Natural pigments and colorants have seen a substantial increase in use over the last few decades due to their eco-friendly and safe properties. Currently, customer preferences for more natural products are driving the substitution of natural pigments for synthetic colorants. Filamentous fungi, particularly ascomycetous fungi (Monascus, Fusarium, Penicillium, and Aspergillus), have been shown to produce secondary metabolites containing a wide variety of pigments, including β-carotene, melanins, azaphilones, quinones, flavins, ankaflavin, monascin, anthraquinone, and naphthoquinone. These pigments produce a variety of colors and tints, including yellow, orange, red, green, purple, brown, and blue. Additionally, these pigments have a broad spectrum of pharmacological activities, including immunomodulatory, anticancer, antioxidant, antibacterial, and antiproliferative activities. This review provides an in-depth overview of fungi gathered from diverse sources and lists several probable fungi capable of producing a variety of color hues. The second section discusses how to classify coloring compounds according to their chemical structure, characteristics, biosynthetic processes, application, and present state. Once again, we investigate the possibility of employing fungal polyketide pigments as food coloring, as well as the toxicity and carcinogenicity of particular pigments. This review explores how advanced technologies such as metabolic engineering and nanotechnology can be employed to overcome obstacles associated with the manufacture of mycotoxin-free, food-grade fungal pigments.

Probiotics are live bacteria beneficial to health when consumed adequately. Health professionals now recommend probiotics on regular diets due to their positive effects on human health. The probiotics that are usually consumed from the market through food products are mostly dairy-based. Fruit and vegetables are gaining popularity as preferred matrices for probiotic carriers to the human body, owing to their high cholesterol content and the lactose intolerance of dairy products. On the other hand, fruits and vegetable juices are rich in nutrient content such as vita¬mins, minerals, and antioxidants and do not contain a starter culture that can compete with the nutrients. The probiotication of fruit and vegetable juices (apple, carrot, citrus fruit, pomegranate, watermelon, tomato, and pineapple) are performing as efficient probiotic bacteria carriers. This review covers the previous works that highlighted the variety of probiotic fruit and vegetable juices as well as the viability of each probiotic in various products after proper fermentation and storage. In addition, physicochemical and sensory changes that occurred during the processing and storage period have been discussed. Furthermore, strategies (microencapsulation, adding prebiotics, antioxidant addition, maintaining optimum pH, temperature, adaptation with resis¬tance, and good packaging) to improve the stability of probiotic bacteria are outlined, as it is difficult to maintain the stability of probiotic bacteria during storage. Finally, the manuscript discusses the effect of probiotic fruit and vegetable juices on human health.

Natural colorants have been used in several ways throughout human history, such as in food, dyes, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and many other products. The study aimed to isolate the natural colorant-producing filamentous fungi Aspergillus niger from soil and extract pigments for its potential use specially for food production. Fourteen soil samples were collected from Madhupur National Park at Madhupur Upazila in the Mymensingh district, Bangladesh. The Aspergillus niger was isolated and identified from the soil samples by following conventional mycological methods (cultural and morphological characteristics), followed by confirmatory identification by a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of conserved sequences of ITS1 ribosomal DNA using specific oligonucleotide primers. This was followed by genus- and species-specific primers targeting Aspergillus niger with an amplicon size of 521 and 310 bp, respectively. For pigment production, a mass culture of Aspergillus niger was conducted in Sabouraud dextrose broth in shaking conditions for seven days. The biomass was subjected to extraction of the pigments following an ethanol-based extraction method and concentrated using a rotary evaporator. Aspergillus niger could be isolated from three samples. The yield of extracted brown pigment from Aspergillus niger was 0.75% (w/v). Spectroscopic analysis of the pigments was carried out using a UV–VIS spectrophotometer. An in vivo experiment was conducted with mice to assess the toxicity of the pigments. From the colorimetric and sensory evaluations, pigment-supplemented products (cookies and lemon juice) were found to be more acceptable than the control products. This could be the first attempt to use Aspergillus niger extracted pigment from soil samples in food products in Bangladesh, but for successful food production, the food colorants must be approved by a responsible authority, e.g., the FDA or the BSTI. Moreover, fungal pigments could be used in the emerging fields of the food and textile industries in Bangladesh.

The study was aimed to develop cake supplemented by beetroot powder and to evaluate its quality parameter. Four samples were prepared to contain different proportions of beetroot powder (5, 10, 15, and 20% w/w) in combination with wheat flour. The nutritional and sensory properties of plain cakes were also evaluated. The cake supplemented with 15% (w/w) beetroot powder had significantly (p<0.05) improved the nutritional quality compared to control one (without beetroot powder). The mean sensory scores of highly acceptable beetroot powder cake S3 (85:15) had better color (8.57±0.53), flavor (8.43±0.53), texture (8.29±0.49), taste (8.57±0.53) and overall acceptability (8.47±0.13) than other samples. The nutritional and sensory analysis suggested that the cake formulated by 15% (w/w) beetroot powder was comparatively more acceptable than other formulations (0, 5, 10 and 20% w/w).

The study was conducted to prepare healthy and nutritious margarine from sunflower oil (SO) and coconut oil (CO). Quality evaluation of the prepared margarine samples were done by determining the nutritional value and sensory evaluation. Three samples of margarine were formulated from sunflower oil and coconut oil on a 100 gram basis. The average composition of margarine was found as follows: 84% fat, 10.5% moisture, 4.75% protein and 0.58% total carbohydrate. The three formulations are: A (sunflower oil: coconut oil=1:1), B (sunflower oil: coconut oil=3:2), C (sunflower oil: coconut oil=2:3). The three formulations were analyzed for chemical composition. A sensory evaluation of the processed margarine was also done with the help of 10 panelists on the basis of organoleptic properties such as color, flavor, taste and overall acceptability. Both the statistical analysis and proximate analysis (moisture, fat, protein, total carbohydrate and ash content comparison) showed that formulation B (sunflower oil: coconut oil=3:2) is more acceptable than other formulations. So, it may be concluded that by processing margarine (sample B) in Bangladesh, it will be helpful for both vegetarian and general people to consume butter like nutritious product and to fulfil the daily intake of fat per capita to ensure good health.

The study aims to evaluate the growth kinetics of two different Baker’s yeast (S. cerevisiae) strains and to establish regression models for predicting and optimizing of the growth conditions of the strains. Two yeast strains of S. cerevisiae; one was commercial strain (CS) and another was isolated from traditional dry wine residue of Madhupur region, Bangladesh (MS), were used in the study. The effects of four different factors viz., time, temperature, agitation and the potato powder concentrations were assessed. The performance of the growth of the strains was monitored using three responses like OD at 600 nm, ethanol production and biomass yield (g.L-1). Fractional factorial design (24-1) was used to generate the experimental trials as well as to analyze the data to design a geometrical representation. The highest value of optical density, ethanol and biomass production for S. cerevisiae (CS) were obtained 1.439, 6.56 (g.L-1) and 0.39 (g.L-1) respectively, and for S. cerevisiae (MS) were 0.645, 0.621 (g.L-1) and 0.23 (g.L-1), respectively. The best conditions for biomass production were at 1% of potato powder concentration, temperature at 30ºC and agitation at 150 rpm. By using regression model it can be said that for two factor interaction: potato powder concentration with time and time with agitation had the significant effects but three factor interactions had no significant effect on the experiment. By establishing regression models from the obtained data, prediction and optimization of the strains’ growth conditions can be easily done.