Multi-Modal Characterization of Wheat Bread Enriched with Pigweed and Purslane Flour Using Colorimetry, Spectral Analysis, and 3D Imaging Techniques

Comments 1:

L23-25 “Generalizations and conclusions were made, presenting the significant results related to the physicochemical, organoleptic, and structural properties of the bread enriched with pigweed flour and purslane”. -> use clearer and more concise sentence

Response 1:

Thank you for this note. The final sentence is improved: “The study concluded with significant findings on the physicochemical, organoleptic, and structural properties of bread enriched with pigweed and purslane flour.”

Comments 2:

L45: “These plants 45 are sustainable crops” -> why ? or add reference to this sentence

Response 2:

Thank you for this note. The sentence is corrected. Literature source is added: “Due to their ability to thrive in poor soils with minimal inputs, pigweed and purslane are considered sustainable crops [2, 3]. This makes them a suitable choice from both ecological and nutritional standpoints. Investigating their optimal inclusion levels in bread is crucial for balancing nutritional value, functional properties, and sensory quality of the final product.”

Comments 3:

L55: “The inclusion of pigweed and purslane in bread turns it 54 into a functional product capable of improving the diet through added vitamins and 55 minerals [5].” You also mentioned fatty acids, amino acids, etc previously, why not here ?

Response 3:

Thank you for this note. The text is corrected according to the reviewer note: “They contain natural bioactive compounds, probiotics, antioxidants, essential fatty acids, and amino acids, all of which contribute to improved metabolism, immune support, and cellular regeneration. The inclusion of pigweed and purslane in bread turns it into a functional product that enriches the diet with vitamins, minerals, and other health-promoting components [5]. Given the interest in healthy eating, research in this area supports the development of sustainable and beneficial food solutions that deliver both quality and functionality.”

Comments 4:

Introduction in general: I have noticed some redundancy between the paragraphs. Please revise the introduction so that each paragraph conveys a single, distinct message.

Response 4:

Thank you for this note. The introduction is corrected.

Comments 5:

Section 3.1: Use sentences or draw bullet points

Response 5:

Thank you for this note. The sentences are restructured.

Comments 6:

L173-176 : “The amount of water for preparing the dough is determined analytically based on 173 the humidity of the resulting mixtures between the two types of flour. The goal is to 174 introduce the same amount of dry matter into the prepared dough. The amount of water 175 required for preparing the dough varies within a small interval, since the humidity of the 176 individual mixtures also varies within small limits.” Please rephrase for more clarity

Response 6:

Thank you for this note. The description is improved: “The amount of water used to prepare the dough is calculated based on the moisture content of the mixtures formed by combining the two types of flour. This procedure ensures a consistent level of dry matter in the final dough. Since the moisture content of these flour blends varies only slightly, the required water amount also fluctuates within a narrow range.”

Comments 7:

Table 3 : “Name” and “Description” columns do not correspond exactly. Consider displaying “Description” column content differently.

Response 7:

Thank you for this note. The term “Name” is changed to “Stage name”.

Comments 8:

L197-198 : “The pigweed and purslane were finely ground with a mill model CASO Design SP-197 7437 (Braukmann GmbH, Arnsberg, Germany).” I would have expected this sentence before in the document

Response 8:

Thank you for this note. The description is moved to section 3.1. about raw materials used.

Comments 9:

L200 “….according to the methodology according to….”:  avoid repetition

Response 9:

Thank you for this note. The text is corrected: “…according to the methodology described in AACC 02-52.01,…”.

Comments 10:

Section 3.3: I do not like this bullet-point type presentation and suggest using full sentences. Please be consistent anyway.

Response 10:

Thank you for this note. The sentences are corrected.

Comments 11:

L217 what does the acronym TL stand for?

Response 11:

Thank you for this note. The meaning is corrected to “Thermal losses”.

