The usage of antibiotics has been, and remains, a topic of utmost importance; on the one hand, for animal breeders, and on the other hand, for food safety. Although many countries have established strict rules for using antibiotics in animal husbandry for the food industry, their misuse and irregularities in compliance with withdrawal periods are still identified. In addition to animal-origin foods that may cause antibiotic residue problems, more and more non-animal-origin foods with this type of non-compliance are identified. In this context, we aim to summarize the available information regarding the presence of antibiotic residues in food products, obtained in various parts of the world, as well as the impact of consumption of food with antibiotic residues on consumer health. We also aim to present the methods of analysis that are currently used to determine antibiotic residues in food, as well as methods that are characterized by the speed of obtaining results or by the possibility of identifying very small amounts of residues.

This manuscript provides an in-depth review of both artificial and natural sweeteners, including polyols and plant-derived alternatives, examining their sweetening potency, glycemic index, modes of action, and applications in the food sector. The rising demand for sugar substitutes, fueled by health concerns such as obesity and diabetes, has prompted significant research into low-calorie and non-nutritive sweeteners. This work categorizes sweeteners into synthetic options (such as aspartame, sucralose, saccharin) and naturally occurring ones (such as stevia, monk fruit, and polyols like sorbitol, xylitol, erythritol), focusing on physico-chemical characteristics, relative sweetness (ranging from 100 to 220,0000 times sweeter than sucrose), and glycemic index, important for their use in diabetes-friendly food products. The current manuscript examines how these sweeteners interact with taste receptors to induce sweetness perception without contributing significant calories. It also discusses their health implications and controversies and limitations regarding healthy and safety data, process feasibility, market application trends, environmental stability, and commercialization challenges. The review also addresses challenges in scaling production and ensuring the economic viability of plant-based sweeteners, offering a forward-looking perspective on their commercialization in the food industry.

Starch and plant or animal proteins represent a rich source that can be used for fortifying meat products. The present study aimed to analyze how the different additives used (soy protein isolate, chickpea flour, lupine concentrate, sodium caseinate and starch, in 2% concentration) influence the rheological properties of beef emulsions and gels, cooking losses and the texture of the finished products. Rheological parameters G’ (storage modulus), G* (complex modulus) and Delta angle were determined by increasing the temperature from 5 to 70 °C, with a rate of 1 °C/min. The study highlighted that the addition of vegetable proteins (soy, chickpeas and lupine) improved strength of meat gels (G’ > 1057.8 Pa), while the addition of sodium caseinate and starch reduced the consistency of the gel network structure (G’ < 1057.8 Pa). All additions led to a decrease in heat treatment losses (a reduction of maximum 62% of cooking loss, from 11.89% for control to 4.54% in case of samples with added starch) and the hardness of heat-treated products. The maximum reduction of hardness was observed for samples with added starch, from 2.83 kgf to 1.08 kgf.

Maintaining a rural-urban balance is absolutely necessary in the context of the challenges related to food security and environmental protection as well as the perspectives of urban agglomeration. This paper highlighted the impact of the main events from the last 30 years on the rural population. This study used the vector autoregressive model (VAR) to investigate the estimates and analyse the dynamic impact of innovations on the system of variables. Key issues that influenced certain periods in the analyzed interval were highlighted, which clearly show the impact on the analyzed variables using variance decomposition. The cost of living in rural areas is increasing, so more and more inhabitants give up growing certain crops or raising certain animals, thus having to search for food to survive, leading to additional wage income to cover these costs.