Alain Le-Bail

• PhD
• Professor at Oniris

Purpose There are increasing concerns regarding detrimental health effects of added sugar in food and drink products. Non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS) and sweetness enhancers (SE) are seen as viable alternatives. Much work has been done on health and safety of NNS&SE when consumed in place of sugar, but very little on their sustainability. This work...

This study investigated the effects of microwave-assisted freezing on the quality attributes of button mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus). Four levels of microwave power (0, 10, 20, 30%) were applied to the mushroom samples during freezing. The quality attributes of the frozen and thawed mushrooms were then evaluated. The results suggested that higher m...

The emerging world of 3D food printing is reviewed. Its role in food manufacturing, including benefits and impacts, underemphasized gastrophysical aspects, and limitations are discussed. Foods can be digitally designed and physically prepared using the layer-by-layer deposition of food components, unleashing opportunities to deliver nutritionally p...

Annually, a substantial volume of food waste is being released into the environment. Restaurant food waste (RFW) valorization using microwave-assisted hydrolysis (MAH) is a sustainable approach to produce fermentable sugars. However, RFW is composed of different foodstuffs with different physicochemical, nutritional, and degradation rates. This stu...

The present article responds to the food engineering community’s growing interest in an emerging and lauded approach to food preservation, popularised by its developers as ‘isochoric freezing’. A strong campaign in the scientific literature and mass media has recently promoted this technique as a universal replacement for traditional food freezing...

3D printing of food has great potential for applications such as the design of customised food or the creation of innovative textures. However, printed products often do not retain their structure due to the composition of the material, especially in the case of cereal products. Cooking such products with a nozzle could be an alternative to meet th...

Three-dimensional food printing (3DFP) can produce foods with tailored nutritional content, complex shapes and textures. This technology requires food formulations (food inks) with specific rheological properties. Pickering emulsions (PE) have gained attention due to their long-term stability and desirable printable properties, making them an excel...

Three‐dimensional food printing (3DFP) can produce foods with tailored nutritional content, complex shapes and textures. This technology requires food formulations (food inks) with specific rheological properties. Pickering emulsions (PE) have gained attention due to their long‐term stability and desirable printable properties, making them an excel...

Background Sweeteners and sweetness enhancers (S&SE) are used to replace energy yielding sugars and maintain sweet taste in a wide range of products, but controversy exists about their effects on appetite and endocrine responses in reduced or no added sugar solid foods. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the acute (1 day) and repeated (tw...

Because bread consumption significantly contributes to salt intake and health risk, the acceptance of low‐salt reformulations has mainly been examined from an organoleptic perspective. However, the influence of cultural patterns has largely been neglected; working in the French context, our study aimed to fill this gap by considering the conflicts...

Purpose There is increasing concern about the detrimental health effects of added sugar in food and drink products. Sweeteners are seen as a viable alternative. Much work has been done on health and safety of using sweeteners as a replacement for added sugar, but very little on their sustainability. This work aims to bridge that gap with a life cyc...

Malting produces techno-functional cereal ingredients but it is considered a time-consuming process. The assistance of ultrasound (US) appears to enhance the drying step of the green malts. In this sense, partially germinated wheat and barley were convectively dried with and without US. The obtained malts were analyzed regarding amylolytic capacity...

A literature review of the freezing point expressions shows the availability of various equations to estimate the freezing rate. The expression of the cooling rate during freezing is used to estimate the freezing rate. Cylinders of bread dough were frozen in a tunnel with three different freezing conditions. Gassing power of the yeasted dough (sacc...

The black truffle T Melanosporum has a unique odor consisting of a complex mixture of VOCs resulting from the catabolism of amino and fatty acids, and activity of the microbiome colonizing truffles. Among all these metabolites only the odorous volatolome can explain the perceived aroma of the truffle. Besides, truffles have an optimal odor just aft...

The black truffle T. Melanosporum is highly sought after for its unique odor consisting of a complex mixture of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) resulting from the catabolism of amino acids, fatty acids and activity of the microbiome colonizing the truffle fruiting bodies. Among all these volatile metabolites, only the odorous volatolome and its q...

