Milk products are a very important human nutrient since their consumption has increased in recent years. Good quality measurements are essential to control and maintain milk products and processes quality, both in manufacturing, trade and in research. The presence of toxic elements in powdered and liquid milk may create significant health problems for people. The aim of this paper was to determine the content of major and minor elements in different milk samples, sold in major supermarket chains in Romania. Inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) was used for the quantitative determination of elements in this matrix. Analyses were performed after the chemical mineralization of the samples with nitrogen acid. Detection limits ranged from 0.4 to7.03 ng/g.

Beer is one of the oldest known alcoholic beverages produced by a yeast fermentation of a cereal extract that was germinated in water beforehand. The bitter taste of beer comes from the group of substances introduced during wort boiling, which are the extracted components of hops. The aim of this study was to determine some characteristics of beer (original extract, alcohol content, colour, pH, total acidity, carbon dioxide and bitterness values) during the three stages of the beer production process in a typical Romanian brewery. Measurements were carried out on 60 samples of beers, 10 measurements for each step of the process examining wort, unfiltered fermented beer and bottled beer (final product) from two different types of beer (light and dark). Statistical process control of the beer was performed. Losses in the bitterness units during the production process were between 24.7 and 41.54%, reported in terms of final product. Copyright © 2013 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling

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The pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has produced significant changes in socio-cultural life, diet, and interpersonal relationships across the world’s population. The present study aims to identify changes in lifestyle and diet among the Romanian population one year after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. An online questionnaire with 58 items (addressing the following aspects: socio-demographic and anthropometric data, current eating habits, and lifestyle changes) was distributed using institutional mailing lists and social media. A total number of 2040 respondents participated in the study, of whom 1464 were women, and 576 men. Among the respondents, 1598 came from urban areas and 442 from rural areas. The processing of the collected data showed significant changes in the behavior of the respondents caused by the pandemic situation with psycho-affective changes in some cases. The number of people who had anxiety, depression and nervousness increased by up to 20%. The majority of respondents (over 57%) were up to 30 years old, either students (43.50%) or employees going to workplaces (33.20%). Analyzing eating habits, we found that diet modification was needed to increase the daily consumption of fruits, vegetables, fish, and seafood. Regarding weight status during the pandemic, we noticed that 34.7% of normal-weight respondents said that they gained weight while 49.7% of overweight people and 52.5% of obese people said that they gained weight (p < 0.0001). Regarding psycho-emotional behavior, 11.81% of the surveyed women stated that they frequently had depressive states during the pandemic period and 11.63% of the men stated that they frequently presented depressive states during the pandemic (p = 0.005).