Pavagadhi Shruti, Swarup Sanjay
Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117558, Singapore.
Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117456, Singapore.
Metabolites. 2020 May 15;10(5):197. doi: 10.3390/metabo10050197.
Plant-based diets (PBDs) are associated with environmental benefits, human health promotion and animal welfare. There is a worldwide shift towards PBDs, evident from the increased global demand for fresh plant-based products (PBPs). Such shifts in dietary preferences accompanied by evolving food palates, create opportunities to leverage technological advancements and strict quality controls in developing PBPs that can drive consumer acceptance. Flavor, color and texture are important sensory attributes of a food product and, have the largest influence on consumer appeal and acceptance. Among these, flavor is considered the most dominating quality attribute that significantly affects overall eating experience. Current state-of-art technologies rely on physicochemical estimations and sensory-based tests to assess flavor-related attributes in fresh PBPs. However, these methodologies often do not provide any indication about the metabolic features associated with unique flavor profiles and, consequently, can be used in a limited way to define the quality attributes of PBPs. To this end, a systematic understanding of metabolites that contribute to the flavor profiles of PBPs is warranted to complement the existing methodologies. This review will discuss the use of metabolomics for evaluating flavor-associated metabolites in fresh PBPs at post-harvest stage, alongside its applications for quality assessment and grading. We will summarize the current research in this area, discuss technical challenges and considerations pertaining to sampling and analytical techniques, as well as s provide future perspectives and directions for government organizations, industries and other stakeholders associated with the quality assessment of fresh PBPs.
植物性饮食（PBDs）与环境效益、促进人类健康及动物福利相关。全球正朝着植物性饮食转变，这从全球对新鲜植物性产品（PBPs）需求的增加中可见一斑。这种饮食偏好的转变伴随着不断变化的食物口味，为利用技术进步和严格质量控制来开发能推动消费者接受度的植物性产品创造了机会。风味、颜色和质地是食品的重要感官属性，对消费者的吸引力和接受度影响最大。其中，风味被认为是最主要的质量属性，对整体饮食体验有显著影响。当前的先进技术依靠物理化学估计和基于感官的测试来评估新鲜植物性产品中与风味相关的属性。然而，这些方法往往无法提供与独特风味特征相关的代谢特征的任何信息，因此，在定义植物性产品的质量属性方面的应用有限。为此，有必要系统地了解有助于植物性产品风味特征的代谢物，以补充现有方法。本综述将讨论代谢组学在收获后阶段评估新鲜植物性产品中与风味相关的代谢物的应用，以及其在质量评估和分级方面的应用。我们将总结该领域的当前研究，讨论与采样和分析技术相关的技术挑战和注意事项，并为与新鲜植物性产品质量评估相关的政府组织、行业和其他利益相关者提供未来的观点和方向。
