Since the existence of mankind, nutrition is one of the necessities to maintain their vital activities. Nutritional habit, a physiological movement, has progressed in parallel with the development of living conditions of mankind. This instinctive behaviour has started with gathering in the nature originally. People have found edible foods by distinguishing the harmful plants in the nature. Mankind, who had learned cooking with the invention of fire, has discovered foodstuffs that can be obtained from animals in time. Due to this discovery, they had an opportunity to try different flavours and supply a greater variety of needed macro components of their body such as proteins, vitamins and essential oils etc. This nutrition diversity has brought with the taste phenomenon. The major reasons of consumed food variety are the climate of the region they live in, the condition of nature and the kinds of vegetables, fruits, grains that grow in these regions. Furthermore, it is inevitable that the diversity of animals living in the region causes food diversity. This situation, which is the result of ecological balance, has been one of the main causes of cultural differences between societies over time. The culinary culture has been seperated by geographical regions over time and a sub-culture called "regional dishes" has formed. Until today, mankind have developed new tastes by experimenting with many food preparation and cooking techniques. In this study, the development of Turkish food culture and nutrition habits throughout the history have been reviewed.

Padina pavonica (Linnaeus) Thivy 1960 is a brown algae that is antioxidant, antimicrobial, and anticancer effects and is generally used in soup, salad, and other dishes. However, no studies have been reported on safe consumption in humans to date. For this purpose, this study was conducted to determine the cytotoxic and genotoxic effects of P. pavonica on lymphocytes cultured from human blood. The water extract of P. pavonica was added into culture tubes at various concentrations (0.5-1000 μg/mL). Cytotoxic effects were determined by MTT assay. Antioxidant/oxidant status was evaluated by total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and total oxidative status (TOS) assays. Genotoxic effects were investigated by sister chromatid exchanges and micronucleus assays. Our results showed that P. pavonica had no genotoxic effects, even at higher concentrations. 1000 μg/mL concentration of P. pavonica caused an increase (P

Advances in diagnostic techniques and their widespread use for infectious agents revealed the considerably high current prevalence of viral agents in foodborne and waterborne diseases. Foodborne and waterborne viruses are indicated to cause not only gastroenteritis and hepatitis but also neurological disorders, respiratory tract diseases, myocarditis, glomerulonephritis and hemorrhagic fever, with a particularly high mortality rate in infants/children and in individuals with immune deficiency. Additionally, due to their resistance to environmental conditions and food processes compared to other microorganisms, elimination of these viruses by heat and high pressure applications, natural antiviral compounds, UV applications and conventional cleaning-disinfection remains difficult even inadequate. In protection from viral infections, vaccine applications together with GMP, GHP and HACCP system approaches in production seem to be the most effective approaches to ensure the minimization of viruses in food environment and in public. In this review article, up-to-date information is presented on the general characteristics and the diseases caused by enterotropic viruses; NoV, AstV, RoV, AdV and hepatotropic viruses; HAV and HEV, with a particularly high worldwide prevalence, as well as their epidemiology, prevention and their control measures.

Tomato is one of the most consumed fruits in the world. Tomato sauce, a tomato product, is one of the mother sauces that has been developed by Escoffier (1846-1935). Nowadays, tomato sauce has been adapted by each country according to their own culinary culture. In the current study four different tomato sauce recipes were investigated in the context of their antioxidant activity and total phenolic content. Hydrophilic and lipophilic extractions of samples were evaluated separately. It was found that there is a relationship between total phenolic content and antioxidant activity in hydrophilic extraction. However, no similar correlation was found between total phenolic content and antioxidant activity in lipophilic extraction. According to the results, the highest antioxidant activity of both hydrophilic and lipophilic extractions was observed in S1 with the values 25.53±1.01 and 45.48±2.06 respectively. In lipophilic extraction, S2 had the lowest antioxidant activity with 32.77±1.07, because of the lack of the ingredients high in lipophilic antioxidant compounds. It was observed that the shortest cooking time with 10 min provide the highest retention of antioxidant activity and total phenolic content in this sauce. Also, antioxidant activity of lipophilic extraction for longer cooking time applied sauces (S4) could be kept high with ingredients such as carrot. It can be suggested that adding of ingredients which have antioxidant activity may be useful for providing bioactive properties in long cooking time procedures and it should be noted that the length of cooking time negatively affected the TPC values.

In this study, six types of Kashar cheese, five with added herbs and one without any additives, which is determined as a control sample were produced. Urtica dioica L. (nettle), Petroselinum crispum (parsley), Mentha piperita (mint) and Eruca vesicaria (arugula), Chaerophyllum byzantinum Boiss. (mendek) were added to cheese clot in proportion as 0.1% amounting to 0.1-0.3 cm split particles depending on the milk used. Then, all the cheeses were vacuum-packed and ripened at 7 ±1°C for 3 months, and their L*, a*, b* colour values and textural parameters including resilience, hardness, elasticity, gumminess, cohesiveness, adhesiveness, and chewiness were determined using texture profile analyses (TPA). It was observed that neither cohesiveness, adhesiveness and elastic parameters of texture profile differed in terms of cheese type, nor important statistical difference was identified (P˃0.10), differences regarding the ripening process found out though (P<0.05).

