Food Science of Animal Resources (Food Sci. Anim. Resour.) is an international, peer-reviewed bimonthly journal publishing original research and reviews on basic and applied aspects of the use of animal resources including the meat, egg, dairy, and edible insect/worm products. Food Sci. Anim. Resour. is published and distributed by the Korean Society for Food Science of Animal Resources.

Starch can be found in the stems, roots, fruits, and seeds of plants such as sweet potato, cassava, corn, potato, and many more. In addition to its original form, starch can be modified by reducing its size. Starch nanoparticles have a small size and large active surface area, making them suitable for use as fillers or as a reinforcing material in bioplastics. The aim of reinforcing material is to improve the characteristics of bioplastics. This literature study aims to provide in-depth information on the potential use of starch nanoparticles as a reinforcing material in bioplastic packaging. This study also reviews starch size reduction methods including acid hydrolysis, nanoprecipitation, milling, and others; characteristics of the nano-starch particle; and methods to produce bioplastic and its characteristics. The use of starch nanoparticles as a reinforcing material can increase tensile strength, reduce water vapor and oxygen permeability, and increase the biodegradability of bioplastics. However, the use of starch nanoparticles as a reinforcing material for bioplastic packaging still encounters obstacles in its commercialization efforts, due to high production costs and ineffectiveness.

Starch-based biodegradable films have been studied for a long time. To improve starch properties and to increase film characteristics, starch is commonly modified. Amongst different types of starch modifications, oxidation and heat moisture treatment are interesting to explore. Unfortunately, review on these modifications for film application is rarely found, although these starch modifications provide interesting results regarding the starch and film properties. This paper aims to discuss the progress of research on oxidized and heat moisture-treated-starch for edible film application. In general, both HMT and oxidation modification on starch lead to an increase in film’s tensile strength and Young’s modulus, suggesting an improvement in film mechanical properties. The elongation, however, tends to decrease in oxidized starch-based film, hence more brittle film. Meanwhile, HMT tends to result in a more ductile film. The drawback of HMT film is its lower transparency, while the opposite is observed in oxidized films. The observation on WVP (water vapor permeability) of HMT starch-based film shows that the trend of WVP is not consistent. Similarly, an inconsistent trend of WVP is also found in oxidized starch films. This suggests that the WVP parameter is very sensitive to intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Starch source and its concentration in film, film thickness, RH (relative humidity) of film storage, oxidation method and its severity, plasticizer type and its concentration in film, and crystallinity value may partly play roles in determining film properties.

Smart packaging is a packaging system with embedded sensor or indicator technology, which provides information on the quality of the product, especially perishable foods such as goat milk. One application of smart packaging is to use a time-temperature bioindicator. The purpose of this study was to determine the quality of fresh goat milk during storage at freezing temperatures (−20 ± 2°C) for 31 days and room temperature (25 ± 3°C) for 24 hours using a time-temperature indicator by utilizing a natural dye betacyanin. The method used was descriptive analysis, and the data obtained were processed using the correlation regression test. The samples were observed at freezing temperature every 24 hours and room temperature at 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, and 24 hours. The observation criteria consisted of changes in bioindicator color, milk pH, and total microbes. The results showed that color changes of the bioindicator film at room temperature were more noticeable than at freezing temperature. Based on changes in color of the bioindicator at room temperature, the sample was safe for consumption until the 5th hour with pH 6.51, and the biofilm color characteristics were L∗ = 82.49, a∗ = 21.46, and b∗ = −7.33, but the total number of microbes did not fulfil Indonesian National Standard at the 24th hour, i.e., 1.36 × 10⁶ CFU/ml. At freezing temperatures, fresh goat milk was still safe for consumption until the 31st day with pH 6.51 and total microbe of 1.89 × 10⁵ CFU/ml, and the biofilm color characteristics were L∗ = 80.52, a∗ = 24.15, and b∗ = −7.91. The results of this study concluded that the milk expiration limit based on the betacyanin indicator was 5 hours at room temperature and 31 days at freezing temperature.

Coconut sugar is traditionally produced by evaporating sap until reaching its saturated liquid and formed a crystalline structure. This study investigated the comparison of coconut sugar made by traditional method (crystalline structure) and dried coconut sugar (predominantly amorphous structure) to its characteristics. Two different formulation of coconut sap : maltodextrin (7 : 3) and (6 : 4) (weight/weight) were dried using vacuum oven (70℃, 6 hours) and spray dried (Tinlet 120℃.) Coconut sugar was characterized for moisture content, crystallinity, water sorption isotherm, hygroscopic rate, color, dissolving time, and powder recovery. Initial moisture content was examined and in range of 1.33% - 3.44% (wb). The highest monolayer water content was obtained by using spray drying (6 : 4) and lowest was obtained by traditional method. X-ray diffraction showed that dried coconut sugar powder had dominant amorphous structure (70.9 – 71.4%) while traditional one was dominated with crystalline structure (90.5%). Traditional coconut sugar was the least hygroscopic (1.21 × 10-4 g water/g solid/minutes), followed by vacuum dried coconut sugar (1.48 × 10-4 g water/g solid/minutes) and spray dried ones (1.56 – 1.67 × 10-4 g water/g solid/minutes). Spray dried coconut sugar had the brightest and the whitest color, followed by vacuum dried and traditional coconut sugar. Vacuum dried powder was quicker to dissolve (13.33 – 16.67 s), while increasing maltodextrin in spray drying could not decrease the dissolving time. The highest powder recovery of dried sugar was obtained by using vacuum drying and higher maltodextrin concentration (88.70%) while traditional method produced 100% powder recovery.