Comments 12:

L 222-228 : awkward structure, unclear reference and inconsistent formatting. Do not start a sentence with digits.

Response 12:

Thank you for this note. The structure and the description are corrected.

Comments 13:

L237 : Styrofoam ? Not sure that ingestion of styrofoam is compliant with the code of ethics !

Response 13:

Thank you for this note. The term is incorrect. The correct term is “pigweed”. Corrected in the text.

Comments 14:

L298 The color difference ΔE was determined [28]. ΔE is an indicator used to quantify the 298 difference between two colors. : redundant

Response 14:

Thank you for this note. The redundant sentence has been removed

Comments 15:

L308: Lc, ac, bc are color components -> more precisely ?

Response 15:

Thank you for this note. The sentence is corrected: “where Lc, ac, bc are color components from Lab color model of the control sample…”

Comments 16:

L310 LCh not defined

Response 16:

Thank you for this note. LCh is color model that consist three components L-lightness, C-Chroma and h-hue. Corrected in the text.

Comments 17:

L315 “The color indices were used in terms of which color changes they correspond to, 315 regardless of the objects for which they were intended in their original form.” not obvious sentence

Response 17:

Thank you for this note. The spectral indices and color components can be used mainly for vegetables, plant leaves. Their advantage over direct use of color components (for example L, a and b from Lab color model) is that they show the color changes of the object more precisely. This description is added in the text.

Comments 18:

L334: put equation into a grid to reduce space consumption

Response 18:

Corrected according to the reviewer note.

Comments 19:

L341: “The following index was calculated from the HSV model, which represents the image 341 of the bread crumb” ??

Response 19:

Thank you for this note. The sentence is corrected: “The HSVi index was calculated from the HSV model, which represents the image of the bread crumb”

Comments 20:

L343: “where H, S and V are the three color components of the HSV model” redundant

Response 20:

Thank you for this note. It is good to have a description of the variables used in the formula.

Comments 21:

L357: “Prioritizing the V component”: what do you mean ?

Response 21:

Thank you for this note. V component from HSV is affected of light conditions. That is the reason that we use homogeneous lighting system. “Prioritizing” means that the result from some calculation depends on the V component to the greatest extent.

Comments 22:

L362: what is the LMS ? This conversion method is not clear

Response 22:

Thank you for this note. LMS is color model that have three components L, M and S. the sentence is improved.

Comments 23:

L393 : use table for equations and definitions

Response 23:

Thank you for this note. The bullets are removed.

Comments 24:

L395: not sure that the comparison between RReliefF and ReliefF is relevant here. “distance based models” ?  The clarity of the explanation of RReliefF could be improved.

Response 24:

Thank you for this note. The description of this feature selection method is improved.

Comments 25:

L476: Determining the appropriate amount of additives: we do not need the description of the optimisation algorithm here. We need to know what was the criterion used to select the best parameters, i.e. what was the objective function /cost function to minimize ?

Response 25:

Thank you for this note. The description is improved at the beginning of the section.

Comments 26:

L477 rye flour ?

Response 26:

Thank you for this note. The term is incorrect. The correct term is “pigweed”. Corrected in the text.

Comments 27:

Table 11. This is methodology, not results

Response 27:

Thank you for this note. The developed algorithm is presented in the results section. The way of presenting algorithm is by using block-diagram, text description or table. In our case, we prefer to present the algorithm as a table.

Comments 28:

Table 12 recall what are V, S, D, … in table footnote

Response 28:

Thank you for this note. This description is added as table footnote.

Comments 29:

Figure 17. Determining the appropriate amount of additive in bread. a) pigweed bread; b) purslane bread: too vague explanation of the figure

Response 29:

Thank you for this note. The figure description is improved.

