Deep processing of grain bran is an important, promising direction that allows the use of by-products (secondary products) of flour milling in order to obtain valuable food components for the creation of enriched food products, as well as specialized grain-based products. Polycomponent bran, obtained during the joint processing of cereals (wheat), legumes (lentils) and oilseeds (flax), in terms of its chemical composition and the state of the proteinproteinase complex, is a unique raw material that can be used for further processing. In particular, it is suitable for the use in producing hydrolysates and other structurally modified products using enzymatic biocatalytic methods. An assessment of the chemical composition and biochemical characteristics of new types of bran showed a high protein content, in which the proportion of the albumin-globulin fraction predominated (78.5-86%), while a significant part of the protein (7.6-10%) was strongly bonded to other biopolymers. The bran proteolytic enzymes acting in the neutral (pH 6.8) and acidic (pH 3.8) pH zones were isolated and studied. It was shown that lentil-flax bran was characterized by the highest proteolytic activity, while the activity of neutral proteinases exceeded the activity of acid proteinases in all three variants: 1.32, 1.37 and 1.56 times, respectively. It was established that protein inhibitors of trypsin and their own proteinases were present in all studied bran types. They inhibited the activity of acid proteinases to a greater extent than neutral ones (% inhibition): 37.5 versus 28.2 (option 1); 32.3 versus 24.5 (option 2); 48.6 versus 32.4 (option 3). The molecular weight, according to gel chromatography, was as follows: neutral proteinases 250,000 200,000 Da, acid proteinases 100,000 75,000 Da. Protein inhibitors isolated from multicomponent bran had a molecular weight of 25,000-20,000 Da. The data obtained will be used in experimental studies on targeted biocatalysis in order to obtain products of a given composition and properties.

Recently, a question of producing a complex of biologically active substances from microalgae has aroused widespread interest. It is known that microalgae are able to produce a significant amount of exopolysaccharides. The aim of this work was to study morphological features and growth parameters of psychrophilic microalgae and cyanobacteria for the subsequent production of exopolysaccharides. The morphology of microalgae was observed using a binocular microscope. Growth parameters were studied by spectrophotometry; parameters of the culture medium were determined using a pH-meter. Exponential dependency graphs that show the dynamics and expected growth rate of microalgae were built. A rate of growth and polysaccharide biosynthesis in microalgae was determined upon changing the light intensity from 50 to130 mmol/m²/s. The highest level of cell counts in the logarithmic growth phase was up to 0.8 for Scenedesmus obtusiusculus Chod IPPAS S-329. A level of cells also varied in the deceleration phase from 0.25 for Ankistrodesmus acicularis Korsch IPPAS А-218 to 1.8 for Scenedesmus obtusiusculus Chod IPPAS S-329. Microalgae showed a high level of biomass accumulation under alkalophylic conditions. Eukaryotic algae actively photosynthesized at a pH of more than 8.0 and a temperature of 30 °C.

The maximum activity at the level of pH 3.0/3.2 in the lag phase was 100% in C-1509 Nannochloris sp. Naumann. Microalga C-1509 Nannochloris sp. Naumann showed a high level of biomass accumulation under alkalophylic conditions; it photosynthesized at a pH of more than 8.0 and a temperature of 30 °C. It has been proved that neutrophiles can grow at pH lower than 3.0; this corresponds to the results of the experiments with the collection strains of microalgae with biomass productivity of 27.3%. At the alkaline pH values of 8.3-9.0, biomass productivity reduced from 46.0 to 37.2%. It is especially interesting that at the alkaline pH values of 7.5 and 8.0 biomass productivity of microalgae increased, which indicates the optimal growth conditions at this narrow pH range. An ability of microalgae to produce exopolysaccharides opens prospects of their use for practical purposes.

The  development of reliable identification criteria for various  types of foods,  including fruit  vodkas,  is one  of the top-priority directions of scientific research in the field of quality control. The review examines different approaches to solution to a problem of searching identification criteria for fruit vodkas that will allow differentiating products by a type of fruit  raw materials, their grade  and region of origin.  To this  end, instrumental methods of analysis were used, including spectral, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography coupled to mass  spectrometry (GC–MS) as the  main  method. When  detecting minor  aroma-forming substances using  the  latter method, it is necessary, first  of all, to  carry  out  the  special  sample preparation that includes extraction and  concentration of target substances. The  present review  examines three main  types of sample preparation (liquid  extraction, solid-phase extraction, supercritical fluid extraction) and  modifications of these methods. Their  comparative analysis was carried out  with  respect to  labor  intensity, extraction effectiveness, volatile aroma-forming compounds significantly different by polarity, reproducibility and  sustainability. It has been  shown  that a type of sample preparation affects  reproducibility and sensitivity of an instrumental analytic method, which is especially important for identification of some  minor  compounds, which concentration can be regarded as indicators for identification of fruit  raw materials. It has been  concluded that among  the  examined methods of sample preparation, the most  promising for the development of identification criteria for fruit vodkas is headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) as this  method is highly  effective in terms of extraction of target components including minor.

