Potato offers numerous health benefits that have yet to be utilized by the food industry. To evaluate the use of potato as an ingredient in staple food products, various proportions of potato flour were added to wheat flour (0–50 %) to form potato–wheat flour mixtures. The mixtures were used to make dough and steamed bread that were tested based on several established quality indicators. Specifically, with increasing potato flour proportion above 20 %, dough quality indicators of extensibility, tensile resistance, fermentation volume and fermentation activity exhibited downward trends, with worsening microstructural, while steamed bread exhibited decreasing specific volume, decreasing brightness, worsening textural properties, increasing yellowness and increasing lysine content. However, for dough and steamed bread made from flour mixtures containing 10–20 % potato flour, quality indicators were not significantly different from corresponding control values (100 % wheat flour). Notably, correlation analysis indicated that tensile and fermentative dough properties significantly correlated with resulting steamed bread quality. Therefore, only data measurements for these dough indicators are needed to predict steamed bread quality, in order to reduce testing workload during evaluation of ingredient formulations for steamed bread production.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the composition, characterization and antioxidant activity of rice bran fermentation broth, and provide a new way for high-value utilization of rice bran. Firstly, we fermented rice bran with Hypsizigus marmoreus and purified fermentation broth with macroporous resins. We took feruloyl oligosaccharides (FOs) concentration as the measure index, and the results showed that the maximum concentration of FOs was 0.72 mmol/L on the 6th day of rice bran fermentation. We took D101 macroporous resin as adsorption resin for rice bran fermentation broth, and the result showed that FOs concentration reached 2.38 mmol/L with the optimal purification process at pH 4.5, temperature 29 °C, ethanol concentration 55%, sample flow rate 1.5 mL/min, sample concentration 1.7 mL/min and elution flow rate 2.0 mmol/L. Secondly, the characters of rice bran fermentation broth were identified by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). These methods showed the presence of ferulic acid (FA), arabinose, xylose and glucose in rice bran fermentation broth. Finally, the in vitro antioxidant activities of rice bran fermentation broth were tested and the result showed that fermentation broth had good antioxidant activities and significantly improved after purification.

Developing biodegradable active packaging films that combine mechanical reinforcement, barrier improvement, antibacterial activity, and controlled release of natural antimicrobials remains challenging. Here, TEMPO-oxidized bacterial cellulose (TOBC) was used to stabilize clove essential oil (CEO) Pickering emulsions, which were incorporated into sodium alginate (SA) matrices. The effects of TOBC concentration on emulsion stability and emulsion loading on film-forming solutions, film structure, mechanical performance, barrier properties, antioxidant and antibacterial activities, and CEO release were evaluated. The emulsion stabilized with 0.7 wt% TOBC showed good visual stability after 30 days and was selected for film preparation. Moderate incorporation of the TOBC-stabilized CEO Pickering emulsion improved SA film performance, with SA-E10 showing the best overall balance. SA-E10 reached a tensile strength of 38.56 ± 1.66 MPa and an elongation at break of 10.27%, while the moisture content decreased from 36.48 ± 2.32% to 27.93 ± 0.46%. The films also showed enhanced UV-shielding capacity and lower water vapor permeability. Antioxidant activity increased with emulsion loading, reaching 71.43 ± 2.55% for DPPH and 83.66 ± 1.49% for ABTS. Film-coated paper disks showed visible inhibition zones against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. Compared with direct CEO incorporation, the Pickering emulsion system delayed CEO release, indicating potential for sustained-release active packaging.

In order to clarify effects of different fungal strains on fermented tiger nut paste enzyme activities and volatile flavor compounds composition, koji enzyme activities and volatile flavor substances of six tiger nut paste preparations (S1–S6) were compared. The results revealed that koji enzyme activities of S4, S5 and S6 were significantly higher than corresponding activities of S1, S2 and S3. Among them, S4 exhibited the highest enzyme activity levels for cellulase, xylanase, acid protease, glucosidase, and amylase. GC-MS analysis of the six paste preparations detected 43 volatile components, including 17 aldehydes, 8 alkenes, 4 heterocyclics, 2 ketones, 2 phenols and 7 other types of compounds. Notably, S4 had the most volatile compounds (28), including 5 volatile compounds which were not detected in the other tiger nut pastes. Results of principal component analysis and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) revealed differences in levels of 17 volatile flavor substances among the six tiger nut paste preparations. Notably, PLS-DA results achieved more significant separation and stronger clustering trends when used to discriminate among volatile flavor substances of paste preparations fermented using single-strain starters (S1, S2, S3) versus double-strain starters (S4, S5, S6) consisting of Aspergillus oryzae , Aspergillus niger and/or Mucor . The tiger nut paste (S4) prepared by mixed fermentation of A. oryzae and A. niger had a unique flavor, producing the highest enzyme activity and a wider variety of volatile flavor compounds. Therefore, the production of tiger nut paste through compound strain koji fermentation was a feasible strategy.