The effects of ultrahigh speed grinding process duration of 2-4 min and its storage temperature on rheological, textural and physical properties of natural peanut butter produced from peanuts of Virginia and Spanish varieties were investigated. Both types of peanut butter samples exhibited food suspension with multimodal particle size distribution, fitted adequately to the Casson model and demonstrated nonNewtonian shear-thinning behavior with apparent yield stress. The storage (G 0 ) and loss (G 00 ) modulus decreased as a function of grinding time and temperature. Grinding time and storage temperature gave significant effects on all the responses (P < 0.05) while peanut variety only has impact on the particle size distribution. Identical trends were observed for the natural peanut butter from both Virginia and Spanish peanut varieties. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONSProcessing and storage temperature are among factors influencing texture of food suspension such as butter and spreads. Our research investigated the effect of grinding time and storage temperature on rheological, textural and physical properties of natural peanut butter in the effort of producing optimum quality in terms of finest texture. The relationship between particle size distribution and textural properties is useful in the development of natural peanut butter with this study focusing on grinding effects as its processing and stability in terms of storage temperature.

The effects of drying temperature (120 °C to 200 °C) on drying characteristics of black tea leaves using superheated steam dryer (SHS) were investigated. It was observed that increased drying temperature caused higher drying rate that helped to shorten drying times. The effective diffusivities of moisture transfer in SHS ranged between 2.30 × 10–10 and 3.90 × 10–10 m2/s within the temperature range tested. The effective diffusivities were correlated by Arrhenius relationship with Arrhenius constant and activation energy estimated at 1.07 × 10–8 m2/s and activation energy 12.34 kJ/mol, respectively. Increased in drying temperature and time significantly decreased the brightness (*L) of tea leaves from 26.34 to 22.66 and TPC from 87.93 to 42.39 mg/g. However, comparison to commercial black tea showed that SHS dried-tea leaves exhibited better colour attribute and 91.4% higher in phenolic content.

The purposes of present study are to compare the kinetic drying of the G. cambogia through sun drying and superheated steam drying (SSD) method and optimizing the quality of SSD of it through response surface methodology. G. cambogia fruit rinds were dried at temperature of 150°C, 200°C and 250°C. The drying curves were fitted into the mathematical model of Page, Lewis and Henderson-Pabis models. Page model was found to be the best in describing the drying behavior of G. cambogia. Drying rate constant (k) increased as temperature increased and SSD method had overall higher drying rates ranged from 5.929 x 10 -5 to 5.861 x 10 -4 min -1 than sun drying method which was 4.980 x 10 -6 min -1 . Total acid number showed a trend of increased followed by decreased over drying time. superheated steam drying process of G. cambogia fruit rinds was optimized by using response surface methodology employing a central composite design. Drying time and temperature were the factors in optimization while moisture content (wet basis), acid number and lightness (*L) were the response parameters. Experimental results were fitted to a second-order polynomial model and the model fitness and optimal drying condition were determined by regression analysis and analysis of variance. The optimal conditions for superheated steam drying of G. cambogia fruit rinds were identified as 46.60 mins and 150°C with the composite desirability of 0.913. Application of superheated steam drying under controlled conditions resulted in faster drying process and better quality of dried G. cambogia than conventional sun drying technique.

Different concentrations of aqueous and ethanolic extracts of Ocimum tenuiflorum L. leaves were evaluated for their sucrase inhibition and non-enzymatic glycation inhibitory effects. The results revealed that aqueous extracts, particularly the one from oven-dried leaves had significant inhibition potential for all three assays. The IC 50 values for sucrase inhibition assay, BSA-glucose assay, and BSA-fructose assay were, 370.48±2.14 µg/ml, 188.19±2.52 µg/ml, and 166.16±1.99 µg/ml, respectively and the highest inhibition found in1250 µg/ml were, 91.88±0.16%, 118.46±0.27%, and 104.15±0.21%, respectively. Other than that, the aqueous extract of fresh leaves and 50% ethanol extract of oven dried leaves also showed good inhibition activity. Though, the results presented the highest inhibition activity for BSA-glucose assay. The leaves also attained 50% inhibition with the lowest concentration for BSA-fructose assay. The overall result of O. tenuiflorum leaves suggested that it can be used for treating diabetes mellitus and the complications associated with this.

A comparative study was performed to evaluate the effect of conventional and microwave frying on the quality attributes (moisture, fat, textural properties, colour, and cooking yield) of the beef patty. Experiments were conducted by cooking the beef patties using conventional and microwave frying in two different types of oil (palm oil and corn oil). Two microwave power levels were used (50% and 70%). Microwave frying beef patty showed a significant difference in terms of moisture content, hardness, lightness (L*) and also cooking yield compared to conventional frying. The oil absorption can be reduced when the beef patty was cooked using a microwave. Beef patty fried with the highest microwave power level (70%) by using corn oil has the least oil absorption (18.44±1.04%). The theory of higher moisture loss higher oil uptake does not correspond in this experiment since low-fat content were observed as the moisture decreased for all the beef patties fried using a microwave. Analysis of the hardness of beef patty showed that microwave frying beef patty (corn oil) at a power level of 50% (MF 50%) has the hardest texture (35.48±2.10 kg). Microwave frying beef patty has a lower cooking yield (56.05±2.23 to 71.30±0.89%) compared to conventional frying (86.12±0.45 to 88.60±0.04%). It is also found that there was no significant effect of type of cooking oil on the quality attributes of fried beef patties while different frying techniques were observed to affect the quality of patty