Skip to main content
eScholarship
Open Access Publications from the University of California

Informational Pages (1 results)

UC IrvineChemical and Biomolecular EngineeringAbout

Scholarly Works (56108 results, showing first 10000)

  • Article
Planning & Evaluation (2004)
The California Institute of Food and Agricultural Research (CIFAR) established a Food Industry Advisory Council (FIAC), comprised of industry and technology experts, to lead discussions in order to determine the state of the industry, to prioritize research needs, and develop a vision and plan for the future. CIFAR facilitated this process and subsequently, held several public forums and meetings to develop the California food processing roadmap. These outcomes supported California’s Public Interest Energy Research Program.
    Cover page: California Food Processing Industry Technology Roadmap
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    Applied Math & Comp Sci (2017)
    Aflatoxins are mainly produced by certain strains of Aspergillus flavus, which are found in diverse agricultural crops. In many lower-income countries, aflatoxins pose serious public health issues since the occurrence of these toxins can be considerably common and even extreme. Aflatoxins can negatively affect health of livestock and poultry due to contaminated feeds. Additionally, they significantly limit the development of international trade as a result of strict regulation in high-value markets. Due to their high stability, aflatoxins are not only a problem during cropping, but also during storage, transport, processing, and handling steps. Consequently, innovative evidence-based technologies are urgently required to minimize aflatoxin exposure. Thus far, biological control has been developed as the most innovative potential technology of controlling aflatoxin contamination in crops, which uses competitive exclusion of toxigenic strains by non-toxigenic ones. This technology is commercially applied in groundnuts maize, cottonseed, and pistachios during pre-harvest stages. Some other effective technologies such as irradiation, ozone fumigation, chemical and biological control agents, and improved packaging materials can also minimize post-harvest aflatoxins contamination in agricultural products. However, integrated adoption of these pre- and post-harvest technologies is still required for sustainable solutions to reduce aflatoxins contamination, which enhances food security, alleviates malnutrition, and strengthens economic sustainability.
      Cover page: Innovative technologies to manage aflatoxins in foods and feeds and the profitability of application – A review
      • Article
      The Cultivar Newsletter (2003)

      Feature articles:

      Symphylans research project

      Alternative food initiatives

      GE food debate

      Apprenticing examined

      Strawberry variety trial results

        Cover page: The Cultivar newsletter, Spring/Summer 2001
        • Thesis
        • Peer Reviewed
        UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2015)

        Throughout US history, street food vending has rarely been considered an improvement to modern society or its capitalist economy. However, beginning in 2008, a new generation of mobile food vendors serving high quality, inventive foods became popular among affluent populations. This project investigates the contemporary shift in the American food vending industry using ethnographic and data-driven methods to unpack vendors’ operational strategies and their social and economic roles in shaping the public realm of cities. This research investigates four US cities and considers vendors’ unique social, technological, and mobile operations as well as the ways in which they navigate and challenge top-down planning practices. In Los Angeles, California, both loncheras and new wave food trucks chart parallel paths and encounter resistance in ways that respond to different social and cultural environments. In the San Francisco Bay Area, private and public sector interests align to create a robust industry of food truck markets at the expense of food vendors’ long-term autonomy. In contrast, food vending in Portland, Oregon’s artisan economy exemplifies a rare food cart democracy characterized by bureaucratic ease and impassioned local actors. Finally, Charlotte, North Carolina’s more recent vendor growth relies on consumer education and strong vendor activism to resist and reconfigure regulatory pressures. In each of these cities, the project examines the ways “new wave” vendors alter conventional notions of urbanism both socially and politically. This study offers new insights into the ways food vendors support sustainable local economies and contribute to the public realm of cities while shaping regulatory policy from the bottom-up. Understanding the dynamics of mobile food vending is important for urban planners and policy officials whose policies and plans will govern the future growth of the industry and for the vending public who help sustain a progressive industry at the local level.

