Quality evaluation of house cricket flour processed by electrohydrodynamic drying and pulsed electric fields treatment

Marios Psarianos; Kamran Iranshahi; Samantha Rossi; Davide Gottardi; Oliver Schlüter

doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2023.138276

Quality evaluation of house cricket flour processed by electrohydrodynamic drying and pulsed electric fields treatment

Food Chem. 2024 May 30:441:138276. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2023.138276. Epub 2023 Dec 24.

Authors

Marios Psarianos¹, Kamran Iranshahi², Samantha Rossi³, Davide Gottardi⁴, Oliver Schlüter⁵

Affiliations

¹ Horticultural Engineering, Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB), Max-Eyth-Allee 100, 14469 Potsdam, Germany. Electronic address: [email protected].
² Laboratory for Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, St. Gallen 9014, Switzerland; Department of Environmental Systems Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH-Zurich, Zurich 8092, Switzerland. Electronic address: [email protected].
³ University of Bologna, Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Piazza Goidanich 60, 47521 Cesena, Italy. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁴ University of Bologna, Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Piazza Goidanich 60, 47521 Cesena, Italy. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁵ Horticultural Engineering, Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB), Max-Eyth-Allee 100, 14469 Potsdam, Germany; University of Bologna, Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Piazza Goidanich 60, 47521 Cesena, Italy. Electronic address: [email protected].

PMID: 38215501
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2023.138276

Abstract

House crickets are expected to play a significant role in the future food sector. Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) drying offers an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional drying methods. Pulsed electric fields (PEF) is a non-thermal process that facilitates conventional processes. EHD was applied to house crickets with and without PEF pretreatment, and the effect of PEF and EHD on the quality of the insects was evaluated. PEF pretreatment positively affected the oven drying at 60 °C by reducing its duration and thus decreasing the energy consumption by 14.22%. Moisture removal of EHD was not sufficient to replace oven drying, but when combined with oven drying, the overall energy consumption was reduced by >50%. PEF processing also increased the protein solubility (53.07% higher than the respective control) and antioxidant activity (24.05% higher than the respective control) of the oven-dried samples and reduced the histamine content of the EHD-dried samples (25.87% lower than the respective control).

Keywords: Acheta domesticus; Antioxidants; Biodiversity; Edible insects; Food quality; Insect processing; Non-thermal processing; Novel foods.

MeSH terms

Animals
Antioxidants
Desiccation / methods
Flour
Gryllidae*
Solubility

Substances

Antioxidants