Weeds Control in Cassava Plants Development

The purpose of this study is to determine what kinds of weeds may interfere with the development of cassava and how to manage the presence of weeds that interfere with the growth of cassava. Cassava has significant economic and social potential as a future food component, raw material for a variety of businesses, and animal feed, among other applications. Weeds have the ability to multiply quickly via seed. Annual weeds are the most common kind of weed discovered in cassava because they develop extremely quickly and generate seeds in a short period of time. Weed management is often accomplished by mechanical techniques, such as pulling, submerging, or other similar methods. Uprooting should be done before the seeds of this plant begin to spread, and additional methods of management should include herbicide spraying

Bioprospecting brown algae (Sargassum polycystum C. Agardh) as a potential antioxidant additive in snack bar and its sensory evaluation

Fucoxanthin from brown algae has potential as a promising functional food component. However, fucoxanthin is less stable under high temperature and light exposure. The purpose of this study was to analyse the effect of stevia and cacao butter in increasing the stability of Sargassum polycystum C. Agardh extract containing fucoxanthin and its application as a snack bar. Brown algae, S. polycystum, was extracted using 96% foodgrade ethanol. Antioxidant activity and stability assay were performed using the 2,2- Diphenyl-1-Picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method. Antioxidant activity of both, extract (E) and extract + stevia (ES), was found to decrease with time. Meanwhile, cacao butter was able to maintain extract’s stability without any significant difference when compared to extract alone. A combination of extract, stevia, and cacao butter (ESC) were found to be able to maintain antioxidant stability. Formulation of a snack bar with cacao butter and 1% stevia were more preferred by the panellists when compared to the other formulations. This study reports that cacao butter and 1% stevia is able to maintain antioxidant stability and improve the economic value of S. polycystum, one of them through the formulations of the snack bar.

Probiotics in Vegetable Juices : Tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum), Carrot(Daucus Carota, Subsp. Sativus) and Beetroot Juice (Beta Vulgaris)

Twenty first century has witnessed a significant rise in the awareness regarding healthy lifestyle among the consumers and food being the important step towards a healthy life, numerous health promoting food products have gained prominent place in the food market. One such food component which is proven to have impressive health benefit is the probiotic bacteria. Probiotics are known to human kind since ages as they are important component in fermented milk products, however the use of probiotics in non-dairy product is a novel method for the delivery of probiotics. Awareness regarding health benefits of dairy products is long known to consumers but non dairy products too have good amount of micro and macronutrients and antioxidants as well which are a boon to human body. Delivery of probiotics through non-dairy products will be beneficial for consumers who are lactose intolerant who are deprived of benefits of probiotics by dairy products. This studies aim at developing novel vegetable juices containing probiotic bacteria. Three different strains of bacteria will be used i.e. Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus delbrueckii in carrot, beetroot and tomato juice. The viability of the bacteria will be checked after a specific duration of time of fermentation by Koch’s plate count method. The vegetable used for juices (carrot, beetroot, tomato) consist of high amount of antioxidants like carotenoids in carrot, betaxanthins and betacyanins in beetroot, lycopene in tomato. These antioxidant provide numerous health benefits to human body. The antioxidant activity in the juices will be checked before and after fermentation by HPLC and spectroscopic methods. This product will be especially useful for the people who are lactose intolerant who cannot intake probiotics via milk and milk products. Vegetable juices also have almost zero fat content and high in fiber so the people who are on a fat free diet can consume this product.

Screening bioactive food compounds in honey bees suggests curcumin blocks alcohol-induced damage to longevity and DNA methylation

Various bioactive food compounds may confer health and longevity benefits, possibly through altering or preserving the epigenome. While bioactive food compounds are widely being marketed for human consumption as ‘improving health and longevity’ by counteracting harmful effects of poor nutrition and lifestyle, claimed effects are often not adequately documented. Using the honey bee (Apis mellifera) as a model species, we here employed a multi-step screening approach to investigate seven compounds for effects on lifespan and DNA methylation using ELISA and whole genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS). A positive longevity effect was detected for valproic acid, isovaleric acid, and cyanocobalamin. For curcumin, we found that lifespan shortening caused by ethanol intake, was restored when curcumin and ethanol were co-administered. Furthermore, we identified region specific DNA methylation changes as a result of ethanol intake. Ethanol specific changes in DNA methylation were fully or partially blocked in honey bees receiving ethanol and curcumin together. Ethanol-affected and curcumin-blocked differentially methylated regions covered genes involved in fertility, temperature regulation and tubulin transport. Our results demonstrate fundamental negative effects of low dose ethanol consumption on lifespan and associated DNA methylation changes and present a proof-of-principle on how longevity and DNA methylation changes can be negated by the bioactive food component curcumin. Our findings provide a fundament for further studies of curcumin in invertebrates.

Differential Antihypertensive Effects of Oral Doses of Acetylcholine between Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats and Normotensive Rats

Acetylcholine (ACh) is a novel antihypertensive food component. Here, we demonstrate the differential effects of oral ACh on high and normal blood pressure in rats. Spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) and Wistar–Kyoto (WKY) rats were administered ACh orally. The blood pressure and heart rate of SHRs were significantly lowered with ACh doses of 10−5 and 10−3 mol/kg body weight (b.w.), and the urinary catecholamine levels were significantly decreased with 10−3 mol/kg b.w. In contrast, oral ACh administration had no effect on WKY rats. This difference was likely caused by differences in sympathetic nervous activity and the baroreflex between strains. Comparison of gene sequences between the two strains revealed Chga mutations, suggesting that changes in the expression of chromogranin A might be involved in the baroreflex in SHRs. Oral ACh had an antihypertensive effect under hypertension but not normotension, indicating that this may be used safely to prevent hypertension.

