Jitendra Paliwal

University of Manitoba | UMN · Department of Biosystems Engineering

One of the most widely researched topics in the food industry is bread quality analysis. Different techniques have been developed to assess the quality characteristics of bakery products. However, in the last few decades, the advancement in sensor and computational technologies has increased the use of computer vision to analyze food quality (e.g.,...

The consumption of plant-based proteins sourced from pulses is sustainable from the perspective of agriculture, environment, food security, and nutrition. Increased incorporation of high-quality pulse ingredients into foods such as pasta and baked goods is poised to produce refined food products to satisfy consumer demand. However, a better underst...

Industrial applications of pulses in various food products depend on pulse flour techno-functionality. To manipulate the techno-functional properties of yellow pea flour, the effects of flour particle size (small vs. large), extrusion temperature profile (120, 140 and 160 °C at the die) and air injection pressure (0, 150 and 300 kPa) during extrusi...

The storage environment of grains and oilseeds influences their physico-chemical properties that determine shelf-life and nutritional quality. In case of oilseeds, and more specifically canola, analytical chemistry methods are commonly used to determine their quality which is characterized by fatty acid value (FAV) of samples. As wet chemistry meth...

The metabolic actions of storage fungi and other microorganisms can cause spoilage and post-harvest losses in agricultural commodities, including flaxseed. These microbial contaminants are oxidized with hydroxyl radicals that are efficiently generated when ozone, hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ), and ultraviolet (UV) light react in an advanced oxidativ...

Manual harvesting of coconuts is a highly risky and skill-demanding operation, and the population of people involved in coconut tree climbing has been steadily decreasing. Hence, with the evolution of tree-climbing robots and robotic end-effectors, the development of autonomous coconut harvesters with the help of machine vision technologies is of g...

The growing demand for flaxseed as a source of healthy edible oil mandates the need for adopting novel strategies for preserving its quantity and quality. Mechanical damage during harvest and handling is one of the important threats that can adversely affect the quality and viability of flaxseeds. Currently, mechanical damage assessment in grains i...

Three-dimensional electromagnetic imaging can be used to monitor grain within metallic grain bins. Data acquisition requires multiple antennas surrounding the imaging space, which are used to transmit and receive the electromagnetic energy inside the bin. Due to their presence inside a metallic enclosure and due to very large mechanical forces thes...

This study focuses on the spectrochemical estimation of pH and titratable acidity (TA) of apples of Fuji variety at different stages of ripening. A novel approach is proposed for near-infrared (NIR) spectral analysis using hybrid machine learning methods that combine artificial neural networks (ANN) and metaheuristic algorithms. One hundred twenty...

Over the past decade, the fresh white mulberry (Morus alba L.) fruit has gained growing interest due to its superior health and nutritional characteristics. While white mulberry is consumed as fresh fruit in several countries, it is also popular in dried form as a healthy snack food. One of the main challenges that have prevented a wider consumer u...

Applications of deep-learning models in machine visions for crop/weed identification have remarkably upgraded the authenticity of precise weed management. However, compelling data are required to obtain the desired result from this highly data-driven operation. This study aims to curtail the effort needed to prepare very large image datasets by cre...

Bread is one of the most widely consumed foods in all regions of the world. Wheat flour being its principal ingredient is a cereal crop low in protein. The protein content of a whole grain of wheat is about 12–15% and is deficit in some essential amino acids, for example, lysine. Conversely, the protein and fibre contents of legume crops are betwee...

Sub-optimal storage of grains could deteriorate seed germination and plant viability. Recent research studies have established that laser biostimulation of seeds could be used as a safe and sustainable alternative to chemical treatment for improving crop germination and growth. Herein, the efficacy of this novel technique is evaluated to see if poo...

Rapid, non-destructive, and smart assessment of the maturity levels of fruit facilitates their harvesting and handling operations throughout the supply chain. Recent studies have introduced machine vision systems as a promising candidate for non-destructive evaluations of the ripeness levels of various agricultural and forest products. However, the...

Increasing consumer interest in pulse flour-based food formulations has highlighted the importance of flour characterization based on the type (variety) of pulse and milling methods. The objective of the present study was to compare the microstructure of four different pulse flours (chickpea, navy bean, green lentil, and yellow pea) obtained from t...

Nondestructive estimation of physicochemical properties, post-harvest physiology, and level of ripeness of fruits is essential to their automated harvesting, sorting, and handling. Recent research efforts have identified machine vision systems as a promising noninvasive nondestructive tool for exploring the relationship between physicochemical and...

Fluctuating environmental conditions during storage and transportation significantly influence the quality parameters. Considering over 80% of Canadian flax is exported, the industry can significantly benefit from non-destructive, rapid and reliable techniques for quality assessment at points of trade. This study was aimed at classification of flax...

