Cereal and Cereal-Derived Products: Processing, Functional Properties and Applications in Foods

Dear Colleagues,

Cereals have always played a crucial role in the human diet. They are a major source of essential macromolecules and micronutrients in our food. From ancient times to now, they have been used in traditional settings and modern food manufacturing plants to produce a variety of nutritious, palatable, and unique food items. Common cereals, such as corn (maize), rice, wheat, and barley, are basic ingredients in the production of baking, pastry, alcoholic, and non-alcoholic beverages. Lesser-used cereals and pseudo-cereals, such as sorghum, millets, oats, amaranth, rye, quinoa, and buckwheat, have their place in traditional and modern food manufacturing. Some of their constituents are extracted as secondary ingredients with specific functionalities that are used as binders, emulsifiers, thickeners, protective coatings/films, antioxidants, prebiotics, viscoelastic property enhancers, and foaming agents, among others. Furthermore, cereals are a rich source of calories in various forms, including carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids.

This Special Issue, titled “Cereal and Cereal-Derived Products: Processing, Functional Properties and Applications in Foods,” explores our current understanding of cereals as functional food ingredients, their properties that are yet to be elucidated, modern conversion and modification processes, and their unique role in food processing. It also highlights their modern applications as ingredients in making nutritious foods, for example, in the development of alternative protein foods and a new understanding of their functionality. This Special Issue will consider any paper that addresses current gaps and novel ideas and technologies related to the value addition of ancient grains, improvement of grain functional properties, grains as ingredients in alternative protein products, novel grain processing methods, and more, for all grass-based seeds used in human food applications.

Dr. Akinbode A. Adedeji
Dr. Samson Oyeyinka
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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