Effect of Gaseous Chlorine Dioxide Treatment on the Quality Characteristics of Buckwheat-Based Composite Flour and Storage Stability of Fresh Noodles

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Firstly, 

i am honored to be chosen to make a review of this interesting manuscript with a current topic.

For authors, i have these comments and suggestions:

It sounds better when you use it the third person than the first person, e.g.:

L81. instead of our, sounds better this or present.

L84. instead of treatment use treated;

L85. instead of are- were;

L85. If you told already about  the amounts of ingredients, why you wrote again that they were used in a certain proportion?

L88. Put point instead of the comma;

L89-95. How did you choose the concentrations of chlorine dioxide?

L91. Better without- expected;

L119. Not to, but at room temperature;

L138. Put the parameters in order: 1 ,2, 3, not 2, 3, 1;

L148. Explain please why did you introduced some modification if there is a standard for TPC.

L231-233. It is better to reformulate this phrase.

L314. Why data is not shown?

Is more favorable to put the texture assessment results in a table.

For the results of sensory analysis is better to build another type of graph, because the data has not a good visibility.

You can add information about the toxicology of chlorine dioxide.

Good luck!

Author Response

Point 1: L81. instead of our, sounds better this or present.

Response 1: We appreciate for the valuable suggestion very much. We have changed "our" with "this" in revised manuscript according to reviewer’s comment in line 98.

Point 2: L84. instead of treatment use treated;

Response 2: We are very sorry for our negligence and we have changed "treatment" with "treated" in revised manuscript according to reviewer’s comment in line 101.

Point 3: L85. instead of are- were;

Response 3: We appreciate for the valuable suggestion very much. We have changed “are” with “were’’ according to the reviewer’s comment line 102.

Point 4: L85. If you told already about the amounts of ingredients, why you wrote again that they were used in a certain proportion?

Response 4: We are very sorry for our negligence and we have deleted the repetitive sentence “in a certain proportion” according to the reviewer’s comment in line 102.

Point 5: L88. Put point instead of the comma;

Response 5: Thanks for suggestion. The comma has been revised as point according to the reviewer’s comment in revised manuscript in line 105.

Point 6: L89-95. How did you choose the concentrations of chlorine dioxide?

Response 6: Thanks for your question very much. We consult the concentrations range of gaseous chlorine dioxide in relevant literature, that is from 0.01mg/L to 12.0 mg/L in the storage of fruits and vegetables (Sun et al. 2019), 50 – 200 ppm in rice and wheat grain (Han et al. 2018) and -714 ppm in green coffee beans (Lee et al. 2020). In addition, combined with the previous use of chlorine dioxide gas in our laboratory, we finally chose the current concentration range from 76 ppm (0.21 mg/L) to 232 ppm (0.64 mg/L). L107-111.

Point 7: L91. Better without- expected;

Response 7: We appreciate for the valuable suggestion very much. We have deleted “expected” in Line 108, 110 and 111 according to the reviewer’s comment.

Point 8: L119. Not to, but at room temperature;

Response 8: We are very sorry for our negligence and we have changed "to” with “at” according to the reviewer’s comment in the revised manuscript in line 137.

Point 9: L138. Put the parameters in order: 1 ,2, 3, not 2, 3, 1;

Response 9: We appreciate for the valuable suggestion very much. During the process of mixing dough, the second gear means the medium speed mixing, the third gear means high speed mixing, and the first gear means low speed mixing. We haves revised the test as “with the following mixing parameters: medium speed mixing (the second gear of mixer) for 210 s, high speed mixing (the third gear) for 60 s and low speed mixing (the first gear) for 150 s” in revised manuscript in line 156.

Point 10: L148. Explain please why did you introduced some modification if there is a standard for TPC.

Response 10: Thanks for your question very much. In the experiment of determine the TPC, in order to better dilute the sample, we reduced the amount of the sample. In fact, we did not change the dilution concentration, so the final result is the same as the standard method for TPC. L165.

