Indigenous to foods

Although nuts have been a staple food in many countries for generations, their status in the United States as a chief food crop is relatively recent. The main suppher of Knglish walnuts, filberts, and almonds had been Europe. However, pecans and black walnuts are indigenous to North America, and the United States is the principal producer of pecans. Other U.S. nuts, such as beech, butternut, white walnut, American chestnut, chinquapins, hickory, picon, and northern California black walnut, are utilized mainly for local consumption. Chestnuts and chinquapins are susceptible to the chestnut blight fungus, Endothiaparasitica which has virtually destroyed the American chestnut (152). 

Guzman-Maldonado, S.H., and Paredes-Lopez, O., Functional products of plants indigenous to Latin America amaranth, quinoa, common beans, and botanicals, in Functional Foods Biochemical and Processing Aspects, Mazza, G., Ed., Technomic Publishing, Lancaster, PA, 1998, 293. 

There has been considerable debate over the role of antimicrobial residues as factors contributing to the relatively high levels of resistance found in human enteric bacterial populations. Whether the relatively high levels of antimicrobial resistance found among enteric bacterial populations arise from medical use, from selection due to exposure to antimicrobial residues, from colonization by antibiotic-resistant organisms related to food production, or from transient colonization of antibiotic-resistant species and transfer of resistance to indigenous populations is undefined (59-62). 

Food colours are broadly divided into two classes natural and artificial. In the United States, these are listed as either exempt from certification or certified . The natural colours are botanical extracts, with the exception of carmine (a red colour), which should perhaps be termed an entomological extract as it is obtained from the insect Dactilopius coccus, sometimes termed the cochineal beetle, which breeds and feeds on particular cacti indigenous to Central and South America. Table 5.6 lists artificial colours permitted in soft drinks under EU legislation. 

The Cactaceae are indigenous to the New World. They are economically important as ornamentals the fruits of Opuntia arc used as food the peyote (Lophophora wilUamsii) is a well-known hallucinogen. 

Food-related enzymes indigenous to the food system are enzymes whose characteristics set them apart because of their individual impact on aspects of the food system that we can perceive. Thus, we are dealing here with only a few enzymes enzymes whose nature distinguishes them for us. 

Another source of enzyme changes in food stuflFs is related to enzyme systems indigenous to the microorganisms which are indigenous to the foods. They are too complex to deal with here. In the preceeding section, we have tried to indicate those enzymes whose impact is understood and to identify our adaptations to improve a food product or prevent its deterioration. 

In 1994 the development agency. Highlands and Islands Enterprise, commissioned a study to investigate the potential for the use of plants indigenous to the Highlands and Islands for the 4 industry sectors, food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and chemicals. The rationale for this was that ... 

Tamarind or Tamarindus indica L. of the Fabaceae, subfamily Caesalpinioideae, is an important food in the tropics. It is a multipurpose tree of which almost every part finds at least some use 17), either nutritional or medicinal. Tamarind is indigenous to tropical Africa but it has been introduced and naturahzed worldwide in over 50 coimtries. The major production areas ate in the Asian coimtries India and Thailand, but also in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia. In America, Mexico and Costa Rica are the biggest producers. Africa on the whole does not produce tamarind on a cotmnercial scale, though it is widely used by the local people. Minor producing countries in Africa ate Senegal, Gambia, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia (5, 17). 

Of the several hundred species that comprise the genus Piper, about ten yield food or medicinal drugs useful to humans. They include pepper (P, nigrum L.), the commonly used spice betel (P. betle L.), indigenous to India and Southeast Asia and whose leaves are used with areca nut as masticatories the long peppers (P, officinarum C. DC. and P, longum L.), distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and used as spices and, of course, P, methysticum. 

Vnce the nutritional value and safety of a proteinaceous food product have been established, the functional properties of the proteins in foods become of paramount importance. The functional properties of a protein are based on those physicochemical attributes that lend desirable physical characteristics to a food. Some of the functional properties of proteins are listed in Table I (I). Certain proteins, either indigenous or added, can impart a desirable character to foods and are partially responsible for certain textural and organoleptic properties of those foods. Thus, in the development of better and new food products, protein functionality is of prime importance. 

There have been a limited number of studies on the effects of enzymic modification of protein concentrates on functional properties other than solubility. Studies on functional properties, as modified by enzymic treatments, emphasize foam formation and emulsifying characteristics of the hydrolysates. Treatment of chicken egg albumen alters the functional properties of the egg proteins in terms of foam volume and stability and the behavior of the proteins in angel food cakes (25). Various proteolytic enzymes were used to degrade the egg albumen partially. However, proteolytic enzyme inhibitors indigenous to the egg proteins repressed hydrolysis of the egg proteins compared with casein. 

Aphanothece sacrum (Suizenji-nori) is an edible cyanobacterium that is indigenous to Japan. The dried bacterial cells are commonly used as a food... 

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