Usefulness of Rowanberry for Improving the Nutritional Value of Buckwheat Flour Extrudates

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Usefulness of Rowanberry for Nutrition Value of Buckwheat 2
Flour Extrudates is a very well executed project. Gluten-free foods have become very common due to hypersensitive issues. But, even the general population tend towards Gluten-free foods. Gluten is a relevant dietary product. The study includes:

Significance of Gluten with addition of Rowanberry for nutrition.

Phenolic content, characterization

Significance of antioxidant levels by FRAP assay

These are very relevant studies. We enjoyed reading.

I do have a request, do we know the chemical constituents and their structures of Rowanberry extract.? If so, the authors can add those chemical structures. This will attract the food chemistry, medicinal chemistry scientists to continue or identify the medicinal value of Rowanberry extract.

Thanks.

 

Author Response

Comments 1: I do have a request, do we know the chemical constituents and their structures of Rowanberry extract.? If so, the authors can add those chemical structures. This will attract the food chemistry, medicinal chemistry scientists to continue or identify the medicinal value of Rowanberry extract.

Response 1: Thank you for pointing this out. The chemical constituents of rowanberry extract and their structures were added to the introduction. 
(Page 2-3, paragraph 4, line 87-97)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for submitting the manuscript "Usefulness of Rowanberry for Nutritional Value of Buckwheat Flour Extrudates" to Applied Science. The manuscript is interesting, but the authors need to make extensive corrections in order for it to be considered for publication.

American and British English are present in the text. This is not a correct standard and therefore the text needs to be revised.

Introduction
- Line#30: foodder and foodd. Is this correct?
- Line#35: this statement that the simple fact of extruding the food can be something that transforms it into a functional food is erroneous because it also depends on the raw material (if the authors are talking about protein digestibility). It could indeed be related to the degree of resistant starch. Overall, this statement is superficial and not very explanatory.
- Overall, the authors need to go back to the concepts and rewrite the introduction because some expressions are being incorrectly used as healthy foods from extrusion (is all extruded food healthy? even the so-called ultra-processed ones?).

Material and Methods
- Line#173: it seems to me that this method was not initially described by this author.

Results
- The figures need to be improved. This yellow background needs to be removed and the captions and texts need to be legible. However, I wonder if these results should be in this type of graph (dispersion) and not in bars, since they are not dispersion, since theoretically the samples fill the results within zero up to the value on the y-axis.
- What is the explanation for the large variation between the results of a* and b* in each treatment, while the results obtained in L* seem much less variable? This needs to be explained. The same explanation needs to be given for hardness.
- No sensory analysis was performed. I believe that this could be added as a limitation of the work and even how this analysis could strengthen some statements about the developed product.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

American and British English are present in the text. This is not a correct standard and therefore the text needs to be revised.

Author Response

Comments 1: Line#30: foodder and foodd. Is this correct?

Response 1: It has been corrected as “feed”.
(page 1, paragraph 1, line 30)

Comments 2: Line#35: this statement that the simple fact of extruding the food can be something that transforms it into a functional food is erroneous because it also depends on the raw material (if the authors are talking about protein digestibility). It could indeed be related to the degree of resistant starch. Overall, this statement is superficial and not very explanatory.
- Overall, the authors need to go back to the concepts and rewrite the introduction because some expressions are being incorrectly used as healthy foods from extrusion (is all extruded food healthy? even the so-called ultra-processed ones?)

Response 2: The relevant section was rewritten in the introduction. 
In addition, the sentence below has been removed.
“It is believed that products obtained as a result of extrusion can be a form of functional snacks with better digestibility.”
(Page 1, paragraph 2, line 36-39) 

Comments 3: Line#173: it seems to me that this method was not initially described by this author

Response 3: The reference was changed.
(Page 5, paragraph 4, line 184) 

Comments 4: The figures need to be improved. This yellow background needs to be removed and the captions and texts need to be legible. However, I wonder if these results should be in this type of graph (dispersion) and not in bars, since they are not dispersion, since theoretically the samples fill the results within zero up to the value on the y-axis.

Response 4: The figures were modified. We want to present the full picture of the results in one graph.
(Page 7-8, 12, 15, 16, line 270-272, 411, 490, 527) 

Comments 5: What is the explanation for the large variation between the results of a* and b* in each treatment, while the results obtained in L* seem much less variable? This needs to be explained. The same explanation needs to be given for hardness.

Response 5: The necessary explanations have been made.
(Page 9, 13, paragraph 1, 2, line 307-309, 439-446) 

Comments 6: No sensory analysis was performed. I believe that this could be added as a limitation of the work and even how this analysis could strengthen some statements about the developed product.

Response 6: Unfortunately, sensory analysis could not be performed due to time and labour constraints during the study. However, it is planned to analyse the sensory properties in future studies.

Point 1: American and British English are present in the text. This is not a correct standard and therefore the text needs to be revised.

Response 1: The text has been checked and corrected according to the British English.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The present manuscript investigated the effect of rowanberry on nutrition value of buckwheat flour extrudates. It is interesting and easy to read, thus suggesting that rowanberry can be added as a functional component to enhance the nutritional value and quality of gluten-free extruded products. However, the following work is required before the manuscript can be considered for publication. The comments are described below:

1. The authors analyzed color, and determined the expansion ratio of extrudate samples. No any pictures of extrudate samples were presented. It is highly suggested to provide the pictures of extrudate samples.
2. The authors investigated nutritional value of extrudate samples, including total phenolic and total flavonoids, as well as antioxidant activity. It is well established that the antioxidant activity of plant-based samples is highly related to their bioactive compounds, such as Vc, phenolic compounds, and many others. In order to gain further insight into this relationship, the Pearson correlation analysis between bioactive compounds and antioxidant activity was proposed.

Author Response

Comments 1: The authors analyzed color, and determined the expansion ratio of extrudate samples. No any pictures of extrudate samples were presented. It is highly suggested to provide the pictures of extrudate samples.

Response 1: Thank you for pointing this out. Photographs of extrudate samples were added.
(page 6, 7, 9, 10, paragraph 5, 2, 3, 2, 232-233, 260-268, 327, 349-356) 

Comments 2: The authors investigated nutritional value of extrudate samples, including total phenolic and total flavonoids, as well as antioxidant activity. It is well established that the antioxidant activity of plant-based samples is highly related to their bioactive compounds, such as Vc, phenolic compounds, and many others. In order to gain further insight into this relationship, the Pearson correlation analysis between bioactive compounds and antioxidant activity was proposed.

Response 2: It was performed Pearson correlation analysis among total phenolic content, total flavonoid content and antioxidant activity and discussed. 
(Page 6, 18, paragraph 4, 2, line 226-229, 609-630) 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This reviewer thanks the authors for making all possible corrections. The manuscript has been greatly improved and my suggestion now is that it be accepted for publication.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English is fine

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript has been improved significantly, and can be considered for publication.