Fat provides important sensory properties to baked food products, such as colour, taste, texture and odour, all of which contribute to overall consumer acceptance. Baked food products, such as crackers, cakes and biscuits, typically contain high amounts of fat. However, there is increasing demand for healthy snack foods with reduced fat content. In order to maintain consumer acceptance whilst simultaneously reducing the total fat content, fat replacers have been employed. There are a number of fat replacers that have been investigated in baked food products, ranging from complex carbohydrates, gums and gels, whole food matrices, and combinations thereof. Fat replacers each have different properties that affect the quality of a food product. In this review, we summarise the literature on the effect of fat replacers on the quality of baked food products. The ideal fat replacers for different types of low-fat baked products were a combination of polydextrose and guar gum in biscuits at 70% fat replacement (FR), oleogels in cake at 100% FR, and inulin in crackers at 75% FR. The use of oatrim (100% FR), bean puree (75% FR) or green pea puree (75% FR) as fat replacers in biscuits were equally successful.
Citrinin (CIT) is a mycotoxin produced by different species of Aspergillus, Penicillium, and Monascus. CIT can contaminate a wide range of foods and feeds at any time during the pre-harvest, harvest, and post-harvest stages. CIT can be usually found in beans, fruits, fruit and vegetable juices, herbs and spices, and dairy products, as well as red mold rice. CIT exerts nephrotoxic and genotoxic effects in both humans and animals, thereby raising concerns regarding the consumption of CIT-contaminated food and feed. Hence, to minimize the risk of CIT contamination in food and feed, understanding the incidence of CIT occurrence, its sources, and biosynthetic pathways could assist in the effective implementation of detection and mitigation measures. Therefore, this review aims to shed light on sources of CIT, its prevalence in food and feed, biosynthetic pathways, and genes involved, with a major focus on detection and management strategies to ensure the safety and security of food and feed.