Point 11: L231-233. It is better to reformulate this phrase.

Response 11: We appreciate for the valuable suggestion very much. We have reworded the phrase as “In general, the color of CDBF is more visually acceptable and commercially valuable than untreated flour” according to the reviewer’s suggestion in the revised manuscript in line 254-255.

Point 12: L314. Why data is not shown?

Response 12: Thanks for your question very much. We have revised “data is not shown” as “≥150” in the revised manuscript in line 341.

Point 13: Is more favorable to put the texture assessment results in a table.

Response 13: We appreciate for the valuable suggestion very much. We have put the texture assessment results in Table 2 according to the reviewer’s suggestion in the revised manuscript in line 432.

Point 14: For the results of sensory analysis is better to build another type of graph, because the data has not a good visibility.

Response 14: We appreciate for the valuable suggestion very much. We have changed the “line graph” of the results of the sensory analysis with “column graph” for a good visibility in the revised manuscript in line 455.

Point 15: You can add information about the toxicology of chlorine dioxide.

Response 15: We appreciate for the valuable suggestion very much. We have added information on the toxicology of chlorine dioxide to the revised manuscript in line 68-69 and line 69-72. The new test is:" Stabilized ClO₂ is legally allowed to applying with surface treatment of fresh fruit and vegetables and aquatic product in China.". and “Early literature reports pointed out that chlorine dioxide has replaced agene as the more commonly used improver in wheat flour in the United States after extensive feeding experiments with animal and human that had shown no clinical evidence of toxicity”.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

1. Author indicated that flour treated with chlorine dioxide could decrease the cooking loss of FBNs during storage due to that the oxidation effect of chlorine dioxide caused the increase of protein network structure. Is the oxidation of thiol group a major reason to increase protein network? I suggest that author could detect the content of thiol group to confirm this concept.
2. Why does not the cooking loss of FBNs without ClO₂ treatment determine at 72 hr (Fig3)?
3. Table 1 should be presented in the same page.
4. Page 9, line 356:「…group e due to ….」should be revised to「…group due to…」.

Author Response

Point 1: Author indicated that flour treated with chlorine dioxide could decrease the cooking loss of FBNs during storage due to that the oxidation effect of chlorine dioxide caused the increase of protein network structure. Is the oxidation of thiol group a major reason to increase protein network? I suggest that author could detect the content of thiol group to confirm this concept.

Response 1: We appreciate for the valuable suggestion very much. We have revised the test as “It is speculated that the oxidation effect of chlorine dioxide could strengthen the gluten network in FBNs (that can be confirm by farinograph properties data) through disulfide bond induced protein polymeriztion, which finally led to the cooking loss decrease”.

In manuscript, we sepculated that flour treated with chlorine dioxide could decrease the cooking loss of FBNs during storage due to that the oxidation effect of chlorine dioxide caused the increase of protein network structure, that can be confirm by our farinograph properties data. The development time and stability time of the dough increased, and degree of softening decreased after chlorine dioxide treatment of the mixed flour, indicating that the structure of the treated dough was stronger than that of the untreated dough, through forming a stronger gluten network. It is well known that the process of oxidants in flour could cause the thiol group forming disulfide bond and increase the protein network structure. Therefore, the oxidation of thiol group may be the main cause of the increased protein network. In the previous study, we tried to detect the content of thiol group by colorimetric method (common method of thiol group determination), however, flavonoids in the buckwheat flour caused the results of the colorimetric method inaccurate. In addition, change of protein network structure caused by oxidation is a very complicated topic. Therefore, in the later research, we will conduct protein research, but this is not the focus of our current work.

Point 2: Why does not the cooking loss of FBNs without ClO₂ treatment determine at 72 hr (Fig3)?

Response 2: Thanks for your question very much. The TPC of the FBNs without ClO₂ treatment exceeded 1x10⁶ after 48 hours, which can be regarded as spoilage. Therefore, we did not measure the cooking loss of FBNs without ClO₂ treatment at 72-hour.

