Bananas are among the world’s main economic crops and one of the world’s most-selling fresh fruits. However, a great deal of waste and by-products is produced during banana harvesting and consumption, including stems, leaves, inflorescences, and peels. Some of them have the potential to be used to develop new foods. Furthermore, studies have found that banana by-products contain many bioactive substances that have antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties and other functions. At present, research on banana by-products has mainly focused on various utilizations of banana stems and leaves, as well as the extraction of active ingredients from banana peels and inflorescences to develop high-value functional products. Based on the current research on the utilization of banana by-products, this paper summarized the composition information, functions, and comprehensive utilization of banana by-products. Moreover, the problems and future development in the utilization of by-products are reviewed. This review is of great value in expanding the potential applications of banana stems, leaves, inflorescences, and peels, which will not only help to reduce waste of agricultural by-product resources and ecological pollution but will also be useful for the development of essential products as alternative sources of healthy food in the future.

As an emerging non-thermal food processing technology, cold plasma (CP) technology has been widely applied in food preservation due to its high efficiency, greenness and lack of chemical residues. Recent studies have indicated that CP technology also has an impressing effect on improving food quality. This review summarized the impact of CP on the functional composition and quality characteristics of various food products. CP technology can prevent the growth of spoilage microorganisms while maintaining the physical and chemical properties of the food. It can maintain the color, flavor and texture of food. CP can cause changes in protein structure and function, lipid oxidation, vitamin and monosaccharide degradation, starch modification and the retention of phenolic substances. Additionally, it also degrades allergens and toxins in food. In this review, the effects of CP on organoleptic properties, nutrient content, safety performance for food and the factors that cause these changes were concluded. This review also highlights the current application limitations and future development directions of CP technology in the food industry. This review enables us to more comprehensively understand the impacts of CP technology on food quality and promotes the healthy application of CP technology in the food industry.

The emergence of pathogens resistant to conventional antibiotics and the growing interest in developing alternative natural antimicrobial agents have prompted a search for plant-derived antimicrobial peptides (PAMPs) in recent years.

In this study, corn starch was used as the raw material, and modified starch was prepared using a method combining plasma-activated water and ultrasound treatment (PUL). This method was compared with treatments using plasma-activated water (PAW) and ultrasound (UL) alone. The structure, thermal, physicochemical, pasting, and functional properties of the native and treated starches were evaluated. The results indicated that PAW and UL treatments did not alter the shape of the starch granules but caused some surface damage. The PUL treatment increased the starch gelatinization temperature and enthalpy (from 11.22 J/g to 13.13 J/g), as well as its relative crystallinity (increased by 0.51 %), gel hardness (increased by 16.19 %) compared to untreated starch, without inducing a crystalline transition. The PUL treatment resulted in a whitening of the samples. The dual treatment enhanced the thermal stability of the starch paste, which can be attributed to the synergistic effect between PAW and ultrasound (PAW can modify the starch structure at a molecular level, while ultrasound can further disrupt the granule weak crystalline structures, leading to improved thermal properties). Furthermore, FTIR results suggested significant changes in the functional groups related to the water-binding capacity of starch, and the order of the double-helical structure was disrupted. The findings of this study suggest that PUL treatment is a promising new green modification technique for improving the starch structure and enhancing starch properties. However, further research is needed to tailor the approach based on the specific properties of the raw material.

Climate change and food security issues have increased the demand for effective and sustainable technologies in the food and agriculture sectors. Plasma-activated water (PAW), a novel cleaning and disinfecting agent enriched with reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species, has attracted widespread attention due to its potential application in maintaining microbiological safety and other quality parameters of food products. Compared to traditional disinfection methods, PAW is rapid and effective for various products, unrestricted by the volume or shape of the treated sample, and is green and sustainable. This article reviews research progress on latest preparation methods, physicochemical properties, antimicrobial activities, potential antimicrobial mechanisms of PAW, and their applications in the food industry. In addition, current methods for preparing PAW suffer from low efficiency, poor antimicrobial stability, and a lack of technology validation and safety evaluation. To solve these challenges, the synergies between PAW and other technologies, the impact on food quality, and current methods for assessing the safety of PAW are highlighted. Technology readiness, energy consumption, international regulations, toxic intermediate products during PAW production, scalability, and important directions for future research on the commercialization of PAW are also presented. It provides the necessary theoretical basis for regulating the generation of high-throughput PAW and demonstrates the feasibility of PAW as a novel food cleaning and sanitizing agent. In summary, this review provides essential insights into PAW's safety, application potential, and sustainability for the food industry.