The purpose of this review work is to consider the impact of socio-ethical problems on the acceptance of new food products by potential consumers and the issues  of manufacturers of these products when introducing innovative technologies. The causes  of neophobia of innovative technologies in the food industry are considered on specific examples of the use of nanotechnology, genetic modification technologies, ionization and processing by electromagnetic fields, as well as 3D food printing. It is noted that the public is little aware of innovative food technologies, while its attitude depends on how these technologies are used  and promoted. Proper public  information is critical to the  long-term success of introducing and  developing innovative technologies in the  food industry. It is shown  that the  modern intensive development of information technologies, together with a synergistic set of innovative food technologies, allows  making  a gradual transition to the  production of personalized digital food systems that have functionality, good taste, and safety  with minimal negative impact on the environment.

The paper  examines the  problem of falsification of edible  fish products, which concerns producers and consumers worldwide. Food products are most often falsified by imparting them some of the most typical features, for example appearance, upon  the overall  worsening or losing the other most  significant properties of nutritional value, including safety. Market analysis shows that there is a tendency of replacing natural roe with imitated roe by its selling  in metal and glass jars with indication of the address of the Far Eastern producer. It has been established that the protein  content is not higher than one percent upon  imitated roe production using  modern technologies. To establish product authenticity, a methodology for measuring the protein mass fraction in grained salmonid roe by the Kjeldahl method was developed. The metrological characteristic of the developed methodology in three concentration ranges is presented. The used values  can serve for identification of claimed properties with the  specified  indicators of accuracy, trueness, repeatability and reproducibility. In addition to the methodology, product organoleptic indicators are proposed, including assessment of appearance, consistency, taste, odor, as well as specific features of the cooking test  that can serve as distinctive features and are taken into consideration in identification of grained salmonid roe.

The COVID-19 crisis is impacting the reconfiguration of food systems at different scales. In poor countries where food insecurity had already been a major problem, the urban population under the lockdown often had to cope alone with shortages of food and access to it. In the poorest country in the Americas, the urban population adapted the food system by intensifying the practice of urban agricultural activities. In this exploratory research, using a sample including urban dwellers that were engaged in urban agriculture and those who were not, we investigated the following question: Did urban agriculture linked to COVID-19 represent an appropriate and innovative strategy for the urban food system resilience? Our results confirm that the Haitian urban population used urban agriculture as an innovative and appropriate food resilience strategy. They produced varieties chosen for their very rapid production character and were able to cope successfully with the crisis, and also have lessons to share with other actors and countries.

The biological system of the  microbial antioxidant protection is a subject of a certain level of the  physiological oxidative process. To prevent oxidation, a regulator of intracellular metabolism, tripeptide glutathione, is accumulated in cells. Glutathione is very important for the  antioxidant response and maintenance of intracellular redox potential. Its role in several  metabolic adaptive symbiotic processes of yeasts  and lactic acid bacteria is not completely elucidated and is of scientific and practical interest. Glycine is a component of the polypeptide chain and substances that form the  primary structure of glutathione. The aim of this  study  was to determine an effect of the redox processes on the antioxidant activity through regulation of the level of the glutathione constituent, glycine, in a nutrient medium to obtain the microbial biomass of the multicomponent starter culture. As a result of the  performed investigations, a direct dependence between the  antioxidant activity calculated by the  coulometric method and  concentration of glycine  introduced into  the  nutrient medium was determined. It has  been established that addition of 0.2–0.8% of glycine leads to a decrease in the redox potential. The results reflected in this publication show that the process of the development of aerobic  microorganisms in the presence of reducing substances occurs  quite  actively. The number of yeasts  increased from 1.6· 10⁴  to 3.6· 10⁵  CFU/g during 24-hour incubation. An increase in glycine  from  0.5 to 0.8% enhanced the  development of both  anaerobic and  aerobic microorganisms. It has been  found  that an increase in the  glycine  concentration from  0.8% to 1.5% shifted the process toward  the oxidative metabolism; an amount of reduced glutathione in the culture liquid increased practically twofold, while the concentration of oxidized glutathione in the test  sample was in a range  of 0 to 5%. This allows regarding glutathione as a potential regulator of the  redox  processes and antioxidant activity of biomass of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts.