La truffe noire T Melanosporum a un arôme unique constitué par un mélange complexe de COVs issus du catabolisme des acides aminés, acides gras et de l'activité du microbiome colonisant les truffes. Parmi tous ces COVs seul le volatolome odorant peut expliquer l'arôme perçu de la truffe. Si l’odeur des truffes est optimale juste après la récolte, el...

In the food industry, equipment surfaces with microbial entities can easily contaminate the food being processed, thereby leading to significant economic problems and even public health issues. To ensure the hygiene of materials in contact with food, cleaning processes are commonly implemented. Conventional strategies used for biofilm removal are e...

Malt flour represents a potential clean label bread improver, but a high enzymatic activity can lead to some bread defects. Thus, this study was focused on applying different thermal treatments (10 and 40 min; 70–90 °C) to green barley malt in order to promote a partial enzyme inactivation. The addition of 1.5 g of thermally treated malt (TTM) per...

Wheat malt has been widely used in food industry as an important source of endogenous enzymes, such as amylases. However, malting is a time-consuming process. Thus, this work proposed pulsed electric field (PEF) application to enhance wheat hydration, germination and amylase expression. Two-step hydration of Hendrix wheat variety was studied. PEF t...

Replacing added sugar with non-nutritive sweeteners and sweetness enhancers is of increasing interest due to the negative health effects of excess sugar consumption. Much has been done to understand health and safety of such sweetening additives, but little on their sustainability. This study, part of the Horizon 2020 SWEET project, presents result...

Cereal bran possesses enzymes and antinutrients which should be reduced for their usability as a food ingredient high in dietary fiber, minerals, and antioxidants. This study investigated the influence of high-intensity ultrasound on enzymatic and antioxidant activities, phytic acid content (PA), and functional and rheological properties of oat and...

https://iifiir.org/en/news/is-an-isochoric-freezing-revolution-really-in-the-offing ========================================================== A refrigeration technique named 'isochoric freezing', previously tested for preserving biomaterials, has recently been publicised worldwide and claimed to be a superior alternative to the classic freezing th...

In most soft wheat products such as cakes, baking powder (BP) plays an important role in achieving the desired product volume through batter aeration by the release of CO2 during baking. However, the optimization of a blend of constituents in BP is minimally documented, especially the selection of acids, which is often supported by the suppliers ba...

Full article is available for free download by 5 May 2023 from: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1gldVxKH28Bm8

This study investigated the impacts of the complete substitution of sucrose by maltitol and/or sorbitol on the dough-crumb transition in biscuits. To this end, the phenomena of starch gelatinization/melting were studied at different moisture contents, both in the biscuit dough and model systems, by X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential scanning cal...

Oat and barley bran are high in dietary fiber (β-glucans), minerals, and antioxidants, have high activity of enzymes, but possess also antinutrients. This study aimed to investigate the influence of high-intensity ultrasound on enzyme and antioxidant activities, phytic acid content, as well as functional and rheological properties of oat and barley...

Purpose There is an increasing interest in the use of non-nutritive sweeteners to replace added sugar in food and beverage products for reasons of improving consumer health. Much work has been done to understand safety of sweeteners, but very little on sustainability. To address that gap, this study presents the results of a life cycle assessment (...

Traditional food options have experienced a constant transformation in consumers’ eating habits over the last 10 years. Flatbreads are one of the products going through this transition. In fact, they have successfully made the shift from rural to modern Civilization because of their versatility. They can be manufactured from grains other than wheat...

An in-depth survey was conducted by collecting information from web sources, supplemented by interviews with experts and/or bakers, to identify all the flat breads (FBs) produced in the nine Mediterranean countries involved in the FlatBreadMine Project (Croatia, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta and Spain), and to have an insight...

This paper presents the impact of overhead pressure (constant pressure and pressure modulation) during mixing on important mixing parameters (maximal power level and the corresponding time (tPEAK)), dough properties after mixing and fermentation (dough voidage and growth rate), and bread characteristics (such as specific volume, void fraction, and...

Three-dimensional (3D) food printing is a futuristic technology that consists of additive manufacturing to create personalized and creative food products. 3D printing can deliver a product that adapts to specific consumption, texture, taste, cost, practicality, and nutrition. Extrusion-type 3D printing is the most common for the production of print...