Comments 30:

The Material and methods section contains significant repetition and redundancy, which detracts from its overall conciseness and clarity. Many methods are described with extensive mathematical detail, much of which may not be necessary for the intended audience. In several instances, the rationale for selecting specific methods is not sufficiently explained, making it difficult to understand their relevance to the study. Additionally, some methodological concepts are introduced without adequate clarification, and acronyms or variable names are often left undefined. I recommend streamlining the descriptions, focusing on the essential mathematical details, and providing clearer motivation and definitions for the methods and variables used throughout the text. A large part of the detailed content could also be sent to supplementary material.

Response 30:

Thank you for this note. The material and methods section is improved.

Comments 31:

The issues with the style and clarity of the methodology section make it difficult to form a clear opinion on the overall quality and interest of the study.

Response 31:

Thank you for this note. The abstract is improved. The contributions are highlighted. Abbreviations section is added.

Comments 1:

Dear authors,

your manuscript "analytica-3730900" deals with the currently discussed topic of replacing wheat flour with non-traditional plant raw materials, which in their country of origin represent underutilized raw materials or nutritionally valuable waste from food production.

Response 1:

Thank you for this note.

Comments 2:

The abstract is too general and the reader will not learn a single substantial and concrete conclusion about the influence of both non-traditional raw materials on the properties and consumer quality of wheat bread. You only mention that it is possible to model traditional quality parameters of bread together with detailed color analysis and spectral data - this can, however, be assumed in advance even without knowledge of the cereal and statistical fields.

Response 2:

Thank you for this note. The abstract is corrected according to the reviewer comment.

These improvements include:

Enrichment of wheat bread with pigweed (Amaranthus spp.) and purslane (Portulaca oleracea) flour.

Physicochemical analysis that includes organoleptic (sensory) evaluation and geometric and optical assessments. These analyses are supported by advanced data reduction techniques and regression modeling.

The total of 70 features are reduced to 22 informative features for pigweed flour and 15 informative features for purslane flour.

Appropriate concentrations identified 3.69% pigweed flour and 7.13% purslane flour.

Comments 3:

The chosen scientific approach is modern and very innovative, which speaks against its use in bakery practice in the near future. You have included an incredible number of methods that no reviewer can master all of them at once. In this regard, your manuscript is difficult to read and understand. The baking experiment is insufficiently described compared to the methods of evaluating the color of the pastry, spectral measurements and mathematical modeling procedures, the equations take up several pages in a row. According to the text, no one could repeat your pilot baking, which is always based on 100 kg of flour (this approach is, however, admirable).

Response 3:

Thank you for this note. Since we use multimodal method, we have to describe many types of measurement tools. According to the Bulgarian AS02/2011 the flour is measured to 100 kg, which can be easily recalculated in percentages of raw materials.

Comments 4:

The experimental plan is therefore very extensive, and the amount of measured data did not allow you to sufficiently statistically examine and evaluate them in context. In § Results and Discussion, you therefore use a few phrases, for example "We add this raw material, and at dosage X we observed that change, but at dosage Y something different".

Response 4:

Thank you for this note. The “Material and methods” and “results section 4” improved.

The results and discussion are separated into two main groups of sections:

Group of sections 1 (4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4) includes sections that experimentally characterize the physical, chemical, sensory, and visual properties of bread with pigweed and purslane flour.

Group of sections 2 (4.5, 4.6, 4.7, and 4.8) includes sections that analyze, reduce, and model the data to identify key features and determine the optimal additive levels for bread formulation.

This description is added at the beginning of “Results and discussion” part.

Lines 164-167. The description of white wheat flour is improved.

Lines 170-171. The unnecessary text removed.

Line 267. The formula is for determination of volume from STL file.

Lines 305-309. The description of color difference is improved.

Note on equation (22). Formulas for color indices were used from the available literature. They were used depending on which color changes they reflect, and not according to the original product for which they were intended.

Note on “Determination of bread porosity”. Thank you for the remark. In this case, we did not apply a specific restriction for the minimal pore size (area), as our focus was on capturing the overall crumb structure rather than excluding smaller elements. We considered that including all visible pores—regardless of size—provides a more representative view of the crumb’s porosity and distribution.

