Life Sciences Commons^™

Sustainable Agriculture: Integration Of Aquaponics At Punta Leona Hotel And Club In Costa Rica, Cailin Sierra Dyer, Paris Riley Smith

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Sustainable agriculture is becoming an increasingly important method of food production. As human populations continue to grow, attendant food demand has been increasingly met via agribusiness, including monoculture crop production and factory farming. As is well documented, the rise of agribusiness has led to resource degradation and declining stocks on which “sustainable agriculture” relies. This paper describes a local attempt to re-establish “sustainable agriculture” through the development of an aquaculture system that mimics a naturally occurring cycle that integrates fish and plants. The system was constructed over a three-week period in Punta Leona, Costa Rica. First, the ground was cleared …

Developments And Properties Of Plastic Mimicking Biopolymers For Food Packaging Application, Daniel I. Hefft

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

Sustainability takes an ever increasing importance in the food industry. Here not only the selection of raw materials plays a role, but also packaging materials. Nowadays there is an increasing number of biodegradable and bio-compostable packaging materials available.

However, these materials are still not able to replace mineral oil based packaging materials completely, nevertheless they are becoming increasingly important, since there must be solutions to problems such as pollution of the oceans by plastic waste, growing piles of rubbish from growing population, etc.

The following literature review shows briefly recent developments on plastic mimicking biopolymers, as these materials guarantee great …

Mass Transfer Effects Of Particle Size On Brewing Espresso, Sichen Zhong, Lauren Elizabeth Stork

Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Research Publications

The extraction process for coffee is complicated due to the nature of the coffee. In this paper, we studied the particle size distribution for coffee grinds and further analyzed that with the help of an inverted microscope and a scanning electron microscope. We drew a conclusion that the coffee grinds can be divided into two parts: cell fragments with smaller particles size and intact coffee cells with larger particles. The intact coffee cell was found to be a porous media. Therefore, we tried to brew the espresso with both normal grind size coffee and sieved coffee to study the extraction …

Processing Methods And Storage Conditions On Chocolate And Coffee Powder Flow Properties, Sunland L. Gong, Andrea Della Bella, Teresa M. Carvajal

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Powders are widely used in a countless number of industries, and are crucial to the quality control of products in areas such as pharmaceuticals and food. Particle physicochemical properties (morphology, solid state – crystalline, amorphous or both) are important factors for powder flow, which in turn can have significant impact on the stability, performance, and presentation of powders. Different processing methods as well as storage conditions such as relative humidity (RH) can drastically affect powder flow. Due to the widespread use of chocolate and coffee powder around the world, and their importance to the food industry, this work investigates two …

Simulation And Validation Of Radio Frequency Heating Of Shell Eggs, Soon Kiat Lau

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Finite element models were developed with the purpose of finding an optimal radio frequency (RF) heating setup for pasteurizing shell eggs. Material properties of the yolk, albumen, and shell were measured and fitted into equations that were used as inputs for the model. When the egg was heated by itself, heating tend to be focused at the air cell to result in a “coagulation ring.” The focused heating near the air cell of the egg prevented satisfactory pasteurization of the egg, but deeper analysis of the simulation results offered a new perspective on how non-uniform RF heating could occur in …

Multiphysics Modeling To Enhance Understanding Of Microwave Heating Of Food In Domestic Ovens, Jiajia Chen

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Nonuniform heating is the biggest issue in the microwave heating of prepared meals. Multiphysics based models are promising tools to improve microwave heating uniformity by properly designing the food product. However, limited availability of accurate temperature-dependent material properties, inadequate model prediction accuracy, and high computational power and complexity in model development are three gaps that greatly limited the application of these models in the food industry.

To fill in the gaps, firstly, we developed a multitemperature calibration protocol to measure temperature-dependent dielectric properties (dielectric constant and loss factor). The temperature-dependent dielectric and thermal (thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity) properties …

A Soft Condensed Matter Approach Towards Mathematical Modelling Of Mass Transport And Swelling In Food Grains, Michael Chapwanya, N. Misra

Articles

Soft condensed matter (SCM) physics has recently gained importance for a large class of engineering materials. The treatment of food materials from a soft matter perspective, however, is only at the surface and is gaining importance for understanding the complex phenomena and structure of foods. In this work, we present a theoretical treatment of navy beans from a SCM perspective to describe the hydration kinetics. We solve the transport equations within a porous matrix and employ the Flory–Huggin’s equation for polymer–solvent mixture to balance the osmotic pressure. The swelling of the legume seed is modelled as a moving boundary with …