The increased awareness of consumers regarding unfamiliar labels speeded up the ongoing clean label trend. As baking products are widely consumed worldwide, the reduction of non-natural baking aids and improvers is of great interest for consumer’s health but also representing a big challenge for food industries. Thus, this paper aims at describing...

Three-dimensional (3D) food printing is a futuristic technology that consists of additive manufacturing to create personalized and creative food products. 3D printing can deliver a product that adapts to specific consumption, texture, taste, cost, practicality, and nutrition. Extrusion-type 3D printing is the most common for the production of print...

Flatbreads are increasingly attracting consumers, driving them to new eating ways. To define and evaluate the nutritional intake provided by these products, flatbreads market of seven Mediterranean countries (France, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Malta, and Lebanon) were considered. Flatbreads were available in both traditional and gluten-free ver...

Food freezing is one of the most efficient mean to extend the shelf life of food. Even though blast air freezing is the most popular technology in the food industry, several alternative technologies have been investigated to attempt to reduce the freeze damage, which is most of the time related to the size of ice crystals. This chapter presents an...

This paper presents a study on the effect of Jerusalem artichoke flour addition on wheat dough physical (freezable water content) and mechanical (small strain frequency tests) properties. Degassed bread crumb was obtained by using a miniature baking system consisted of two Peltier elements and the evolution of hardness during storage was evaluated...

Overconsumption of sugars in diets is associated with many health problems, including dental diseases, diabetes and obesity. However, removing sugar from products such as biscuits is still a challenge for manufacturers and has been limited in Europe since the evolution of the EU regulation in January 2018, allowing only polyols and non-sweetening b...

The aim of the present study was to evaluate Raman spectroscopy in determining changes that occur in the structure of gluten proteins induced during bread dough mixing. Raman spectra were measured directly within the dough. Three particular phases of mixing were studied: under-mixing, optimum mixing and over-mixing. A thiol blocking reagent, Tris(2...

The use of amyloglucosidase (AMG) in baked goods was studied to develop no added sugar products, by investigating the impact of baking process stages and ingredients on AMG glucose production. Their application in a simplified model dough was studied first. Glucose content was monitored during the various stages of the process (mixing, resting at 3...

This study concerns the mixing under gas pressure of a cake batter free from baking powder. Mixing the batter under pressure has been considered as an alternative to baking powder with the aim of forcing the aeration of the batter and possibly the solubilization of gas in the liquid phase of the batter. A prototype mixer was used with air, CO2 and...

Microwave heating (MW) is the most important method in bread baking owing to its efficiency in terms of space, speed, and ability to produce crustless bread. However, MW has some unfavorable effects on breadcrumb and staling. Additives are a promising solution to reduce the negative impacts of MW. In this review, the impact of MW baking on bread ch...

This paper presents a study on the effect of storage conditions on wheat flour quality for 30 months. Such study may be of interest for research projects conducted over long periods. Wheat flours were stored in two types of packaging (permeable paper bags and watertight containers) and at two temperatures (ambient temperature and a cold storage roo...

The aim of this research is to contribute to a better understanding the destructuration of three native starches and a wheat flour in mixtures of water and choline chloride. Model systems have thus been defined to allow a better approach to hydrothermic transformations related to the interactions between choline chloride and starch. We have observe...

In this study, the impacts of different heating rates (HRs) from 6 to 40°C/min were investigated in terms of the ¹H proton water mobility, starch microstructure, texture, soluble amylose (AM), amylopectin (AP) retrogradation and AM crystallization during staling. A degassed breadcrumb baked in a miniaturized baking system was used to ensure better...

Starch gelatinization and water penetration into starch granules were studied in the presence of sucrose by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X‐Ray Diffraction (XRD). The water content of the samples ranged from 70% to 20% (w/w wsb) and two modes of preparation were used: All‐In‐One (AIO) and Sucrose‐Syrup mixed with Flour (SS + F). The a...

Starch and starchy products can be modified by different technologies in order to improve its properties and expand the applications. Among the different technologies, thermal techniques are interesting as no chemical pollution is involved and are generally recognized as simple and safe. In this opinion paper, we discuss about selected thermal tech...

This work evaluated the impact of PEF on the structure, properties, and functionality of wheat and cassava starches focusing on 3D printing application. Aqueous starch suspensions were PEF-treated using three different combinations of field strength and total specific energy input (T1:15 kV/cm;25 kJ/kg; T2:25 kV/cm;25 kJ/kg; and T3:25 kV/cm;50 kJ/k...

