Antinutrient  are natural or synthetic compounds that interfere with the absorption of nutrients.Nutrition studies focus on these antinutrients commonly found in food sources and beverages.

Phytic acid has a strong binding affinity to minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, and zinc. This results in precipitation, making the minerals unavailable for absorption in the intestines. Phytic acids are common in the hulls of nuts, seeds and grains and of great importance in agriculture animal nutrition and eutrophication-wise due to the mineral chelation and bound phosphates released into the environment. Without the need to use milling to reduce phytate (including nutrient), the amount of phytic acid is commonly reduced in animal feeds by adding histidine acid phosphate type of phytases to them.

Protease inhibitors are substances that inhibit the actions of trypsin, pepsin and other proteases in the gut, preventing the digestion and subsequent absorption of protein. For example, Bowman–Birk trypsin inhibitor is found in soybeans.

Lipase inhibitors interfere with enzymes, such as human pancreatic lipase, that catalyze the hydrolysis of some lipids, including fats. For example, the anti-obesity drug orlistat causes a percentage of fat to pass through the digestive tract undigested.

Amylase inhibitors prevent the action of enzymes that break the glycosidic bonds of starches and other complex carbohydrates, preventing the release of simple sugars and absorption by the body. Amylase inhibitors, like lipase inhibitors, have been used as a diet aid and obesity treatment. Amylase inhibitors are present in many types of beans; commercially available amylase inhibitors are extracted from white kidney beans.

Furfural is an organic compound with the formula C₄H₃OCHO. It is a colorless liquid, although commercial samples are often brown. It has an aldehyde group attached to the 2-position of furan. It is a product of the dehydration of sugars, as occur in a variety of agricultural byproducts, including corncobs, oat, wheat bran, and sawdust. The name furfural comes from the Latin word furfur, meaning bran, referring to its usual source. Furfural is only derived from lignocellulosic biomass, i.e. its origin is non-food or non-coal/oil based. Aside from ethanol, acetic acid and sugar it is one of the oldest renewable chemicals. It is also found in many processed foods and beverages.
Furfural may be obtained by the acid catalyzed dehydration of 5-carbon sugars (pentoses), particularly xylose.
C
₅H
₁₀O
₅ → C
₅H
₄O
₂ + 3 H
₂O

These sugars may be obtained from hemicellulose present in lignocellulosic biomass, which can be extracted from most terrestrial plants.
It is found in many foods: coffee (55–255 mg/kg) and whole grain bread (26 mg/kg).

Furfural is an important renewable, non-petroleum based, chemical feedstock. It can be converted into a variety of solvents, polymers, fuels and other useful chemicals by a range of catalytic reductions.

Hydrogenation of furfural provides furfuryl alcohol (FA), which is used to produce Furan resins, which are exploited in thermoset polymer matrix composites, cements, adhesives, casting resins and coatings. Further hydrogenation of furfuryl alcohol leads to tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol (THFA), which is used as a solvent in agricultural formulations and as an adjuvant to help herbicides penetrate the leaf structure.

Another important solvent made from furfural is methyltetrahydrofuran. Furfural is used to make other furan derivatives, such as furoic acid, via oxidation, and furan itself via palladium catalyzed vapor phase decarbonylation.

Furfural is also a specialized chemical solvent.
There is a good market for value added chemicals that can be obtained from furfural.

Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion chickens are killed for consumption annually. Chickens raised for eggs are known as layers, while chickens raised for meat are called broilers.

According to the World Watch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry meat, and 68 percent of eggs are produced intensively.^[6] One alternative to intensive poultry farming is free-range farming using lower stocking densities. Poultry producers routinely use nationally approved medications, such as antibiotics, in feed or drinking water, to treat disease or to prevent disease outbreaks. Some FDA-approved medications are also approved for improved feed utilization.

