Flaxseed is an excellent source of valuable nutrients and is also considered a functional food. There are two types of hydrocolloids in flaxseed: flaxseed gum and proteins. Flaxseed gum exhibits emulsifying and foaming activities or can be used as a thickening and gelling agent. Due to its form of soluble fiber, flaxseed gum is related to many health benefits. Flaxseed proteins have various functional properties based on their physicochemical properties. While albumins possess the emulsion-forming ability, globulins better serve as foaming agents. Flaxseed proteins may also serve as a source of functional peptides with interesting biological and health-related activities. Functional properties and health-related benefits predetermine the application of these hydrocolloids, mainly in the food industry or medicine. Although these properties of flaxseed hydrocolloids have been recently and extensively studied, they are still not widely used on the industrial scale compared to other popular plant gums and proteins. The aim of this review was to present, discuss and highlight the recent discoveries in the structural characteristics and functional and biological properties of these versatile hydrocolloids with respect to factors affecting their characteristics and offer new insights into their potential applications as comparable alternatives to the other natural hydrocolloids or as the sources of novel functional products.

Summary: Flaxseed mucilage (FM) is a hydrocolloid heteropolysaccharide comprised of a variable ratio of neutral and acidic monosaccharides. It possesses emulsifying, thickening, gelling and water−/oil‐binding properties. Due to these properties, it is highly applicable in foods as a functional agent to improve their physical and sensory parameters, thus representing an alternative to common plant gums. The most recent research is focused on the potential of FM for food treatments as a functional component. FM is usable in coatings and films. Combining with chitosan, bioactive proteins and peptides, or other compounds improves the quality of food products. FM may serve as a structural agent of novel gel materials, like oleogels, cryogels and aerogels. It can also be utilised within dietary applications to encapsulate living probiotics or bioactive compounds or serve as a prebiotic agent. Complexing of FM with proteins can lead to the improvement of their functional properties. The versatility of FM and unique properties, on the other hand, reveal its potential for further study and predetermine its use in a broad range of food and related applications in the future.

The utilization of plant by-products as functional food ingredients has received increasing attention in the last decade. One such by-product generated during milk thistle oil pressing is oilseed cakes, which could be used as a novel food ingredient. Therefore, the study aimed at investigating the effects of the addition of milk thistle oilseed cake (MTOC) flour fractions obtained via dry sieving, differing in particle size (unsieved; coarse: >710 µm; medium: 315–710 µm; and fine: <315 µm), on the quality of gluten-free bread and stability of silymarin during breadmaking. The 10% addition of the fractions into gluten-free bread increased the protein, fibre, fat, ash and silymarin content. The breads with the coarse fraction had the highest content of fibre, whereas the breads with the fine fraction excelled in protein, fat and ash content. The medium fraction was characterized as the richest source of silymarin, whilst the fine fraction was the poorest. Silymarin constituents were slightly released during dough rising but also partially decomposed during baking; moreover, silydianin was the most susceptible and degraded the most. The enriched breads had better sensory and textural properties compared to the control bread. The results suggest that MTOC flour fractions can improve the potential health benefits and nutritional profile of gluten-free bread.

As a source of nutritionally important components, hemp seeds are often dehulled for consumption and food applications by removing the hard hulls, which increases their nutritional value. The hulls thus become waste, although they may contain valuable protein items, about which there is a lack of information. The present work is therefore aimed at evaluating the proteome of hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) at the whole-seed, dehulled seed, and hull levels. The evaluation was performed on two cultivars, Santhica 27 and Uso-31, using LC-MS/MS analysis. In total, 2833 protein groups (PGs) were identified, and their relative abundances were determined. A set of 88 PGs whose abundance exceeded 1000 ppm (MP88 set) was considered for further evaluation. The PGs of the MP88 set were divided into ten protein classes. Seed storage proteins were found to be the most abundant protein class: the averages of the cultivars were 65.5%, 71.3%, and 57.5% for whole seeds, dehulled seeds, and hulls, respectively. In particular, 11S globulins representing edestin (three PGs) were found, followed by 7S vicilin-like proteins (four PGs) and 2S albumins (two PGs). The storage 11S globulins in Santhica 27 and Uso-31 were found to have a higher relative abundance in the dehulled seed proteome (summing to 58.6 and 63.2%) than in the hull proteome (50.5 and 54%), respectively. The second most abundant class of proteins was oleosins, which are part of oil-body membranes. PGs belonging to metabolic proteins (e.g., energy metabolism, nucleic acid metabolism, and protein synthesis) and proteins related to the defence and stress responses were more abundant in the hulls than in the dehulled seeds. The hulls can, therefore, be an essential source of proteins, especially for medical and biotechnological applications. Proteomic analysis has proven to be a valuable tool for studying differences in the relative abundance of proteins between dehulled hemp seeds and their hulls among different cultivars.

Fruit wines have become a popular alternative to grape wines for their variability of sensory properties and unique chemical profiles, offering interesting biological activities. Winemaking also utilizes fruits, which are usually sensitive to biological deterioration, thus reducing post-harvest losses. The quality of wines depends on the fermentation conditions, including the wine yeast selection. In this study, we observed the effect of three common Saccharomyces wine yeast strains on the physicochemical characteristics (color, pH, ethanol content), antioxidant potential (total polyphenol content—TPC, DPPH, and ABTS antioxidant assays), and sensory properties and their relations within plum, apple, and hawthorn wines. Generally, we observed quite-wide ranges in physicochemical properties (pH: 2.8–3.8, ethanol content: 9.0–16.2%) and antioxidant potential parameters (TPC: 0.5–2.4 mg/GAE, DPPH: 0.3–1.4 mg/AAE, 0.5–3.0 mg/AAE), which were affected by the fruit, yeast, and sampling term. The yeast strain significantly affected physicochemical properties and the antioxidant potential on a minor scale. The highest impact of yeast was observed within sensory analyses, where the hawthorn and apple wines fermented by yeast strain Fruit Red exhibited a different sensory profile than those fermented by the Buket and Special strains. A positive correlation between antioxidant potential parameters and their relationship with wine color was confirmed. Moreover, the overall acceptability grew with sweet taste intensity, and panelists preferred wines with lower ethanol content. In general, this study proved the significant impact of wine yeast strain selection on certain qualitative parameters of fruit wines.

Black garlic (BG) is a functional food derived from fresh garlic (FG) that has a significant antioxidant activity (AOA). Little is known about the influence of FG composition on the antioxidant properties of BG. Therefore, we used seven different FG cultivars to produce BG, and monitored changes in basic composition, metabolomic profile and AOA. We found that different cultivars and the ageing process significantly impacted most of the markers. On average, 27 markers were upregulated, 21 downregulated, and 26 remained unchanged or changed to a lesser degree. Correlation study revealed that fructosyl-arginine positively associates with AOA of BG (r = 0.8, p < 0.05 for ABTS). Moreover, fructosyl-arginine in BG correlates with protein content (r = 0.79, p < 0.05). Thus, crude protein content in FG may serve as a practical predictor of the AOA of BG under the tested conditions. This study presents a deeper understanding of tailoring the BG biological potential.