The study evaluates the effect of pulse milling pre-treatments such as moisture conditioning and mechanical scouring on the compositional (moisture, protein, ash), functional (water-holding capacity), and physical (L*a*b* color, particle size distribution) properties of pulse flours. Two different types of pulses of pure cultivars, lentil (Lens cul...

Most puffed snacks in the market are made from refined cereal flours which allow greater expansion and better texture but are nutritionally inferior as they lack protein and dietary fiber. Whole barley and green lentil flours at several blending ratios were extruded as a function of temperature and moisture content to optimize the physical and micr...

Fusarium spp. and Ergot (Claviceps purpurea) are fungal pathogenic species that infect cereals worldwide, causing widespread economic losses. Fusarium-damaged kernels (FDKs) in wheat often contain harmful mycotoxins, while Ergot damage (ERG) is commonly characterized by the presence of alkaloids. Both FDK and ERG damage could cause health hazards t...

Digital Twins are a novel approach to systems engineering that can help control complex environments and interface humans with them. This is achieved by digitally mirroring a physical asset to provide historical data, monitoring, and predictions of future states. While there are a few applications of Digital Twins to agriculture, none exist for pos...

Chemical fertilizers are widely applied in agriculture to achieve high yield, enhance produce quality and build resistance to diseases; in our case the plant being tomato ( Solanum lycopersicum L. var. Royal). However, the acidity, size and taste of tomato fruits could change with excess nitrogen (N) application. The present study aims at the early...

Safe storage guidelines are essential to ensure that harvested commodities maintain the highest levels of quality during the varying environmental conditions through storage. These guidelines serve as effective tools for farmers to schedule appropriate post-harvest operations to prevent quality and quantity losses. The objective of this study was t...

In this research, the effect of different milling processes on pulse quality parameters has been investigated. Chickpea and navy bean seeds were milled using a laboratory-scale roller mill with four different streams: middling 1, middling 2 and 3, break, and straight grade (SG) flours and a Ferkar mill. The effect of mill type on particle size of c...

Plasmonic Au–Ag core–shell nanorods (Au@Ag NRs) have drawn great attention and are widely used in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) due to their distinctive local surface plasmon resonance peculiarities. To optimize the thickness of the Ag shell, the electromagnetic field distribution of Au@Ag NRs was firstly simulated using the Radiofrequen...

The emergence of flax as a nutritional superfood has brought to the forefront the challenges its producers face in the crop's post-harvest quality preservation. Mechanical damage during harvesting, handling, and transportation can severely impair flaxseed quality causing economic losses to producers and processors. Therefore, this study explored th...

The separation of clods and stones from tubers is one of the main challenges in potato harvesting. A novel image processing technique was used in the present research for the intelligent separation of potato tubers from clods and stones. Digital images of 600 samples including 400 potatoes, 100 clods, and 100 stones were individually captured using...

The objective of the study was to examine the variations in sarcoplasmic proteomes of bison longissimus lumborum (LL) and psoas major (PM) muscles during postmortem aging utilizing tandem mass tag isobaric labeling coupled with liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry for the categorization of muscles with muscle-specific inherent color stability. A...

Highlights The effect of laser biostimulation on wheat germination was explored using a single- and dual-wavelength (DW) laser. An 80 mW green-infrared DW laser treatment significantly enhanced several germination traits of wheat. The effect of a 100 mW single-wavelength red laser on wheat germination was non-significant. Abstract. Laser biostimul...

The study objective was to investigate the potential for using visible near-infrared (Vis-NIR) and short wave infrared (SWIR) spectroscopy to segregate bison portions based on muscle types and storage periods. In the Vis-NIR range, the principal component analysis showed clear segregation of the muscles based on storage at retail display d 4 wherea...

Digital Twins are a novel approach to systems engineering that can help control complex environments and interface humans with them. This is achieved by digitally mirroring a physical asset to provide historical data, monitoring, and predictions of future states. While there are a few applications of Digital Twins to agriculture, none exist for pos...

Measurements taken with a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) are often corrupted by the presence of 2-port networks such as cables or amplifiers between the VNA and device-under-test (DUT). These 2-port devices are an essential part of the signal path, but distort the desired measurements. These distortions are commonly removed by de-embedding the 2-por...

This study aimed to evaluate how extrusion cooking conditions and microwave heating play a role in enhancing physical and thermal properties of third-generation expanded cellular snacks made from yellow pea (YP) and red lentil (RL) flours for the first time. Increasing temperature and moisture content during extrusion resulted in darker, crunchier...

Background and objectives Pulse flours with different particle sizes are available for food production. The effect of varying milling techniques on quality characteristics of green lentil (GL) and yellow pea (YP) flours were investigated. Findings Using a Ferkar mill (one step vertical knife mill) caused wider distribution and bigger particle size...

With increasing consumer interest in healthy food formulations made from pulse flours, the research gap in characterizing them based on their pulse type and milling technique has come to limelight. To this end, the feasibility of using hyperspectral imaging in the visible near infrared (Vis-NIR) (400–1000 nm) and short wave infrared (SWIR) (1000–25...

The agriculture industry experiences severe economic losses each year due to infection of cereal crops with Fusarium, often leading to contamination with the secondary metabolite mycotoxin Deoxynivalenol (DON). Timely detection of Fusarium Damaged Kernels (FDK) could provide producers with an opportunity to develop and implement mitigation strategi...

The effect of processing temperature of hot air (HA) and superheated steam (SS) on functional and nutritional properties of yellow pea (Pisum sativum L.) kernels such as moisture content, hydration capacity, cooking characteristics, dehulling efficiency, microstructure, starch gelatinization, and protein content were studied. Three processing tempe...

A novel photonics-based multivariate pattern recognition technique is presented to segregate bison meat samples based on muscle type, ageing, and retail display period. The technique uses color attributes obtained from visible to near-infrared hyperspectral images (400–1000 nm) to predict the stability of bison muscle samples. Unsupervised and supe...

The efficacy of critical processing techniques, such as micronization, relies on the microstructural changes that take place in foods as they go through the various unit operations. X-ray microtomography or computed microtomograhy (μCT) can serve as a means to non-invasively and non-destructively characterize the complex structure of food matrices....

The present study focuses on the modelling of sorption characteristics of three varieties of soybeans (Akras R2, Lono R2, and Podaga R2). Three pre-treatments related to post-harvest conditions were tested on the soybean varieties: (a) freshly harvested soybeans (b) soybeans subjected to three drying and wetting cycles, and (c) soybeans subjected t...

The study aims were to compare lipid (malondialdehyde [MDA], 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal [HNE]) and protein (carbonyl content [CAR]) oxidation products between two bison muscles (longissimus lumborum [LL] and psoas major [PM]) at different aging and retail display time and determine their influence on muscle color stability. Regardless of the aging and ret...

With ever increasing world population, the demands on food safety and security are also expected to substantially increase over the next few decades. As agronomic practices, agricultural mechanization and plant breeding technologies have already been extensively exploited, novel techniques need to be explored and implemented to enhance crop product...

To achieve healthy and optimal yields of agricultural products, the principles of nutrition must be observed and appropriate fertilizers must be applied. Nutritional deficiencies or overabundance reduce the quality and yield of the products. Thus, their early detection prevents physiological disorders and associated diseases. Most research efforts...

Highlights Thin-layer drying of fresh and sun-dried buckwheat hay was studied at 30°C to 180°C and 12.5% to 60% relative humidities. Buckwheat hay drying occurred in the falling-rate period. Partial sun-drying of the hay could reduce drying time by 50%. The D eff values of fresh flowers, leaves, and stems ranged from 1.4×10 ⁻¹⁰ to 60×10 ⁻¹⁰ m ² /s....

Red lentils have a great potential to be used as healthy ingredients in puffed snacks due to their excellent nutritional qualities. However, these types of ingredients with relatively higher protein and fiber content when compared to ingredients that are typically used for the manufacture of puffed foods (e.g., refined cereal flours/starches) resul...

Comparative study on the type of mills/milling method on compositional, physical, and functional properties of different types of pulse flours.

Mechanical damage of seeds during harvesting and postharvest handling affects their germinability, which directly impacts crop yield. The feasibility of near-infrared (NIR) hyperspectral imaging technique was studied to predict the germinability of soybeans in a rapid and non-destructive way. Soybean seeds were artificially damaged using an impact...

Non-destructive determination of the different stages of fruit ripening has important advantages over traditional methods, such as selective robotic harvesting or adapting fertilization operations depending on the ripening stage. In this regard, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the non-destructive estimation of the ripening stage...

Objectives: The objective of the study was to investigate the potential of visible near-infrared (Vis-NIR) and short wave near-infrared (SWIR) spectroscopy for the segregation of bison muscles longissimus lumborum (color-stable) and psoas major (color-labile) based on muscle type and storage period. Materials and Methods: Ten longissimus lumborum...

Objectives: Fresh bison meat color deteriorates promptly under retail aerobic packaging conditions and oxidation products are originated; however, the role of different oxidation products in bison meat color stability has not yet been evaluated. A principal component analysis was used to examine the multivariate relationship between lipid (malondia...

Kraft lignin, a by-product of the paper industry, is well known for its binding properties, enabling its use in the production of pellets and briquettes from biomass. Different bio-plasticizers, by-products from the vegetable oil processing industry, could serve as plasticizers for biomass briquettes. The properties of three bio-plasticizers (glyce...

Purpose Red lentils are rich in proteins and fibres, and thus have great potential to be used as healthy ingredients in extruded snacks. However, at high protein and fibre concentrations, the level of expansion, microstructure uniformity and textural appeal are impaired. Using physical blowing agents during extrusion can overcome these quality issu...

Highlights Thermo-physical characterization of two types of Kraft lignin mixed with three bio-plasticizer. Crude glycerol showed the greater depression in melting point with its increasing proportion. The acidic lignin has more tensile strength and density than the alkaline lignin. Micro-pores of the lignin pellet were minimized by adding bio-plast...

The feasibility of using hyperspectral imaging in the combined wavelength regions comprising of visible to near infrared (VIS-NIR) (400−1000 nm) and short wave infrared (SWIR) (1000−2500 nm) was investigated for discriminating fresh bell peppers from those stored under refrigeration. In addition, the technique was used for early detection of chilli...

Objectives To compare lipid (malondialdehyde [MDA], 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal [HNE]) and protein (carbonyl content [CAR]) oxidation products and determine their influence on color stability in two bison muscles (longissimus lumborum [LL; color stable] and psoas major [PM; color labile]).Materials and MethodsA total of 10 longissimus lumborun (LL) and 10...

Most cereal grains and oilseeds are harvested at temperatures and/or moisture contents that are not suitable for long-term storage. Safely storing these grains for more than a few days requires conditioning or drying of the grain, which is usually done in storage bins with ambient or heated air. While critical for safe-storage, this process is curr...

Pathogenetic process monitoring and early detection of black spot disease caused by Alternaria alternata on pear fruit is still difficult, as it causes only minor changes in the appearance of the infected area during the early stages of infection. In this study, the potential of hyperspectral imaging (HSI) for monitoring the pathogenetic process an...

Superheated steam (SS) could be a more effective medium than hot air for drying slurry-like materials such as distillers spent grain. As large scale drying of spent grain slurry has many challenges related to handling and transportation, a multilayered/coated product drying approach, where wet material is dried over a relatively dry core, could pro...

Dry beans stored under sub-optimal conditions tend to develop hard-to-cook (HTC) defect, which extends the cooking time making them less palatable while reducing their nutritional value. The current methods of identifying HTC beans are time-consuming, destructive, and unreliable. A rapid non-destructive inspection technique for pre-screening beans...

Wheat is a major component of human diets across the world; hence, it is important to produce superior quality wheat for consumption. Hardness of wheat is one of its major quality and end-use determinants and it is desirable that this parameter could be rapidly and non-destructively measured along with its other functional attributes. Recent resear...

Pulses (grain legumes) are increasingly of interest to the food industry as product formulators and consumers seek to exploit their fiber‐rich and protein‐rich reputation in the development of nutritionally attractive new products, particularly in the bakery, gluten‐free, snack, pasta, and noodle categories. The processing of pulses into consistent...

Rapid and accurate measurement of polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity is important in the food industry as PPOs play a vital role in catalyzing enzymatic reactions. In this study, the possibility of using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) approach based on the reduction in SERS intensity of catechol in reaction medium for accurate determinatio...

The milling process is critical for the creation of value-added ingredients from pulses (grain legumes). In this article, we summarize the outcomes of a comprehensive review of the peer-reviewed literature on the milling of pulses. We identify what is already known in wheat milling that could be applied to pulses and point to research issues that s...

The spatially correlated microstructure of a material during any processing operation such as drying is very important as it influences the thermo-physical properties of the material. The heterogeneity of the distillers’ spent grain (DSG) pellets’ microstructure was evaluated using the X-ray micro-computed tomography. The effect of two drying metho...

Pulse Beat Fall/winter 2018 Magazine Article from Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers https://www.manitobapulse.ca/2019/01/developing-safe-storage-guidelines-for-manitoba-grown-soybeans/

Drying is an essential unit operation needed for safe storage and handling of the wet Distillers’ spent grain (DSG), a major by-product of the ethanol industry. For the simulation and modeling of the drying process, a detailed study on different pre-requisite parameters such as the thermo-physical properties and effective moisture diffusivity of th...

Powerful computational tools such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) have now replaced the classic method of numerical analysis of drying processes based on experimental models. Its capabilities include the adaptability to model different flow processes such as drying, with high spatial and temporal resolution facilitates and an in-depth underst...