A Dough conditioner is any ingredient or chemical added to bread dough to strengthen its texture or otherwise improve it in some way. Dough conditioners may include enzymes, yeast nutrients, mineral salts, oxidants and reductants, and emulsifiers.


Examples of dough conditioners include ascorbic acid, distilled monoglycerides, citrate ester of monoglycerides, diglycerides, ammonium chloride, enzymes, diacetyl tartaric acid ester of monoglycerides or DATEM, potassium bromate, calcium salts such as calcium iodate, L-cystine, L-cysteine HCl, glycerol monostearate, azodicarbonamide,^[5][6] sodium stearoyl lactylate, sucrose palmitate or sucrose ester, polyoxyethylene sorbitan monostearate or polysorbate, soybean lecithin, and soybean lecithin enriched with lysophospholipids.
Less processed dough conditioners include sprouted- or malted-grain flours, soy, milk, wheat germ, eggs, potatoes, gluten, yeast, and extra kneading. Malted, diastatic flours are not typically added by manufacturers to whole-wheat flours. Robertson et al. point out that some of the better information is found in baking books published back when bakers were still kneading by hand.

Clarifying agent are used to remove suspended solids from liquids by inducing flocculation (the solids begin to aggregate forming flakes, which either precipitate to the bottom or float to the surface of the liquid, and then they can be removed or collected).

Particles finer than 0.1 µm (10⁻⁷m) in water remain continuously in motion due to electrostatic charge (often negative) which causes them to repel each other. Once their electrostatic charge is neutralized by the use of a coagulant chemical, the finer particles start to collide and agglomerate (collect together) under the influence of Van der Waals forces. These larger and heavier particles are called flocs.
In winemaking, clarification and stabilization are the processes by which insoluble matter suspended in the wine is removed before bottling. This matter may include dead yeast cells (lees), bacteria, tartrates, proteins, pectins, various tannins and other phenolic compounds, as well as pieces of grape skin, pulp, stems and gums. Clarification and stabilization may involve fining, filtration, centrifugation, flotation, refrigeration, pasteurization, and/or barrel maturation and racking.

Pectinase iis an enzyme that breaks down pectin, a polysaccharide found in plant cell walls. Commonly referred to as pectic enzymes, they include pectolyase, pectozyme, and polygalacturonase, one of the most studied and widely used^{[citation needed]} commercial pectinases. It is useful because pectin is the jelly-like matrix which helps cement plant cells together and in which other cell wall components, such as cellulose fibrils, are embedded. Therefore, pectinase enzymes are commonly used in processes involving the degradation of plant materials, such as speeding up the extraction of fruit juice from fruit, including apples and sapota. Pectinases have also been used in wine production since the 1960s.^[1] The function of pectinase in brewing is twofold, first it helps break down the plant (typically fruit) material and so helps the extraction of flavours from the mash. Secondly the presence of pectin in finished wine causes a haze or slight cloudiness. Pectinase is used to break this down and so clear the wine.

They can be extracted from fungi such as Aspergillus niger. The fungus produces these enzymes to break down the middle lamella in plants so that it can extract nutrients from the plant tissues and insert fungal hyphae. If pectinase is boiled it is denatured (unfolded) making it harder to connect with the pectin at the active site, and produce as much juice.

Pectinases are also used for retting. Addition of chelating agents or pretreatment of the plant material with acid enhance the effect of the enzyme.
Pectin (from Ancient Greek: πηκτικός pēktikós, "congealed, curdled") is a structural acidic heteropolysaccharide contained in the primary cell walls of terrestrial plants. Its main component is galacturonc acid, a sugar acid derived from galactose. It was first isolated and described in 1825 by Henri Braconnot.It is produced commercially as a white to light brown powder, mainly extracted from citrus fruits, and is used in food as a gelling agent, particularly in jams and jellies. It is also used in dessert fillings, medicines, sweets, as a stabilizer in fruit juices and milk drinks, and as a source of dietary fiber.