An original device dedicated to additive manufacturing was developed to pre-bake cake batter. Its originality lies in the fact that pre-baking is ensured by ohmic heating implemented in a rectangular channel equipped with two parallel electrodes. Experiments and numerical studies were carried out and benchmarked. The rheological properties of the c...

This work evaluated for the first time the effect of dual modification of cassava starch by using ozone (O3) and dry heating treatment (DHT). The dual modification was capable to promote fissures on the surface of the starch granule (DHT+O3), affected the starch amorphous domains, presented greater degree of starch oxidation (DHT+O3) and different...

The futuristic technology of three-dimensional (3D) printing is an additive manufacturing that allows obtaining creative and personalized food products. In this context, the study of food formulations (named as “inks”) to be processed through 3D printing is necessary. This work investigated the use of dry heating treatment (DHT), a simple and safe...

This paper presents a novel system able to determine in touchless conditions some rheological properties of bread dough, by application of a force driven by a short air-jet impulse, and the concomitant surface displacement measurement by a laser interferometer. In this work, it is shown that in the FPD (Food Puff Device) is based on the displacemen...

1. Product context - Food powders - Food powders agglomeration 2. Scientific contexts - Grains elaboration - Growth and drying - Elaboration mechanisms - Reactive food powders 3. Materials and Methods - Raw materials - Agglomeration processes - Product characterization 4. Results - Agglomeration yields - Agglomerates characterization 5. Conclusion

Starch is a versatile and a widely used ingredient, with applications in many industries including adhesive and binding, paper making, corrugating, construction, paints and coatings, chemical, pharmaceutical, textiles, oilfield, food and feed. However, native starches present limited applications, which impairs their industrial use. Consequently, s...

Among innovative freezing processes, electromagnetic wave assistance during freezing has received great attention in recent years. The literature provides interesting studies indicating that smaller ice crystals may be obtained during freezing with the assistance of microwaves. In the companion paper, we designed a laboratory scale prototype to per...

The aim of this study was to develop an innovative process dedicated to enhancing the quality of frozen food using microwaves. A microwave assisted freezing device was designed at the laboratory scale to perform experiments in controlled conditions. Small samples of methylcellulose gels were frozen using nitrogen gas in a TE10 waveguide, where micr...

Three-dimensional (3D) food printing is the technology of the future, capable of presenting creative, unique and intricate food items in an attractive format. This technology brought the challenge of developing new ingredients and formulations, named food inks, to food printing application. In this way, the objective of this work was promote wheat...

3D printing aims at building a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design model. More recently, (4D)-printing has appeared; it adds to (3D)-printing, a transformation of the printed material over time. (3D)-printing applied to foods has a unique potential to create geometric complex structures, enabling mass production while having econo...

Checking is a recurring problem in the dry cereal products industry which involves hydromechanical and thermomechanical phenomena. This study focuses on the hydromechanical problem at constant temperature. The objective is to develop a model giving access to stress and the resulting strain fields in a rusk undergoing moisture equilibration during a...

The possibility of using near infrared hyperspectral imaging spectroscopy to quantify the water content in commercial biscuits was investigated. Principal component analysis was successfully applied to hyperspectral images of commercial biscuits to monitor their water contents. Variables were selected and water contents quantified using analysis of...

This chapter presents an overview of the different methods used to produce bake-off products, known collectively as bake-off technology (BOT). The bake-off concept involves the manufacture of semifinished products in factories, which are then finished in baking stations situated at the point of retail. Freezing permits the extension of the shelf li...

The most useful properties of food, i.e. the ones that are detected through look, touch and taste, are a manifestation of the food’s structure. Studies about how this structure develops or can be manipulated during food production and processing are a vital part of research in food science. This book provides the status of research on food structur...

The 3D-printing technology has interesting applications in the food sector, although it generated new challenges, such as the development of news ingredients and formulations to improve the technique. Ozone (O3) and dry heating treatment (DHT) are “green” methods of starch modification, being able to enhance the native product characteristics. Howe...

