This work studied the effect of drum-rotation frequency, drum temperature, and water-to-pulp ratio in a double-drum drier on the content of sulforaphane, glucoraphanin, total phenolic compounds, ascorbic acid, and antioxidant activity of broccoli pulp through a multilevel factorial design with one replicate. Drum-drying conditions did not significantly affect sulforaphane content, unlike glucoraphanin, however the poor adherence of broccoli pulp resulted in a final product with undefined shape and heterogeneous color. On the other hand, antioxidant activity was unevenly affected by drying conditions; however, drum-rotation frequency affected it in the same way that phenolic compounds and ascorbic acid, showing a concordant behavior. The ascorbic acid content decreased significantly after drying, and it was highly dependent on the experimental factors, resulting in a regression model that explained 90% of its variability. Drum-rotation frequency of 5 Hz, drum temperature of 125 °C, and water-to-pulp ratio of 0.25 resulted in an apparent increase of sulforaphane and phenolic compounds content of 13.7% and 47.6%, respectively. Drum drying has great potential to fabricate dehydrated broccoli-based foods with functional properties. Besides, since drum drying has low investment and operation costs, it represents a very attractive option for the industrialization of broccoli derivatives.

Cereal β-glucans are beneficial health ingredients that reduce cholesterolemia and postprandial glycaemia. However, their impact on digestive hormones and gut microbiota is not yet fully established. Two randomized, double-blind, controlled studies were conducted. In the first study, 14 subjects ingested a breakfast with or without β-glucan from oats (5.2 g). Compared to the control, β-glucan increased orocecal transit time (p = 0.028) and decreased mean appetite score (p = 0.014) and postprandial plasma ghrelin (p = 0.030), C-peptide (p = 0.001), insulin (p = 0.06), and glucose (p = 0.0006). β-glucan increased plasma GIP (p = 0.035) and PP (p = 0.018) without affecting leptin, GLP-1, PYY, glucagon, amylin, or 7α-hydroxy-4-cholesten-3-one, a biomarker of bile acid synthesis. In the second study, 32 subjects were distributed into 2 groups to ingest daily foods with (3 g/day) or without β-glucan for 3 weeks; stools were collected before/after treatment. No changes in fecal microbiota composition/diversity (deep sequencing) were detected with β-glucans. These results indicate that acute intake of 5 g β-glucan slows transit time and decreases hunger sensation and postprandial glycaemia without affecting bile-acid synthesis, these changes being associated with decreased plasma insulin, C-peptide, and ghrelin, and increased plasma GIP and PP. However, regular daily intake of 3 g β-glucan is not sufficient to have an effect on fecal microbiota composition.

Worldwide, around a third of loss and waste is generated at different stages of the food transformation chain, generating relevant economic, social, and environmental impacts, and increases in the water footprint, emission of greenhouse gases, pressure on the use of arable land, production costs, and decrease in the availability of food for the population. These reasons make imperative the implementation of strategies that minimize the generation of these losses. The Chilean “Technology Center for Food Innovation” (Centro Tecnológico para la Innovación Alimentaria—CeTA), aware of this problem, is contributing to the development of innovative products where materials that are considered waste or by-products from processes in the food, agriculture, cattle raising, and aquaculture industry are reused, or raw materials that do not meet commercial standards, taking advantage of their properties and bioactive compounds, turning them into value propositions that have circular economy components. Examples of these products developed in CeTA include soups, fruit purees, snacks, baked products, food ingredients, and breakfast cereals that contain valued raw materials such as barley bagasse, defatted coconut flour, fruit pomaces, discarded meats, quinoa grown in lagging areas of Chile, as well as stems, leaves, and fruit and vegetable peels, thus generating an environmental, economic, and social impact.