Corn snacks are commonly produced and consumed snack foods. The nutritional and functional properties of extruded snacks that were produced using corn semolina are rather poor. In this study, the effects of wheat bran addition to extruded corn snack formulation were investigated. For this purpose, the extrusion conditions were first optimized using Central Composite Design - Response Surface Methodology (CCD-RSM), based on the physical properties of the products (hardness, crispness, brittleness, expansion rate, apparent density and porosity). Upon optimization, the best extruded snack production conditions were determined (moisture content of the mixture 14%, die temperature 120°C, bran: corn semolina ratio 10%, corn starch: bran + corn semolina ratio 10%) and the results were verified via experimental studies. Then, the bran ratio of the mixture was gradually increased from 10% to 22% and 5 different extruded snacks with varying bran contents (10%, 13%, 16%, 19% and 22% bran) were produced . Chemical composition (moisture, protein, fat and ash) and nutritional properties (phytic acid, dietary fiber, total phenolic substance and total antioxidant capacity) of the extruded corn snacks with bran additions (ECSwBA) were determined. The addition of bran at the optimized rate (%10) positively affected the physical properties of extruded corn snacks. Further increase in the bran addition partially weakened the physical properties of corn snacks. However, as the bran addition ratio increased, the nutritional and functional properties of the extruded corn snacks increased significantly.

Saffron is an important spice obtained from the dried red stigmas of "Crocus sativus L." belonging to the Iridaceae family. It is used in traditional medicine from ancient times to modern times thanks to its medicinal properties, in various fields such as cosmetics, paint industry, food sector thanks to the bioactive components it contains. The production of saffron, which is one of the most valuable spices in the world and has a wide area of use, is limited to geographical regions such as Iran, India, Afghanistan, Spain, Italy, Greece and Morocco. In addition, although it is among the highest quality saffron producers, its cultivation and production in our country has decreased considerably and it is only made in some villages of Karabük province, Safranbolu county. The limited production of saffron reduces the recognition of this plant, which has a wide range of uses and has high economic value. This valuable plant, which is thought to provide economic gain to our country, should be brought back to the economy. In this review, the saffron plant is discussed in every aspect in order to emphasize its value once more and to make its cultivation sustainable and information about its botanical characteristics, history, regions where it is grown, chemical composition and use in foods was given.

Innovative combined solar energy assisted air and hot air assisted radio frequency drying system was used to dry unsulphured, sulphured (1 kg/ton and 2 kg/ton sulphur) and pistachio hull extract treated apricots. Unsulphured and sulphured apricots dried under sun were used as the control samples. The effects of different storage temperatures (5, 20 and 35oC) on residual sulphur content, β-carotene and microbial stability characteristics of dried apricots were studied. Also, the effect of storage temperature on the total phenolic content of dried apricots pre-treated with pistachio hull extract was investigated. The obtained results showed that the loss of sulphur and β-carotene was less in the products stored at 5oC compared to the products stored at 20 and 35oC. Sulphur treatment significantly inhibited the loss of β-carotene during storage. The maximum decrease in phenolic content of dried apricots pretreated with extract, was observed in samples stored at 20°C. In addition, extract treatment provided an advantage in terms of storage considering the microbial quality. The combined drying system caused less sulfur loss compared to sun drying.

In this study, it is aimed to analyze for the presence of Mesophilic Aerobic Bacteria (MAB), C.sakazakii, and the pH values of the enteral nutrition products, which are categorized under the special medicinal dietary products in the Turkish Food Codex. 20 enteral nutrition products were obtained from various hospital pharmacies in the province of Istanbul, and the spread plate method was carried out on suitable media. According to the results of microbiological analysis, no MAB and C.sakazakii were found in any of the samples (100%;

In recent years, there is in-creased awareness of con-scious consumers about the fact that foods they eat are related directly to their health. In meat industry re-search and development, studies have accelerated to formulate healthier meat products formulations using plant sources as additive, which are also expected to improve the functional properties of the product. Pectin is a water soluble fi-ber with a structural com-plexity that occurs naturally in the cell walls of fruits and vegetables, contributes to reducing the risk of can-cer, and has some health benefits. Gelation is the most unique property of pectin; it forms a gel in the presence of Ca2+ ions or sugar and acid. Pectin pre-sents good water and fat binding property. Therefore, it can be used as a gelling agent, film/coating, and emulsifier and in low-calorie meat products as fat and /or sugar substitution (dietary fiber), as a natural component contributes to phosphate substitution and medical delivery systems in meat products. In this paper, it was aimed to discuss the physico-chemical proper-ties, health implications of pectin and its potential ap-plications in meat products.