The article presents the results of studies of the composition of the residual microflora of pasteurized milk, depending on the bacterial landscape and the initial contamination of raw milk. The thermal stability of test  cultures of microorganisms that significantly affect the  quality and  storage capacity of fermented dairy products has been  studied. To study  the  composition of the  residual microflora of milk after  pasteurization, sterile milk was infected with  test  cultures of microorganisms at doses  from  10¹ CFU/cm³ to 10⁷ CFU/cm³. After infection, the  milk was pasteurized at temperatures of (72 ± 1) °C and  (80 ± 1) °C with  a holding time  of 10–20  seconds. The detection and  enumeration of microorganisms was carried out  by standardized microbiological methods. Microorganisms were identified by visual assessment of dominant colonies and cell morphology in micropreparations. The thermal stability of microorganisms important for dairy products, in particular cheeses, the source of which  is raw milk, has been  studied. It has been  established that of the  coccal  forms,  the  greatest risks are associated with  enterococci. Escherichia coli at  infection doses  above 10⁶ CFU/cm³ partially retains viability both  at low-temperature and  at high-temperature pasteurization. Pasteurization temperatures do not have  a lethal effect on spore  bacilli, their number in pasteurized milk does not decrease, regardless of the  initial dose of infection. Low-temperature pasteurization activates the process of clostridial spore  germination. The ability to reactivate cells after  thermal shock was observed in Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas, and  mold  fungi.  Thus,  the  residual microflora of milk  subjected to  low-temperature pasteurization is represented by enterococci, thermophilic streptococci, micrococci, staphylococci, asporogenous bacilli  and  spore bacteria. The above microorganisms constitute  the  residual microflora of pasteurized milk and are involved in the  maturation of cheeses, determining their quality and  safety,  [as well as] affecting the  storage capacity of the finished product.

Functional oligosaccharides include various  groups  of carbohydrates with  the  biological activity — an  ability  to modulate gut microbiota due to the  prebiotic, anti-adhesive and anti-inflammatory activities. The unique properties of oligosaccharides explain a wide spectrum of their use in the dairy industry: from food ingredients for imitation  of the  prebiotic activity of human milk oligosaccharides in infant dry milk mixtures to structuring additives, replacers of sugar and fat. When choosing oligosaccharides for inclusion into dairy products, their biological activity and technological properties that depend on a source  and method for extraction of these compounds are assessed. Fructooligosaccharides, galactooligosaccharides, xylooligosaccharides and pectic  oligosaccharides have been  most widely used. When developing recipes of products with stated biological effectiveness, it is necessary to remember that consumption of large  amounts of substances with prebiotic properties can lead to the  gastrointestinal disorder, which requires introducing into  practice the control of the oligosaccharide quantitative content in the product composition. The aim of this  review is analysis of possibilities of using  oligosaccharides in production of specialized  milk-based food products and  methods for controlling quality, safety  and  effectiveness of inclusion of such products into  a diet. The review considers the  existing methods for quantitative identification of oligosaccharides included in the composition of dairy products as functional ingredients. The emphasis is made on the limitations of the introduction of the developed analytical methods into  routine practice of the oligosaccharide control, which is linked with the complexity and multicomponent nature of the food matrix under study. The necessity of the further improvement of methods for quantitative identification of functional oligosaccharides in foods is shown.

