Plants and Foods

El Zorgani GA, Omer IS, Abdullah AM. 1986. Bound residues of endosulfan and carbofuran in soil and plant material. Proceedings of the Final Research Co-ordination Meeting on Isotopic Tracer-aided Studies of Unextractable or Bound Pesticide Residues in Soil, Plants, and Food. Vienna, Austria International Atomic Energy Agency, 51-56. 

Diazinon (phosphorothioic acid 0,0-diethyl 0-(6-mcthyl-2-(l-mcthylcthyl)-4-pyrimidinyl) ester) is an organophosphorus compound with an anticholinesterase mode of action. It is used extensively to control hies, lice, insect pests of ornamental plants and food crops, as well as nematodes and soil insects in lawns and croplands. Diazinon degrades rapidly in the environment, with half-time persistence usually less than 14 days. But under conditions of low temperature, low moisture, high alkalinity, and lack of suitable microbial degraders, diazinon may remain biologically active in soils for 6 months or longer. 

Imholte, T.J. and Imholte-Tauscher, T.K. 1999. Engineering for Food Safety and Sanitation A Guide to the Sanitary Design of Food Plants and Food Plant Equipment . Technical Institute for Food Safety, Woodinville, WA. 

Natural products, from plants and foods to rocks and minerals, are complicated systems, but their analysis by Raman spectroscopy is a growing area. Most examples come from quality control laboratories, motivated to replace current time-consuming sample preparation and analysis steps with a less labor-intensive, faster technique but most authors anticipated the eventual application to process control. Often a method will be practiced in a trading house or customs facility to distinguish between items perceived to be of different qualities, and thus prices. 

Lemaux PG (2008) Genetically engineered plants and foods a scientist s analysis of the issues (Part 1). Annu Rev Plant Biol 59 771-812... 

Solid waste discharges from chemical plants can represent very large problems, especially from paper mills, plastics plants, and food processing plants. Some materials do not decompose in the environment, and can become burdens when they accumulate. Some polymers have backbones that degrade in nature, such as aliphatic polyesters and polyvinyl alcohols others do not, such as polyethylene and polystyrene. 

Raw material for biomass fuel can come from various sources such as wood, legumes, grains, sugar crops, animal waste, municipal waste, aquatic plants, and food and cotton production waste. TABLE 12-2 provides examples of biomass raw materials. 

R Schuster. Determination of amino acids in biological, pharmaceutical, plant and food samples by automated precolumn derivatization and high performance liquid chromatography. J Chromatogr 431 271-284, 1988. 

Radium is a naturally-occurring silvery white radioactive metal that can exist in several forms called isotopes. It is formed when uranium and thorium (two other natural radioactive substances) decay (break down) in the environment. Radium has been found at very low levels in soil, water, rocks, coal, plants, and food. For example, a typical amount might be one picogram of radium per gram of soil or rock. This would be about one part of radium in one trillion (1,000,000,000,000) parts of soil or rock. These levels are not expected to change with time. 

Radium is a naturally-occurring metal that is almost ubiquitous in soils, water, geologic materials, plants, and foods at low concentrations. The utilization of radium, uranium, and fossil fuels has resulted in the redistribution of radium in the environment by way of air, water, and land releases. 

Kloskowski, R., Ftihr, F., and Mittelstaedt, W. (1986a). Formation of bound residues of [benzene ring-U-14C]- anilazine and [triazine-U-14C]-anilazine inparabraunerde (Alfisol soil) and their availibility to maize. In Quantification, Nature, and Bioavailability of Bound 14C-Pesticide Residues in Soil, Plants, and Food. Int. Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, 65-70. 

For example, glyphosate (Roundup )—the largest selling herbicide, particularly for genetically engineered plants and food crops—has been implicated in human health cases. 

You are probably familiar with the term pH from a variety of sources. Advertisers talk about the pH balance of products such as soaps, shampoos, and skin creams. People who own aquariums and swimming pools must monitor the pH of the water. (See Figure 10.10.) Gardeners and farmers use simple tests to determine the pH of the soil. They know that plants and food crops grow best within a narrow range of pH. Similarly, the pH of your blood must remain within narrow limits for you to stay healthy. 

The classification of pectic enzymes in general, their occurrence in higher plants and micro-organisms and the properties of pectic enzymes from some plants and food grade micro-organisms are described with special emphasis on their substrate specificity. Their technological roles and applications, also in combination with (hemi-)cellulases, in a variety of processes are discussed. Evidence is presented for the existence of a new type of pectic enzyme which acts specifically in the hairy regions of pectic substances. 

Table IV Properties of pectic enzymes from some plants and food grade micro-organisms...

The analysis of phytochemicals is a tedious process involving several steps in which care must be taken to avoid degradation and contamination. Recent advancements in extraction, concentration, purification and analytical procedures of phytochemicals have been made, but additional developments are needed to assist in the identification and quantification of the diverse array of phytochemicals present in plants and foods, as well as metabolites in biological samples. Specifically there is a need to automate sample extraction, clean-up, and concentration steps to facilitate the screening of phytochemicals develop analytical methods with improved sensitivity, resolution and throughput that utilize less organic solvents and develop concentration and purification methods to produce analytical standards that are not available commercially. Continued advancements in sample preparation and analytical techniques will assist researchers in their quest to identify and quantify the vast array of phytochemicals present in plants... 

Alkaline hydrolysis (saponification) can be used to remove interfering lipids and chlorophylls present in plant and food samples, such as... 

Antioxidant-rich phytochemicals are micro-constituents in plants and agricultural food products. They differ from proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids, which are macro-nutrients that are abundant in plants and food products. The type and quantity of antioxidant-rich phytochemicals vary significantly from source to source. Different types of the antioxidant-rich phytochemicals may have different antioxidant and other biological activities and bio availability. Although most phytochemicals have UV absorption, using traditional spectrophotometeric methods to quantify the antioxidants is not practical as they could be significantly masked or interfered with by many other compounds in the sources. Thus, the analysis methods for antioxidant-rich phytochemicals are more complicated and sophisticated than the methods used for macro-nutrient compounds. 

Chromatography techniques with different detectors followed by skillful sample preparation are usually applied to quantify these antioxidants in natural sources. These techniques offer sensitive and specific analysis methods for most of the antioxidants. This is the first book that particularly covers and summarizes the details of sample preparation procedures and methods developed to identify and quantify various types of natural antioxidants in plants and food products. In the book, the principle of quantification methods for natural antioxidant-rich phytochemicals is introduced and current methods used in the determination of antioxidants in different sources are reviewed and summarized by experts in the field. As a handbook of analysis of natural antioxidant-rich phytochemicals, the book provides useful information for many researchers in this area to learn ideal analysis methods for the antioxidants they are examining. The book may also serve as a lecture resource for courses in food analysis, functional foods, and nutrition. 

The effects of freeze-drying on various properties of organic compounds present in biological matrices and aqueous solutions have been studied by several authors. Such effects are discussed separately for plants and foods below on account of their special features. 

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