Sabyasachi Mishra

Banana serves as an ideal and low cost food source for developing countries where most of the population rely mostly on bananas for food. Banana plant parts are useful as insecticide, antioxidant, colour absorber, in preparation of various functional foods, wine, alcohol, biogas, cattle feed etc. This review discusses usefulness of banana fruits, peel, leaves, pseudostem, sheath, pith and male bud, and prospects of using these materials in industry.

Consumer interest in probiotics is significantly growing due to their positive impact on their health. Dairy products are common and most preferred probiotics "delivery vehicle" in the food industry. However, dairy products are associated with increased risk to people, with lactose intolerance, galactosemia, allergy to milk proteins, and high cholesterol levels. For such cases, non-dairy based probiotic foods could offer a good alternative. Among non-dairy foods, fruit juice is more dietary inclusive, convenient, and well accepted by all the age groups. Therefore, fruit juice could be used as a suitable non-dairy food carrier in probiotic delivery. Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium are the two main strains used commercially worldwide for preparing probiotic products with proven health benefits. However, protecting the probiotic cells is the key for probiotic formulation in order to guarantee the survival. Therefore, various encapsulation techniques, cell viability, and suitable carrier materials in downstream processing and utilization are discussed in the review. Among different encapsulation techniques, spray drying emerged as an alternative technique for better utilization of probiotics in fruit juices with possibilities for industrial applications due to cost-effective and continuous process. Therefore, spray drying could be considered as an efficient encapsulation technique in food industry for fruit juice probiotification.

Finger millet (Eleusine Coracana) is rich in nutrients and minerals. The iron and calcium contents are comparatively higher than other cereal crops. Finger millet also has some antinutrients such as tannins and phytates, that needs to be removed for maximum health benefits. Traditionally, these antinutrients are removed by the hydration process. The conventional hydration process is time cumbersome and often results in poor quality grains. Ultrasonication during hydration of finger millet could reduce the processing time and antinutrient content in finger millet. The ultrasound amplitude, treatment time, and grain to water ratio during hydration were optimized. An ultrasound amplitude of 66%, treatment time of 26 min, and a grain to water ratio of 1:3 resulted in best desirability parameters with a reduction in phytate and tannin contents of the finger millet by 66.98 and 62.83%, respectively. Ultrasonication during hydration increased the water binding capacity and solubility of the finger millet starch. XRD study of the starch isolates confirmed the increased crystallinity of the particles. FESEM of the starch isolates also confirmed that ultrasound-assisted hydration of finger millet resulted in the desired size reduction and homogeneous distribution of starch particles. The optimized ultrasound-assisted hydration could be adopted and scaled up for bulk processing of finger millets.