Institut für Getreideverarbeitung (Germany)

Food fraud, even when not in the news, is ubiquitous and demands the development of innovative strategies to combat it. A new non-targeted method (NTM) for distinguishing spelt and wheat is described, which aids in food fraud detection and authenticity testing. A highly resolved fingerprint in the form of spectra is obtained for several cultivars of spelt and wheat using liquid chromatography coupled high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS). Convolutional neural network (CNN) models are built using a nested cross validation (NCV) approach by appropriately training them using a calibration set comprising duplicate measurements of eleven cultivars of wheat and spelt, each. The results reveal that the CNNs automatically learn patterns and representations to best discriminate tested samples into spelt or wheat. This is further investigated using an external validation set comprising artificially mixed spectra, samples for processed goods (spelt bread and flour), eleven untypical spelt, and six old wheat cultivars. These cultivars were not part of model building. We introduce a metric called the D score to quantitatively evaluate and compare the classification decisions. Our results demonstrate that NTMs based on NCV and CNNs trained using appropriately chosen spectral data can be reliable enough to be used on a wider range of cultivars and their mixes.

The world is confronted with the depletion of natural resources due to their unsustainable use and the increasing size of populations. In this context, the efficient use of by-products, residues and wastes generated from agro-industrial and food processing opens the perspective for a wide range of benefits. In particular, legume residues are produced yearly in very large amounts and may represent an interesting source of plant proteins that contribute to satisfying the steadily increasing global protein demand. Innovative biorefinery extraction cascades may also enable the recovery of further bioactive molecules and fibers from these insufficiently tapped biomass streams. This review article gives a summary of the potential for the valorization of legume residual streams resulting from agro-industrial processing and more particularly for pea, green bean and chickpea by-products/wastes. Valuable information on the annual production volumes, geographical origin and state-of-the-art technologies for the extraction of proteins, fibers and other bioactive molecules from this source of biomass, is exhaustively listed and discussed. Finally, promising applications, already using the recovered fractions from pea, bean and chickpea residues for the formulation of feed, food, cosmetic and packaging products, are listed and discussed.

Fishmeal and oil are regarded as byproducts resulting from fish processing. However, the procedures are hypothesized to be an ecological harm for maintaining the balance of the aquatic ecosystems. This study aimed at characterizing an innovative algae–yeast mix for a partial substitution of fishmeal and oil in fish feed. The microorganism mix consisted of the cyanobacterium Arthrospira sp., the microalgae Crypthecodinium cohnii, and the yeast Rhodotorula glutinis to create a balanced nutritional composition with an enrichment of bioactive compounds for inducing positive health effects in selected fish species. Such a modification can also be interpreted in terms of a positive (human) nutritional effect. From an ecological point of view, all these microorganisms can be cultivated without minimum effort. In fish feeding trials, pike-perch (Sander lucioperca) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) were taken for evaluating the feed acceptance, fish health, and fish filet quality. The study revealed a successful feed development, which resulted in healthy organisms depending on the species and compared to conventionally fed organisms.

The irrigation or agricultural land with wastewater is increasingly practiced in many parts of the world as a consequence of growing populations and urbanization. The risks emerging from pharmaceuticals that are contained in wastewater for soils and groundwater have hardly been investigated. We studied leaching and effects of naproxen, ibuprofen, bezafibrate, diclofenac, gemfibrocil, clarithromycin, trimethoprim, clindamycin, erythromycin, and metoprolol in a soil column experiment simulating an irrigation event with 8.6 cm of wastewater containing 20 microg L(-1) or 2000 microg L(-1) of each compound or of erythromycin alone. The leached fraction of applied pharmaceuticals ranged from 0.1 +/- 0.1% (clarithromycin, 2000 microg L(-1)) to 130 +/- 41% (naproxen, 20 microg L(-1)) and tended to increase with decreasing K(d) or K(oc). Naproxen transport was similar to that of the tracer chloride. Ibuprofen was also hardly retarded (R = 1.20 +/- 0.18), but showed a higher degradation rate of 0.02 +/- 0.004 h(-1) (2000 microg L(-1)) than naproxen. The transport of a pulse of 2000 microg L(-1) of bezafibrate could be described with a retardation factor of 1.5 and a degradation rate of 0.033 h(-1). The application of erythromycin alone or of a cocktail of all pharmaceuticals significantly increased soil CO2 emissions by 50% 1 d after the application. There is a considerable risk that pharmaceuticals are leached to groundwater during wastewater irrigation.

The purpose of radioecological models is to make realistic estimates of doses to the public after accidental releases of radionuclides into the environment. Important physical, chemical and biological processes involved in the dispersion and transport of radioactive substances in the atmosphere and along the food-chains are presented. The results of the EURAD (EURopean Acid Deposition) model, predicting the deposition patterns of 131I and 137Cs in Belarus and Ukraine after the Chernobyl accident, are discussed. An overview of the most important ecological processes—such as deposition, interception and translocation, weathering, transfers from soil to plants and from plants to animal/animal products, and seasonality in agricultural environments—is given. Examples corresponding to these individual processes, mainly experimental results after the Chernobyl accident and related to radiocaesium and radioiodine, are shown and discussed.

In the past, various analytical methods of citrinin determination have been published; their application is not unproblematic. In this article, a HPLC method for sensitive fluorescence detection, based on solid phase extraction in combination with a HPLC gradient, is described. The samples are extracted with dichloromethane with the addition of phosphoric acid, and the extract is cleaned up on polyamide columns. According to this method, citrinin is detectable in cereals and milling products up to a detection limit of ~1–2 μg/kg (limit of quantification: 3–5 μg/kg). The mean recovery rates amounted to 74–90%. Analyses of some samples containing ochratoxin A (OTA) show that citrinin is especially detectable in cereal products, such as brans, wheatings and shorts, which contain increased amounts of the outer layers of the kernel. Citrinin, as well as OTA, was also detected in cocoa shells and raisins. 14 OTA-containing samples had citrinin contents of 1–8 μg/kg. Further, it was demonstrated that the new method is also applicable for citrinin determination in red-fermented rice.

A new method for citrinin was developed and validated, which is based on solid phase extraction with polyamide columns and HPLC with fluorescence detection. Sufficient skill with the method given, precise results, i.e. variation coefficients <10%, will be achieved. The mean recovery rates were in the range 74 - 90%. The detection limits of the method determined according to DIN 32645, at good precision, were 1 µg/kg for wheat, rye, barley, maize, and oats. The analysis of several samples containing ochratoxin A (OTA) showed that citrinin is present in brans, wheatings and shorts containing a higher ratio of the outer layers of the grain kernel; both OTA and citrinin were found in in cocoa shells and raisins. Citrinin was detected in 14 OTA-containing samples (1-8 µg/kg). Furthermore, it was demonstrated that citrinin also can be determined in red mold rice according to the new method.

Verfeinerte Phänotypisierungsmethoden und Effektmonitoring zur Erfassung des individuellen Risikos am Beispiel der GSTT1 Genetische Polymorphismen von Sulfotransferasen als Suszeptibilitätsparameter Genotypisierung und Phänotypisierung am Beispiel der NAT2 Neue High-Throughput-Technologie des diagnostischen Screenings von Suszeptibilitätsfaktoren