Line 405. The description of PCA is improved. Also, all abbreviations are separated in a list after the conclusion part.

Line 416. The sentence is improved. (about PCA).

Line 440. All abbreviations are separated in a list after the conclusion part.

Line 475. In all cases additive” is changed to “alternative flour”.

Lines 536-548. The description of software used is improved. All software versions are added.

Comments 5:

The vocabulary used is poor, in comparisons you use exclusively the verbs "increase" - "decrease", even several times in a row within a single paragraph.

Response 5:

Thank you for this note. The descriptions are improved.

The descriptions “increase” - “decrease” are improved in all cases. For example, Lines 589-598.

Comments 6:

In addition to the writing style, the manuscript contains countless typos and inconsistencies - you always write only "pigweed / purslane bread", although in fact it is wheat bread made from binary mixtures with these unconventional plant ingredients. You do not use the established signs of the colour coordinates whiteness L*, redness a* and yellowness b* (plus chroma C* and hue h*); moreover, you use their symbols successively in several forms. It indicates the contributions by several different authors, none of whom performed a thorough final reading and necessary corrections and unification. The text is also unreadable due to the presentation of numerical values ​​to an unnecessary number of decimal places - consider that integers are sufficient for quick comparison. Also, the "±SD" appearing everywhere incredibly interferes with following the presented ideas. One-factor or two-factor ANOVA as a basic statistic is missing, to clearly describe the variability of the data. The headings in the tables are shifted, the scales in the graphs are inconsistent – ​​the writing process was not careful at all.

Response 6:

Thank you for this note. The descriptions are improved.

Line 303. The description of Lab color model is improved. “Lab color model according to CIE 1976”.

The following text is added: “One-Way ANOVA was used to analyze the data. A post hoc LSD test was also performed to determine the degree of significance of differences between average values after statistically significant differences (P < 0.05) were found. The Kruskal-Wallis test, which is non-parametric, was used when there was no normal distribution. The obtained values are represented in tables as mean ± standard deviation of triplicate samples. All data were processed at an accepted level of statistical significance α = 0.05.” After every table as footnote is added p level at which data have statistically significant difference.

Integer values are added in all cases. For example, Lines 564-573.

Table 9 is improved. “Characteristic” is changed to “Sensory attribute”.

Comments 7:

In conclusion, I strongly recommend a dividing of the manuscript into two parts at least - the baking part, where you combine the results of the experimental baking, the reduced colour determination and the reduced results of the 3D image analysis. In the second part, you can conjoin the spectral data and mathematical modeling itself across the data collected. Therefore, I recommend a MAJOR REVISION to the editors, both in terms of specifying the technological procedures and reducing the description of the mathematical ones. "Last but not least, the level of English must meet the standards of this journal.

Response 7:

Thank you for this note. The results section is improved.

We sincerely thank the reviewer for the detailed and constructive suggestions. We understand the concern regarding the structure of the manuscript and agree that separating the technological and mathematical components could enhance clarity and focus. Accordingly, we have reorganized the manuscript to distinguish the experimental baking results and image-based analyses from the spectral data and modeling procedures. This restructuring aims to improve readability and thematic coherence.

The results and discussion are separated into two main groups of sections:

Group of sections 1 (4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4) includes sections that experimentally characterize the physical, chemical, sensory, and visual properties of bread with pigweed and purslane flour.

Group of sections 2 (4.5, 4.6, 4.7, and 4.8) includes sections that analyze, reduce, and model the data to identify key features and determine the optimal additive levels for bread formulation.

Lines 737-738. The text is improved. “The values of the color component C (LCh) decrease, and h (LCh) shifts to more yellowish shades”.

All of the notes in your PDF file are corrected. (Thank you for this detailed description).

Abbreviations section is added.