative processing technologies and delivery systems, digestion, and metabolism. Front. Nutr. 10:1200010. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2023.1200010
Received: 04 April 2023; Accepted: 18 May 2023;
Published: 01 June 2023.
Edited and reviewed by: Elena Ibañez, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain
Copyright © 2023 Liu, Wang and Deng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Lianliang Liu, hahaliang408@126.com; Jin Wang, jinwang_2020@seu.edu.cn; Zhongbin Deng, z0deng01@louisville.edu