Malnutrition, A Global Problem, Shirin Pourafshar, Kurt A. Rosentrater, Padmanaban Krishnan

Kurt A. Rosentrater

Malnutrition is a general term for medical conditions caused by an inadequate diet and poor nutrition. Hunger and malnutrition are among the major difficulties confronting many countries around the world. Malnutrition can be caused by several factors, such as the sharp increase in population (current world population is approximately 6,800,000,000), poor distribution of foods, lack of access to highly nutritious foods, and most important, lack of knowledge about healthy diets. Malnutrition can lead to other problems, such as reduced school attendance, learning capacity, spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and it can have a negative effect on a nation’s …

Potential Bleaching Techniques For Use In Distillers Grains, Jessica A. Saunders, Kurt A. Rosentrater, Padmanaban G. Krishnan

Kurt A. Rosentrater

The ethanol industry is booming. And extensive research is currently being pursued to develop alternative uses for distillers dried grains (DDG) and distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS), coproducts of the ethanol production process. Currently, DDG and DDGS are used exclusively as livestock feed. previous research has shown promising avenues for the use of DDG and DDGS in human foods. The low starch, high protein and high fiber grains seem ideally suited for medical conditions such as diabetes and Celiac's disease. Processing methods need to be investigated to create functional flours that can be used effectively. Refining aspects such as …

Fractionation Techniques To Concentrate Nutrient Streams In Distillers Grains, Kurt A. Rosentrater, Deepa Subramanian, Padmanaban G. Krishnan

Kurt A. Rosentrater

Corn, the most widely produced feed grain in the United States, accounts for more than 90% of the total value and production of feed grains. It is also used for food, industrial materials, and fuel ethanol production. Distillers grains, the major coproduct from ethanol manufacturing, are used as livestock feed. There are, however, other potential options, including value-added food, industrial, chemical, and energy applications. Fractionating distillers grains into concentrated streams of protein, fiber, and fat may be key to facilitating these types of utilization. Previous studies on other products have shown that fractionation is a promising mechanism for extracting valuable …

Update On Utilizing Ethanol Processing Residues In Food Products, Kurt A. Rosentrater, Padmanaban Krishnan

Kurt A. Rosentrater

The production of corn-based ethanol in the U.S. is dramatically increasing, and consequently so is the quantity of byproduct materials generated from this processing sector. These coproduct streams are currently solely utilized as livestock feed, which is a route that provides ethanol processors with a substantial revenue source and significantly increases the profitability of the production process. With the construction and operation of many new plants in recent years, these residuals do, however, have much potential for value-added processing and utilization in the human food sector as well. This option holds promise of economic benefit for corn processors, especially if …

Strategic Methodology For Advancing Food Manufacturing Waste Management Paradigms, Kurt A. Rosentrater

Kurt A. Rosentrater

As manufacturing industries become more cognizant of the ecological effects that their firms have on the surrounding environment, their waste streams are increasingly becoming viewed not as materials in need of disposal, but rather as resources that can be reused, recycled, or reprocessed into valuable products. Within the food processing sector there are many examples of value-added use of processing residues, although many of these focus solely on utilization as livestock feed ingredients. In addition to livestock feed, though, many other potential avenues exist for food processing waste streams, including food grade as well as industrial products. Unfortunately, the challenge …

Food Based Approaches For A Healthy Nutrition In Africa, Mamoudou Hama Dicko

Pr. Mamoudou H. DICKO, PhD

The latest estimates of the FAO demonstrate the problems of the fight against hunger. These problems are manifested by the ever-increasing number of chronically undernourished people worldwide. Their numbers during the 1999-2001 period were estimated at about 840 million of which 798 million live in developing countries. Sub-Saharan Africa alone represented 198 million of those. In this part of Africa the prevalence of undernourishment ranges from 5-34%, causing growth retardation and insufficient weight gain among one third of the children under five years of age and resulting in a mortality of 5-15% among these children. Malnutrition resulting from undernourishment is …

Review Of: Eat Your Genes: How Genetically Modified Food Is Entering Our Diet (Stephen Nottingham Ed.), Natalie Duval

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Review of the book: "Eat Your Genes: How Genetically Modified Food Is Entering Our Diet," by Stephen Nottingham, (St. Martin's Press 1999). Introduction, Glossary, Bibliography, Index. ISBN 1-85649-578-7 [212 pp. $17.95. Softbound, St. Martin's Press, Inc., New York, NY 10010].