The starch modification is an alternative extensively applied in order to overcome the limitations of native starches. These processes expand starch industrial applications. Although chemically modified starches are widely available for industrial purposes, chemical methods generate a large volume of effluents to be treated and their products prese...

3D printing is a technology capable of presenting creative, unique and intricate items in an attractive format, with specific compositions. However, novel ingredients must be developed to satisfy this new technological requirement. This work proposes dry heating treatment (DHT), a simple physical technique, as a method for modifying cassava starch,...

Starch is an important ingredient in several industries. However, native starches do not present some desired properties, limiting their applications. To overcome this issue, native starches are modified using distinct technologies. In our research group, different processes (ozonation, ultrasonication, gamma-irradiation and dry heating treatment –...

This study considered the effect of low energy microwave assisted freezing (MAF) on freezing time and quality attributes (microstructure, texture, drip loss and colour) of apple and potato. MAF of apples and potatoes was performed by applying constant microwave (MW) power (167W/kg) and pulsed MW power (500 and 667W/kg with 10s pulse width and 20s p...

Ozone is an interesting alternative for modifying starch, as it is considered an emerging and environmentally friendly technology. New applications for food ingredients are receiving attention, such as 3D printing. Consequently, the impact of emerging technologies on new applications must be understood. In this work, cassava starch was modified by...

One of the best ways to increase the fiber content in the diet is supplementing wheat bran in bread. Wheat bran is known to affect the cellular structure of the dough, resulting in lower final bread volume. The present study was focused on analyzing the effect of wheat bran in throughout the bread making process; the results were compared with the...

The fragility of biscuits yields checking (cracks) and eventually breakage, which originated mainly from heterogeneity in water distribution in the thickness dimension (surface vs centre) and also to the plan dimension (edge vs centre) of the product. The objective of the BRICE project is to study the impact of the distribution of water on the occu...

In this study, benchmarking of methods used for assessing freeze damage in potatoes was carried out. Initially, the samples were frozen by subjecting them to three different temperatures (i.e. at –18 °C, − 30 °C, and at −74 °C). Then, different analytical techniques comprising of focused methods (i.e. cryo-Scanning elctron microscopy-cryo-SEM, conf...

The structure of cereals and snack foods during processing is developed according to various changes at different levels of matter organization. These changes can be captured by different methods, among which quantitative imaging has been increasingly popular. In addition, state diagrams that represent the variations of material properties with the...

Although freezing is known as the best method of food preservation, physical and chemical changes that occur to the cellular structure during processing and storage may damage the quality of food products. Most freeze damages are associated with ice crystal morphology (size, number, shape and distribution) which in turn affects the microstructure o...

This paper is a study of checking and breakage of dry cereal products like crackers. The products studied were produced on an industrial line; almost no cracks were observed for Plain crackers (PCs), whereas 100% of the crackers with topping (CTs) exhibited cracks. Environmental SEM images suggested that miniature cracks initiated around the pierci...

Freezing is an efficient and widely used method of food preservation. However, it can also cause irreversible damages at cellular level which in turn degrade the overall quality of the frozen food products. Therefore, qualitative and quantitative methods and technologies that will be able to evaluate with accuracy the freeze damage are of great imp...

Numerous scientific studies have shown that overconsumption of salt can be harmful and promotes the development of cardiovascular diseases. For this reason, many international organizations and government agencies aim to reduce overall salt consumption from food. Recent exploratory work has shown that vitamin B4 can play the role of salt substitute...

Pour améliorer la qualité de congélation d’un gel modèle, une assistance micro-ondes a été utilisée pour perturber le changement d’état de l’eau dans le but de former de plus petits cristaux de glace. Un prototype à l’échelle laboratoire a été fabriqué pour contrôler au mieux les conditions opératoires. La qualité de congélation a été déterminée pa...

The aim of this research was to compare the effects of electrostatic freezing (ESF) and air blast freezing on quality characteristics of meat after thawing. The effects of four voltages and three freezing temperatures on the quality of fresh lamb such as drip loss after thawing, color, texture, and microstructure were investigated. The results show...

Food freezing is a complex process, involving heat transfer and a series of physical and chemical changes which may profoundly affect the product quality. Several novel freezing methods have been developed in recent times taking into account the energy saving and/or quality preservation to a greater extent upon thawing. Electro-freezing technique,...