First report of three species of the genus Diaphanosoma (Crustacea: Cladocera: Sididae) from Jammu waters (J&K), India

Cladocera, commonly known as ‘water flea’ due to the jerky movements produced by their second antennae, form an important food component for planktivorous fishes and other aquatic invertebrates. The present investigation comprising a collection of zooplankton samples from a shallow pond located in the Bishnah tehsil of Jammu district has revealed the presence of 13 Cladocera species belonging to the families Daphniidae, Chydoridae, Moinidae, Sididae, and Macrothricidae. Three species of the family Sididae belonging to the genus Diaphanosoma, namely, senegal, sarsi and excisum are new species records to the cladoceran fauna of Jammu & Kashmir. Presently, a detailed morphological analysis has been made on all the three Diaphanosoma species. They have shown major differences in their body size with D. senegal being larger than D. sarsi and D. excisum. All three species have well observable variability with reference to their head size, eye size, shell duplicature, shape of posterior valve margin, and the number of denticles so present on posterior valve margin. All the three species have also shown coexistence with each other, but D. senegal was dominant in terms of population density.

A Soybean Resistant Protein-Containing Diet Increased the Production of Reg3γ Through the Regulation of the Gut Microbiota and Enhanced the Intestinal Barrier Function in Mice

The maintenance of intestinal homeostasis is necessary for a good quality of life, and strengthening of the intestinal barrier function is thus an important issue. Therefore, we focused on soybean resistant protein (SRP) derived from kori-tofu (freeze-dried tofu), which is a traditional Japanese food, as a functional food component. In this study, to investigate the effect of SRP on the intestinal barrier function and intestinal microbiota, we conducted an SRP free intake experiment in mice. Results showed that ingestion of SRP decreased the serum level of lipopolysaccharide-binding protein and induced the expression of Reg3γ, thereby improving the intestinal barrier function. In addition, SRP intake induced changes in the cecal microbiota, as observed by changes in β-diversity. In particular, in the microbiota, the up-regulation of functional gene pathways related to the bacterial invasion of epithelial cells (ko05100) was observed, suggesting that Reg3γ expression was induced by the direct stimulation of epithelial cells. The results of this study suggest that SRP is a functional food component that may contribute to the maintenance of intestinal homeostasis.

Next-generation sequencing identifies seasonal and geographical differences in the ruminal community composition of sika deer (Cervus nippon) in Japan

To understand the nutritional conditions of culled wild sika deer (Cervus nippon) and their suitability as a pet food component, we compared the ruminal community compositions of deer living in different food habitats (Nagano winter, Nagano spring, and Hokkaido winter) using next-generation sequencing. Twenty-nine sika deer were sampled. Alpha and beta diversity metrics determined via 16S and 18S ssrRNA amplicon-seq analysis showed compositional differences. Prevotella, Entodinium, and Piromyces were the dominant genera of bacteria, fungi and protozoa, respectively. Moreover, 66 bacterial taxa, 44 eukaryotic taxa, and 46 chloroplastic taxa were shown to differ significantly among the groups by linear discriminant analysis effect size (LEfSe). Total RNA-seq analysis showed 397 significantly differentially expressed transcripts (q < 0.05), of which 258 were correlated with bacterial amplicon-seq results (Pearson correlation coefficient > 0.7). The amplicon-seq results indicated that deciduous broadleaf trees and SAR were enriched in Nagano, whereas graminoids, Firmicutes and fungi were enriched in Hokkaido. The ruminal microbial community were corresponded with different food habits, related to the severe snow conditions in Hokkaido in winter and the richness of plants with leaves and acorns in Nagano winter and spring. These findings are useful for understanding the nutritional conditions of wild sika deer.

Approaches for Health Effect Characterization in Risk-Benefit Assessment of Foods: A Comparative Case Study

One of the challenges in quantitative risk-benefit assessment (RBA) of foods is the choice of approach for health effect characterization to estimate the health impact of dietary changes. The purpose of health effect characterization is to describe an association between intake of a food or food component and a health effect in terms of a dose-response relationship. We assessed the impact of the choice of approach for health effect characterization in RBA in two case studies based on substitution of (i) white rice by brown rice and (ii) unprocessed red meat by vegetables. We explored this by comparing the dose-response relations linking a health effect with (i) a food component present in the food, (ii) a food based on non-specified substitution analyses, and (iii) a food based on specified substitution analyses. We found that the choice of approach for health effect characterization in RBA may largely impact the results of the health impact estimates. Conducting the calculations only for a food component may neglect potential effects of the food matrix and of the whole food on the diet-disease association. Furthermore, calculations based on associations for non-specified substitutions include underlying food substitutions without specifying these. Data on relevant specified substitutions, which could reduce this type of bias, are unfortunately rarely available. Assumptions and limitations of the health effect characterization approaches taken in RBA should be documented and discussed, and scenario analysis is encouraged when multiple options are available.