Point 3: Table 1 should be presented in the same page.

Response 3: We are very sorry for our negligence and we have made improvements in the revised manuscript.

Point 4: Page 9, line 356:「…group e due to ….」should be revised to「…group due to…」.

Response 4: We appreciate for the valuable suggestion very much. We have changed “group e due to” to “group due to” according to the reviewer’s comments in line 386, page 10.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript reports the effect of gaseous chlorine dioxide on the quality of buckwheat-based flour and fresh noodles. The paper is properly conceived; however, it has significant structural flaws and requires English language editing and manuscript formation. In addition, some additional information should be given to the reader.

• Authors listed from 1 to 5 have the same affiliation which should be changed to 1 !
• Page 1 lines 32-33 Latin names should be formatted to italic.
• Page 1 lines 68-73 authors mention about studies on the effect of gaseous chlorine dioxide without any references.
• In materials and methods section, all units and chemical formulas should be format with appropriate lower and upper index. g ClO₂
• In Table 1 and on the figures 3 - 4 all superscripts (a,b,c,d) should be explained
• Paragraph 3.1.5 should be written Pasting properties
• References - Authors should check and improve the citation style because it is not consistent and references 1-2 and 21 -22 are the same.

Author Response

This manuscript reports the effect of gaseous chlorine dioxide on the quality of buckwheat-based flour and fresh noodles. The paper is properly conceived; however, it has significant structural flaws and requires English language editing and manuscript formation. In addition, some additional information should be given to the reader.

Response: We appreciate for the valuable suggestion very much, which are very helpful for us to improve the manuscript, and we have improved the language throughout the manuscript by a mother tongue to increase the reading and understanding of the manuscript, and meet the standards of Processing and Properties Analysis of Grain Foods, which has been marked in red font in the revised paper. In addition, we have added some information about the research progress of chlorine dioxide in introduction, and revised “line graph” of the results of the sensory analysis as “column graph” for a good visibility.

Point 1: Authors listed from 1 to 5 have the same affiliation which should be changed to 1 !

Response 1: We are very sorry for our negligence and we have made a correction in revised manuscript according to reviewer’s comment.

Point 2: Page 1 lines 32-33 Latin names should be formatted to italic.

Response 2: Thanks for your suggestion. We are very sorry for our negligence and we have changed Latin names to italic according to reviewer’s comments in our revised manuscript in line 33-34, page 1.

Point 3: Page 1 lines 68-73 authors mention about studies on the effect of gaseous chlorine dioxide without any references.

Response 3: Thanks for your question very much. We had added the references on the information about the research progress of gaseous chlorine dioxide. Line 65-80.

Point 4: In materials and methods section, all units and chemical formulas should be format with appropriate lower and upper index. g ClO2

Response 4: Thanks for your suggestion. We are very sorry for our negligence and we have made a correction in our revised manuscript according to reviewer’s comment in line 97, line 105, line 107, line 109 and line 111.

Point 5: In Table 1 and on the figures 3 - 4 all superscripts (a,b,c,d) should be explained

Response 5: We appreciate for the valuable suggestion very much. We have explained the superscript letters (a,b,c,d) in the revised manuscript at the bottom of the Table 1 and Figure3-4. The new test is: “Different lowercase letters indicate significant differences at p < 0.05”.

Point 6: Paragraph 3.1.5 should be written Pasting properties

Response 6: We are very sorry for our negligence and we have revised “pasting properties” as “Pasting properties” according to reviewer’s comment in revised manuscript on the Paragraph 3.1.5.

Point 7: References - Authors should check and improve the citation style because it is not consistent and references 1-2 and 21 -22 are the same.

Response 7: We appreciate for the valuable suggestion very much. We have improved the format of the references in the revised manuscript. In addition, we are sorry for the duplication when inserting the references. We have revised the 2nd and 22nd references according to reviewer’s comment in revised manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx