Lu Zhang

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Verified

Lu verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Professor at Wageningen University & Research

3D food printing is an emerging technology to customize food designs and produce personalized foods. Food printing materials are diverse in rheological properties, which makes reliable extrusion-based 3D printing with constant printing parameters a challenge. Food printing often suffers from improper extrusion because of the varying elasticity of t...

Personalized foods with varying macronutrient compositions can be created by 3D food printing to fulfill the dietary requirements of individual consumers. In this work, we aim to quantitatively study the influence of varying multiple macronutrient concentrations on printability of food inks, by applying a systematic approach. Pea-based food inks co...

Starch cryogel is a strong, yet light and porous material with various applications. Neat starch cryogel often suffers from suboptimal mechanical properties. In this study, we investigate the effects of additives on the material properties of starch-based cryogels. Cellulose fibre and glycerol were selected as reinforcing agent and plasticizer, res...

Customized textures can be achieved using extrusion-based 3D food printing by varying composition and processing parameters, e.g., printing designs and post-processing conditions. This study aims to design textural properties of customized pea-based snacks by investigating the effects of composition and multiple processing parameters on fracture be...

Cryogels, porous materials obtained by freeze-drying, are used for various food and biomedical applications due to their interesting material properties. The fracture behaviour of 3D-printed cryogel designs as function of structural parameters such as the infill pattern and the number of outer perimeters, was evaluated by performing uniaxial compre...

Edible films made of cold-water fish gelatin suffer from suboptimal mechanical strength, limiting their use for sustainable packaging applications. In this study, the use of 3D-printable embedded patterns is investigated as reinforcement for gelatin cast films, aiming for cast films with customizable and enhanced mechanical strength. Various combin...

The ability to design complex infill patterns is unique for 3D food printing to modulate food texture on top of other factors such as processing parameters and structural porosity. This study systematically investigated the impact of infill designs on the flexural properties of 3D-printed snack bars made from pea ingredients. Three-point bending te...

High-moisture extrusion (HME) is widely used to produce meat analogues. During HME the plant-based materials experience thermal and mechanical stresses. It is complicated to separate their effects on the final products because these effects are interrelated. In this study we hypothesize that the intensity of the thermal treatment can explain a larg...

A desirable quality of plant-based meat analogues is to resemble the fibrous structure of cooked muscle meat. While texture analysis can characterize fibrous structures mechanically, assessment of visual fibrous structures remains subjective. Quantitative assessment of visual fibrous structures of meat analogues relies on expert knowledge , is reso...

3D food printing can customize food appearance, textures, and flavors to tailor to specific consumer needs. Current 3D food printing depends on trial-and-error optimization and experienced printer operators, which limits the adoption of the technology by general consumers. Digital image analysis can be applied to monitor the 3D printing process, qu...

High moisture extrusion (HME) is a common method to produce meat analogues. This process requires cooling of the product in the die and is associated with a high mechanical energy input. Here, we use high-temperature shear cell (HTSC) technology to better understand the importance of cooling while shearing for the formation of fibrous products upon...

Drones have shown to be useful aerial vehicles for unmanned transport missions such as food and medical supply delivery. This can be leveraged to deliver life-saving nutrition and medicine for people in emergency situations. However, commercial drones can generally only carry 10 % - 30 % of their own mass as payload, which limits the amount of food...

Dietary Fibre Concentrate (DFC) derived from vegetables side streams obtained during industrial processing can be exploited as a fibre-rich food ingredient. In this study, colloid milling was investigated as an environmentally-friendly physical method to improve the functional properties of asparagus DFC. Functional properties such as swelling capa...

Split-stream processing of asparagus waste stream is a novel approach to produce spray-dried powder and fibre. Asparagus ingredients processed by this method and a commercial asparagus powder were compared by evaluating their flavour profile in a soup formulation. Professional sensory panel and untargeted metabolomics approaches using GC-MS and LC-...

Spray drying is an effective method to encapsulate volatile compounds in a carrier matrix. The exact mechanism of volatile retention during spray drying is not well understood but could facilitate optimization of the drying process and contribute to better formulation of the encapsulation matrix. Therefore, a thin film dryer equipped with a photo-i...

Thermoreversible food materials are suitable for hot-extrusion 3D food printing (HE-3DFP) to customize food designs and enable on-demand food production. A challenge of HE-3DFP is to control the material phase transition such that it melts to allow flow and extrusion and rapidly solidifies afterwards to obtain stable printed structures. We here rep...

Açaí has a high content of anthocyanins and unsaturated fatty acids, and drying parameters can affect the stability of these compounds. This study used a conductive thin-film dryer at a laboratory scale to mimic the (vacuum) drum drying of açaí pulp. The effect of drying chamber pressure on the drying kinetics and powdered product characteristics w...

3D food printing is an emerging technology to structure foods from digital designs. A number of food inks are formulated to 3D/4D print foods with customized appearance. This mini review focuses on the recent developments in 3D printing of personalized foods with modified sensorial properties (e.g. texture and flavor). Varying sensory perceptions o...

The enzymatic conversion of cellulosic-rich waste streams of white asparagus into cellobiose and cello-oligosaccharides (COS) is proposed for producing a natural carrier agent. The enzyme cocktail ‘Celluclast’ was used to steer towards maximum conversion and minimum formation of monosaccharides to obtain an enzymatic hydrolysate with a high glass t...

Background The European Commission (EC) has launched the European Green Deal communication, setting out the path for a fundamental transformation of Europe. Key element in this policy is a fully sustainable food system outlined in the farm-to-fork strategy. Such strategy requires a systems approach in which all aspects related to the production and...

White asparagus (A. officinalis) is a popular vegetable consumed worldwide and its cooked spears are appreciated for their distinct flavour profile. During asparagus harvesting, around one-third of the total material is usually discarded. This significant waste stream partially consists of the stem bases which are cut off to produce spears with the...

Bakery products with interesting color, shape and texture have been created using 3D food printing. Current research focuses on the development of new formulations and the optimization of the printing and post-printing treatment processes, in order to obtain high-quality 3D-printed bakery products. Knowledge about food rheology is useful for the de...

In this study, the foamability of soy protein isolate (SPI), β-conglycinin (7S), soy protein selective hydrolysates (SPSH) and soy protein limited hydrolysate (SPLH) were tested at both acid and neutral conditions (pH 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 7.0). The properties of soy proteins (SPI and 7S) and hydrolysates (SPSH and SPLH) were analysed by particle size...

Material extrudability is a prerequisite for printing 3D structures with extrusion-based food printing. Food materials with different shear-thinning behaviors were printed to develop predictive models for extrudability. A dataset of 131 unique combinations of materials and printing parameters was collected. Image analysis was employed to rapidly qu...

Asparagus concentrate was spray-dried in different carrier formulations in which maltodextrin was partially replaced by cellulose-based carriers, i.e. asparagus fibre, citrus fibre or microcrystalline cellulose. This replacement was limited to a maximum level of 3 % w/w for asparagus and citrus fibres, and 10 % w/w for microcrystalline cellulose, d...

Traditional hot air drying of asparagus is known to lead to a powder with a poor aroma profile. We here concentrated asparagus juice into asparagus concentrate (21.7% w/w) and spray-dried it with maltodextrin DE12 as carrier agent to improve the volatile profiles of asparagus powder and to valorise fresh asparagus sidestreams. We performed headspac...

Chickpea protein-enriched ingredients were prepared by combining dry milling, air classification, and optionally solid-state fermentation. The fermentation was carried out with the autochthonous LAB strain Pediococcus acidilactici to reduce the level of antinutritional factors. A protein-enriched chickpea fraction and its sourdough were used to par...

Microalgal biomass is a promising functional ingredient for innovative food products due to its potential health benefits given by its composition (protein, minerals, vitamins, pigments, fatty acids, sterol and antioxidants). However, in practice, the level of incorporation of microalgae in many products is limited due to among others the strong gr...

Oleosomes are oil storage structures in seeds, consisting of triglycerides surrounded by a protein-phospholipid mixed monolayer. They can be extracted aqueously together with other seed components such as proteins and soluble fibers. The co-extracted biomolecules can affect the properties of the extracts. Nevertheless, it is possible to control the...

Aqueous dispersions of sodium caseinate-maltodextrin (NaCas-MD) conjugates were prepared by heating to study the impact of Maillard reaction on protein functionality. Conjugation with MD affected rheological properties, colour and microstructure of NaCas-MD dispersions. Gelation temperature of NaCas-MD dispersions increased by 7 ○C after conjugatio...

Asparagus juice concentrate was spray-dried using different carrierformulations. Maltodextrin was partially replaced by cellulose-based carriers,i.e. asparagus fibre, citrus fibre or microcrystalline cellulose. The maximumlevel of replacement was found to be 3 % w/w for asparagus/citrus fibre and10 % w/w for microcrystalline cellulose, due to fibre...

The content of this poster has been published as a research paper. You could access it via: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339126534_Impact_of_conjugation_with_maltodextrin_on_rheological_properties_of_sodium_caseinate Thank you very much for your interest in this research!

Vegetables are processed into dried powders to prolong their shelf-life and to be applied as ingredient. However, the vegetable powders currently available in the market often have a poor flavour profile after drying. Therefore, this review aims to illustrate recent advances and challenges in the development of high-quality vegetable powders. Two m...

Arabinoxylans- (AX-) enriched fractions were separated from wheat bran by dry fractionation and utilized for fiber fortification in bread. The obtained AX-enriched fractions (AXF) contained 39.2–55.8% arabinoxylans (dry basis). To produce bread with various AX-fortification levels, wheat flour was partially replaced with AXF in the recipe, i.e., 2%...

Appendix A. Supplementary results A.1. Literature review Table A1 lists previous studies on the AX-fortified bread. The source of AX are mainly wheat bran or purified AX. The large variation in experimental conditions makes comparisons among different studies difficult. Generally, the supplementation of wheat flour with bran and AX-rich fractions...

The demand for foods with specific functionality and nutrition is increasing. This study investigated the feasibility of 3D-printing to manufacture cereal-based food structures containing probiotics. Dough formulations with different water content, wheat flour type and amount of calcium caseinate were evaluated in terms of print-ability during fuse...

Appendix Supplementary results A. 1. 3D printing test of different dough formulations A. 2. Estimation of the surface-to-volume ratio A. 3. Stress sweep tests A. 4. Physicochemical properties of the baked structures

The massive consumption of bread on a daily base makes it potential vehicle to deliver health-promoting ingredients such as probiotic bacteria and prebiotics at significant levels to the human diet. However, the inactivation of these active compounds during baking is the biggest challenge when producing such products. The addition of actives such a...

Active ingredients can be supplemented into a bakery product to produce functional food. However, the preservation of the functionality of these active ingredients during baking remains a challenge for food industry. A deeper understanding of the underlying interactions between functionality and baking is highly desired for developing innovative fu...

Live probiotics can be supplemented to bread as functional ingredients. The viability of probiotics in bread needs to be sufficient to exert a beneficial effect on human health. To maximize the viability, a kinetic study on the inactivation of probiotics during baking was carried out. The thermal inactivation of Lactobacillus plantarum P8 during br...

A continuous challenge for spray drying operations is the optimal control of product quality despite the complex process removal of water and particle formation. In general, high product functionality (e.g. in terms of reconstitution behavior, high enzyme activity or appropriate living probiotic bacteria) is key to the success of spray-dried powder...

The effect of encapsulation on the survival of Lactobacillus plantarum during isothermal heating and bread baking was investigated. Four encapsulating materials were evaluated, i.e., reconstituted skim milk (RSM), gum arabic (GA), maltodextrin (MD) and inulin. Freeze dried bacteria survived better in GA and RSM matrices during isothermal heating at...

Many quality attributes of food products are influenced by the water status and the microstructure. Low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods are applied to non-destructively monitor the water status and structure of food. The aim of this study is to investigate the water status and distribution inside...

Miniature bread baking is presented as an economical and timesaving laboratory approach to study the baking process in the present work. Results indicate that the miniature bread baking is essentially analogical to the baking process of regular-sized bread: quality-related properties of miniature breads, such as crumb formation, crust thickness, cr...

Lactic acid bacteria are usually applied in sourdough fermentation to make bread with improved quality. Some lactic acid bacteria are probiotics that confer health benefits on the consumer when administered in adequate amounts. Given the high consumption of bread worldwide, bread is a potential vehicle of probiotic bacteria. However, it is challeng...

Heat-induced inactivation of viable cells restricts a wide range of application of spray drying in producing dried lactic acid bacteria (LAB) products. In the present study, an effective method to enhance the stability of LAB under heat stress has been identified. This was done by enhancing the heat stability of skim milk as the carrier. Here, skim...

China, as one of the world's four greatest ancient civilizations, is famous for its early technological advances in ancient times. The preparation and baking of wheat-based food represents the foundation of human cooking culture coupled with technological development. Bakery products in China can be divided into two types: staple foods and pastries...

An economical and time-saving laboratory approach to study bread baking is described.

Probiotic has received increasing attention and been widely investigated in the drying field due to the huge commercial value. Reconstituted skim milk (RSM) has been found to be a very effective protectant wall material for micro-encapsulating probiotics in many production processes, in particular spray drying. It’s worth noting that RSM is a Calci...

Agar solution has been used in industry as a "background" liquid material for the production of instant Edible Bird's Nest products. In this work, the rheological properties of agar solution were studied, especially the effect of shear rate, agar concentration and temperature, respectively, on the apparent viscosity of the agar solution. A HAAKE ro...