Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Set up enzymatic treatments to overcome the drawbacks associated with ...
Coordinator
Innovation of food (bio)processing using smart and mild technologies and fermentation to improve nutritional quality while ensuring safety and environmental sustainability throughout the shelf life of foods. Nutritional quality and biodiversity are targeted through both advanced and sustainable processes (including encapsulation) to preserve and improve at-risk (micro)nutrient composition of relevant food categories and exploiting microbiological and biotechnological applications to impact on nutritional quality. Such (bio)technological approaches (e.g., fermentation, enzyme treatments, etc.) are validated by process markers also directed to ensure food production safety and quality targeting new food habits (e.g., ready to eat food and novel food consumption) and sustainability, promoting production efficiency and utilisation of alternative sources (in connection with Spoke 2 and 3).
Systematic review of biotechnological approaches to enhance functionality of different food products within the relevant food categories and possible constraints (M12)
Development or improvement of at least 3 biotechnological approaches to innovate food production in terms of nutritional quality, safety, and sustainability (M30)
Identification of new process and product markers (M30)
Several issues have to be addressed to achieve long term food security, such as climate changes, decreasing arable land and water supplies, and increasing population. This make it necessary to introduce other climate-resilient and nutrient-dense crops into the agricultural portfolio. In this scenario the nutritional value and the versatility of pulses, of alternative cereals and of pseudocereals have attracted considerable interest. These crops also absorb less water and lower amounts of nutrients from soil than other crops, and may grow in marginal land with low doses of fertilizers and no need for pesticides.
However, a number of drawbacks limits the consumption of these alternative crops, including the presence of anti-nutritional factors (such as non-digestible oligosaccharide and inhibitors of intestinal hydrolytic enzymes), the beany back-taste of some pulses, and the difficulties associated with formation of a protein network similar to that in wheat-based staple foods.
It is planned to set up enzymatic treatments to overcome the drawbacks associated with transformation/consumption of alternative crops. Treatments to be developed will focus on the use of enzymes for:
As for point 1, studying the hydrolytic activities acting – alone or in synergy - on the unusual glycosidic bonds in fermentable oligosaccharide is of interest also for modulating the bioactivity of molecules present as glycosylated species.
The activities related to point 2 will involve also a thorough definition of the structural features of proteins in the treated materials, with a particular reference to the molecular determinants relevant to their transformation in foods (including innovative ones), and to provide indications as for which subsequent processing step may be most appropriate.
A necessarily concise list of the expected result includes:
