There has lately been a renewed interest in Riboflavin owing to insight into its recognition as an essential component of cellular biochemistry. The knowledge of the mechanisms and regulation of intestinal absorption of riboflavin and its health implications has significantly been expanded in recent years. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the importance of riboflavin, its absorption and metabolism in health and diseased conditions, its deficiency and its association with various health diseases, and metabolic disorders. Efforts have been made to review the available information in literature on the relationship between riboflavin and various clinical abnormalities. The role of riboflavin has also been dealt in the prevention of a wide array of health diseases like migraine, anemia, cancer, hyperglycemia, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and oxidative stress directly or indirectly. The riboflavin deficiency has profound effect on iron absorption, metabolism of tryptophan, mitochondrial dysfunction, gastrointestinal tract, brain dysfunction, and metabolism of other vitamins as well as is associated with skin disorders. Toxicological and photosensitizing properties of riboflavin make it suitable for biological use, such as virus inactivation, excellent photosensitizer, and promising adjuvant in chemo radiotherapy in cancer treatment. A number of recent studies have indicated and highlighted the cellular processes and biological effects associated with riboflavin supplementation in metabolic diseases. Overall, a deeper understanding of these emerging roles of riboflavin intake is essential to design better therapies for future.

Consumers demand high quality foods, which are fresh, tasty and nutritious; this has created considerable interest in the development of new food processing techniques. Presently, non-thermal techniques, including high hydrostatic pressure (HHP), are regarded with special interest by the food industry. Pressure ranges between 100 and 1200 MPa have been considered as effective to inactivate microorganisms including food-borne pathogens. HHP also improves rennet or acid coagulation of milk without any detrimental effect on flavour, body and texture and nutrients. Extended shelf-life and a "fresh-like" product presentation emphasize the need to take full account of food safety risks, alongside possible health benefits to consumers. These characteristics offer the dairy industry numerous practical applications to produce microbially safe and minimally processed dairy products with improved characteristics. Thus HHP is a powerful tool to develop novel dairy products of better nutritional and sensory quality, novel texture and increased shelf-life.

This review assesses the nutritional attributes of coarse cereals and also their utilization as food and as formulated foods. These cereals are laden with phytochemicals including phenolic acids, tannins, anthocyanins, phytosterols, avenenathramides and policosanols. They possess high antioxidant properties in vitro than staple cereals and fruits by different purported pathways. There are also some anti-nutritional factors that may be reduced by certain processing treatments. Several epidemiological studies show that these cereals are helpful in reducing several kinds of chronic diseases like cancers, cardiovascular diseases, type II diabetes and various gastrointestinal disorders. Being coarse in nature, they cannot replace our staple cereals, but can be used in different proportions with rice and wheat to formulate various nutritional products. They can be used to make porridges, biscuits, cakes, cookies, tortillas, bread, probiotic drinks, ladoo, ghatta, flakes and several fermented foods. The coarse cereals also have good potential in manufacturing bioethanol, paper, oil and biofilms.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Summary A study was conducted to develop pearl millet‐based extruded snacks with whey protein concentrate (WPC) to enhance its acceptability and nutritional value. Pearl millet grits (841 μ) was extruded with different levels (0%, 2.5%, 5.0% and 7.5%) of WPC at constant feed rate (10.5 kg h−1) and moisture content (14%). Addition of whey protein at 7.5% level significantly (P ≤ 0.05) increased Tg from 75.1 ± 0.26 °C to 120.5 ± 1.28 °C and Tm from 89.1 ± 1.51 °C to 158.7 ± 1.37 °C, which resulted in less expanded and harder extrudates. The expansion index of extrudates was negatively correlated (P ≤ 0.05) with protein (r = −0.940), bulk density (r = −0.949), hardness (r = −0.971) and breaking strength (r = −0.921), while positively correlated (P ≤ 0.05) with overall acceptability (OAA; r = 0.988). Keeping in view the nutritional, textural and consumer's acceptability, incorporation of 5% WPC in pearl millet grits (841 μ) was recommended for preparation of acceptable expanded snacks.