Cheesemaking is a complex process that involves  lactose metabolism, proteolysis and  lipolysis. The flavor bouquet  of ripening cheeses is formed  as a result of changes in all the  components of milk. The conditions of keeping and feeding  a ruminant, its type, breed,  as well as the  technological features of cheese production influence this  process. Milk fat  contributes to  the  formation of the  flavor  bouquet of cheese, which  undergoes separate changes in the  stage  of milk processing for cheese. We studied semi-hard cheeses — Dutch  and Vityaz and hard cheese — Italiko, made from the same raw milk using the microflora characteristic of these cheeses. The temperature  of the  second heating ranged from 39°C to 54°C, depending on the  type  of cheese. To assess  the  quality of cheeses, their physical and chemical composition and degree of maturity, organoleptic indicators and the content of volatile flavoring compounds, acid number, Reichert-Meissl number and  fatty acid composition of the  fatty phase of cheeses were determined. In comparative studies of cheeses, the features of the formation of their quality indicators, due to the composition and manufacturing technology, were revealed. They manifested themselves in the  flavor bouquet and texture of the  product, as well as in the  fatty acid composition of cheeses, confirming the importance of the fat phase in the quality formation of the studied cheeses during their production, ripening and storage. It has been  proven that even a slight  increase in the  acid number of fat during the  production of all cheeses contributes to the  further transformation of the  resulting free  fatty acids  into  volatile flavoring  compounds that take part  in the formation of the taste and aroma  of the finished product.

Vegetable oils play an important role in the  human diet. Both the  physiological value of the  product and its cost largely  depend on the  type of processed raw materials. In this  regard, the  establishment of the  type of vegetable raw materials used for the production of vegetable oils is an important area of research in the identification of this product type. To date,  one of the most  informative methods for assessing the authenticity of plant raw materials is the method of isotope mass spectrometry. Thirty  samples of vegetable oils produced from various  raw materials and places  of origin  (Italy, Greece, Spain, Turkey, Armenia, Russia, Slovenia)  were studied. The isotopic ratios of carbon, oxygen  and hydrogen were measured in the  samples. It is shown  that the  samples of corn oil (C4 type of photosynthesis) are characterized by the  highest values  of the  indicator δ¹³C, from –17.00‰ to –17.73‰. The rest of the studied samples of vegetable oils were produced from C3 plants (grape seed oil, olive, linseed, sesame, pumpkin, mustard, sunflower, etc.). For them, the values of δ¹³C lie in the range  from –26.60‰ to –31.14‰. Thus, the  method of isotope mass  spectrometry makes  it possible to detect the  introduction of corn oil into  a product produced from plants with C3 type of photosynthesis, even in small  quantities. In addition, this  method enables establishing the introduction of cheap  oils into  corn oil. The values  of the indicators δ¹⁸O and δ²H largely depend on the year of harvest and the climatic characteristics of the region where the raw materials grow. Thus, the values of the isotopic characteristics of the δ¹⁸O structural components of the oil samples from grape  seeds  produced in Turkey, Armenia and Italy have significant differences (19.40± 0.77‰, 16.55± 0.66‰ and 23.29± 0.93‰, respectively). The values  of the  isotopic characteristics of hydrogen δ²H of the  sample from Armenia differed from the values  of the samples from Turkey and Italy in the direction of a higher content of “light”  isotopes (–189.86± 1.13‰, —163.17 ± 0.97‰ and –160.72± 0.97‰, respectively). The annual monitoring of these values, the creation of a database, as well as the  use of statistical analysis methods will allow in the  future identifying vegetable oils by their geographical origin  with a high degree  of reliability.

Modern methods for aging and thermal treatment facilitate an improvement in beef sensory properties. The aim of the research was to study an effect of different types of thermal treatment on quality of steaks from dry-aged beef. Steaks were obtained from the rib cut from carcasses of grain-fed young bulls; aging duration was 35 days (temperature 0–1 ºС, air relative humidity 74–75%). Aging duration in the control sample was five days (temperature 0–4 ºС, air relative humidity 80–85%). The methods for thermal treatment were as follows: sous vide cooking at 58 ºС, grill heating at 250 ºС, sous vide cooking in combination with grill treatment. During processing, the following parameters were controlled: weight loss by the direct method, hydrophobicity of myofibrillar proteins by the reaction with bromophenol blue, soluble collagen by the method of acid hydrolysis with determination of oxyproline, mass fraction of moisture and fat by the method from one analytical unit, sensory properties by the reference method. According to the data obtained, minimal losses (6.8%) were noticed upon sous vide cooking of dry-aged beef steaks. In combined heating and dry heating on grill, they increased by 6.1% and 12%. More significant weight losses were observed in beef steaks with aging time of five days upon any tested treatment types. For dry-aged beef steaks treated by sous vide and combined heating, a higher content of soluble collagen compared to other samples was established. The results of measuring mass fraction of moisture and fat indicate an increase in the nutritional  value of dry-aged beef steaks. According to the total data obtained with consideration for the results of sensory evaluation, dry-aged beef steaks subjected to sous vide cooking with the following short-term dry heating on grill have higher quality.