          Cover page: Mobilizing Food Vending: Rights, Communication Technology and Urban Space in the American City
          • Article
          • Peer Reviewed
          UC Merced Previously Published Works (2019)
          Food product safety is a public health concern. Most of the food safety analytical and detection methods are expensive, labor intensive, and time consuming. A safe, rapid, reliable, and nondestructive detection method is needed to assure consumers that food products are safe to consume. Terahertz (THz) radiation, which has properties of both microwave and infrared, can penetrate and interact with many commonly used materials. Owing to the technological developments in sources and detectors, THz spectroscopic imaging has transitioned from a laboratory-scale technique into a versatile imaging tool with many practical applications. In recent years, THz imaging has been shown to have great potential as an emerging nondestructive tool for food inspection. THz spectroscopy provides qualitative and quantitative information about food samples. The main applications of THz in food industries include detection of moisture, foreign bodies, inspection, and quality control. Other applications of THz technology in the food industry include detection of harmful compounds, antibiotics, and microorganisms. THz spectroscopy is a great tool for characterization of carbohydrates, amino acids, fatty acids, and vitamins. Despite its potential applications, THz technology has some limitations, such as limited penetration, scattering effect, limited sensitivity, and low limit of detection. THz technology is still expensive, and there is no available THz database library for food compounds. The scanning speed needs to be improved in the future generations of THz systems. Although many technological aspects need to be improved, THz technology has already been established in the food industry as a powerful tool with great detection and quantification ability. This paper reviews various applications of THz spectroscopy and imaging in the food industry.
            Cover page: A Comprehensive Review on Food Applications of Terahertz Spectroscopy and Imaging
            • Book
            • Peer Reviewed
            Home Food Preservation and Food Safety (2001)
            How does food irradiation improve food safety? Is irradiated food safe to eat? This free publication offers answers on basic concerns regarding this new technology.
              Cover page: Frequently Asked Questions about Food Irradiation
              • Article
              • Peer Reviewed
              UC Davis Previously Published Works (2017)
              Analytic advances are enabling more precise definitions of the molecular composition of key food staples incorporated into contemporary diets and how the nutrient landscapes of these staples vary as a function of cultivar and food processing methods. This knowledge, combined with insights about the interrelationship between consumer microbiota configurations and biotransformation of food ingredients, should have a number of effects on agriculture, food production, and strategies for improving the nutritional value of foods and health status. These effects include decision-making about which cultivars of current or future food staples to incorporate into existing and future food systems, and which components of waste streams from current or future food manufacturing processes have nutritional value that is worth capturing. They can also guide which technologies should be applied, or need to be developed, to produce foods that support efficient microbial biotransformation of their ingredients into metabolic products that sustain health.
                Cover page: The Gut Microbiota, Food Science, and Human Nutrition: A Timely Marriage
                • Article
                • Peer Reviewed
                UC Berkeley Previously Published Works (2017)
                Simple pebble tools, ephemeral cultural features, and the remains of maritime and terrestrial foods are present in undisturbed Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene deposits underneath a large human-made mound at Huaca Prieta and nearby sites on the Pacific coast of northern Peru. Radiocarbon ages indicate an intermittent human presence dated between ~15,000 and 8000 calendar years ago before the mound was built. The absence of fishhooks, harpoons, and bifacial stone tools suggests that technologies of gathering, trapping, clubbing, and exchange were used primarily to procure food resources along the shoreline and in estuarine wetlands and distant mountains. The stone artifacts are minimally worked unifacial stone tools characteristic of several areas of South America. Remains of avocado, bean, and possibly cultivated squash and chile pepper are also present, suggesting human transport and consumption. Our new findings emphasize an early coastal lifeway of diverse food procurement strategies that suggest detailed observation of resource availability in multiple environments and a knowledgeable economic organization, although technologies were simple and campsites were seemingly ephemeral and discontinuous. These findings raise questions about the pace of early human movement along some areas of the Pacific coast and the level of knowledge and technology required to exploit maritime and inland resources.
                  Cover page: Simple technologies and diverse food strategies of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene at Huaca Prieta, Coastal Peru
                  • Article
                  • Peer Reviewed
                  UC Davis Previously Published Works (2019)

                  Background

                  Personalized diet requires matching human genotypic and phenotypic features to foods that increase the chance of achieving a desired physiological health outcome. New insights and technologies will help to decipher the intricacies of diet-health relationships and create opportunities for breakthroughs in dietary interventions for personal health management.

                  Scope and approach

                  This article describes the scientific progress towards personalized diet and points out the need for integrating high-quality data on food. A framework for molecular annotation of food is presented, focusing on what aspects should be measured and how these measures relate to health. Strategies of applying trending technologies to improve personalized diet and health are discussed, highlighting challenges and opportunities for transforming data into insights and actions.

                  Key findings and conclusions

                  The goal of personalized diet is to enable individuals and caregivers to make informed dietary decisions for targeted health management. Achieving this goal requires a better understanding of how molecular properties of food influence individual eating behavior and health outcomes. Annotating food at a molecular level encompasses characterizing its chemical composition and modifications, physicochemical structure, and biological properties. Features of molecular properties in the food annotation framework are applicable to varied conditions and processes from raw materials to meals. Applications of trending technologies, such as omics techniques, wearable biosensors, and artificial intelligence, will support data collection, data analytics, and personalized dietary actions for targeted health management.
                    Cover page: Molecular annotation of food – Towards personalized diet and precision health
                    • Article
                    • Peer Reviewed
                    UC Davis Previously Published Works (2023)
                    Scholarship flourishes in inclusive environments where open deliberations and generative feedback expand both individual and collective thinking. Many researchers, however, have limited access to such settings, and most conventional academic conferences fall short of promises to provide them. We have written this Field Report to share our methods for cultivating a vibrant intellectual community within the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN). This is paired with insights from 21 network members on aspects that have allowed STSFAN to thrive, even amid a global pandemic. Our hope is that these insights will encourage others to cultivate their own intellectual communities, where they too can receive the support they need to deepen their scholarship and strengthen their intellectual relationships.
                      Cover page: Cultivating intellectual community in academia: reflections from the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN).
                      Top