Araucaria angustifolia seeds are culturally important from South America; however, the seed coat is generally discarded and have yet to find a beneficial commercial impact. We propose a new formulation...

The seeds from Araucaria angustifolia—commonly named as pinhão—are important culturally, and viable regional food from Brazil. Although now considered an endangered species, methods to increase the awareness of this tree have been called upon attention. In light upon increasing such awareness, we utilized the seed coats of pinhão, which is considered a residue and discarded, in the development of cereal bars. Although the raw seed coats have a very high astringent flavor and impair the sensory taste; if considered as a nanoformulation, this strong astringent flavor is masked. Therefore, studies were also carried out with an experimental design to understand the effect of nanosuspension as a binding agent. In addition to physicochemical and nutritional characteristics performed, the results propose that nanosuspension of pinhão seed coats can be a potential ingredient for functional cereal bars due to high fiber content, proteins, and phenolic compounds. Practical applications Nanosuspension of pinhão seed coats masks the astringent flavor of the raw seed coat, while also able to present high fiber content and is very resistant as cereal bar due to nanocellulose. Cereal bars also present good acceptability index and high values of proteins, with presence of phenolics compounds extracted from the seed coat.

The importance of the functional properties of edible mushrooms as a food product has been increasing and several studies have emerged to address this issue. However, the application of a conservation process is required since this is a product with a high moisture level. The aim of this study was to investigate the drying kinetics of shiitake Lentinula edodes mushrooms by means of the construction of drying curves, the mathematical modeling of the drying curves, and correlating the data obtained with the β-glucan content in order to observe the influence of temperature on its content. The drying temperatures of 35 ºC, 45 ºC and 55 ºC were applied to construct the drying curves and the β-glucan contents of the samples were quantified. Mathematical modeling was performed in order to identify the best model for the representation of the product moisture loss during the drying period. The equilibrium humidity values were 0.346% for 35 ºC, 0.892% for 45 ºC and 0.875% for 55 ºC, and the β-glucan contents showed no significant difference for the three temperatures analyzed, as confirmed by the Tukey test. Of the eight mathematical models fitted to the drying curves, the Page and the Midilli models provided the best results. Therefore, based on the findings, 55 °C appears to be the optimum temperature for the Shiitake mushroom drying process in the studied conditions, as it provides the shortest drying time and the β-glucan content is maintained.

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A utilização de efluentes do setor cervejeiro como substrato em cultivos fúngicos torna-se uma alternativa sustentável de reaproveitamento de resíduos. Este trabalho avaliou a velocidade de crescimento micelial radial (Vm) e a produção de β-glucanas pelos fungos Ganoderma lipsiense e Ganoderma applanatum cultivados em placas de Petri contendo resíduo da centrifugação da cerveja Pilsen (RCP), previamente caracterizado quimicamente, nas concentrações bruta (T1), diluído 50% (T2) e 75% (T3), com medições radiais diárias durante 13 dias. Ao término deste período, os micélios foram removidos realizando-se posterior secagem (55°C) para quantificação de β-glucanas. A caracterização química do resíduo indicou a presença de fósforo (81,20 mg L-1), nitrogênio amoniacal (9,18 mg L-1), além de DBO (17.750,00 mg O2 L-1) e DQO (32.050,00 mg O2 L-1). Todas as concentrações de resíduo proporcionaram crescimento micelial e produção de β-glucanas. Em T1, foram obtidos maiores Vm (4,48 e 3,90 mm dia-1) para G. applanatum e G. lipsiense.  Em relação as β-glucanas, G. lipsiense apresentou maiores teores (32 %) no T2 e 30,28% no T1, enquanto G. applanatum produziu teores abaixo de 20%. Os resultados mostram a influência da concentração do meio de cultivo e da espécie fúngica na produção de biocompostos e sugerem que o RCP estudado pode ser reaproveitado, sendo empregado como substrato para produção de compostos de interesse farmacêutico, tais como β-glucanas.