Levente L. Diosady

New Projects Available

• Fortification of tea – iron and folic acid
• Multiple fortification of salt – iron, zinc, B vitamins, iodine
• Protein isolation from oilseeds/legumes as nutraceuticals or meat replacers
• Scale-up of folic acid fortification for Ethiopia, UNICEF
• Field analytical kit for folic acid

Currently accepting graduate students? Yes

• PhD

Awards

• President’s Impact Award, 2022
• Engineering Alumni Network, Alumni Medal, 2019
• CSChE – R.S.Jane Memorial Award, 2019
• Officer, Order of Canada, 2019
• Gold Medal Award, Engineers Canada, 2018
• Officers' Cross of the Order of Merit of Hungary, 2017
• Fellow, Engineers Canada, 2016
• Fellow of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology, 2012
• Fellow of the American Oil Chemists’ Society, 2011
• Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology, 2009
• Fellow of the Hungarian Academy of Engineering, 2009
• Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, 2008
• Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada, 1992
• Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, 2012
• Babcock Hart Award of the Institute of Food Technologists and ILSI - To honor an IFT member who has attained distinction by contributions to food technology which result in improved public health through nutrition or more nutritious food, 2010
• Elected to the Order of Ontario, 2010
• K.Y. Lo Medal of the Engineering Institute of Canada, for significant engineering contributions at the international level, 2010
• J. W. Eva Award for "outstanding service to the Canadian Institute of Food science and Technology through research and service", 2007
• Rakoczi Award for Hungarian education, 2006
  Archer Daniels Midland award of the American Oil Chemists' Society for best paper published in processing,2006
• Szent Laszlo Rend for Hungarian education, 2004
• Elected to University of Toronto Engineering Alumni Hall of Distinction, 2004
  Distinguished Alumnae, University of Toronto Alumni, Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, 2004
• Engineering Medal, Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario, for Research and Development, 2003
• Top Ten Novel Products/Processes – Institute of Food Technology, 1989
• Canada Award for Business Excellence, Inventions Category, through Innovations Foundation, University of Toronto), 1987

Memberships

Professional Engineers of Ontario
Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology
Institute of Food Technology
American Oil Chemists’ Society
Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering
Chemical Institute of Canada
Hungarian-Canadian Engineers’ Association

Research Interests

Food Engineering

Food engineering applies the principles of chemical engineering and food chemistry to the large-scale processing of food. Foods must be nutritious, i.e., provide the essential nutrients for growth and health; they must be safe, free from dangerous micro-organisms and chemical contaminants; and, if they are to be consumed at all, they must be attractive in taste and appearance. Food engineers adapt the unit operations of traditional chemical engineering to the specific requirements of food processing. The aim of the food engineering program is to make it possible for well-trained chemical engineers to work in the food industry, the largest secondary manufacturing industry in Canada, with less on-the-job training and adaptation than is now required.

One third of the world’s population is suffering from inadequate intake of micronutrients, which interferes with physical and mental development of children, results in reduced immunity to disease, reduced work capacity, increased blindness and mortality especially among women and children. We work with the Micronutrient Initiative, Grand Challenges Canada and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in developing technologies for the introduction of micronutrients into food, for the prevention of micronutrient deficiency diseases. We have developed technology for the simultaneous fortification of salt with iron and iodine.  The process has been scaled up and transferred to India, where more than 1 million children have been cured of anemia by school lunches cooked with double fortified salt (DFS), and some 60 million people consume DFS in three Indian state-run programs. We are working on the multiple fortification of salt with iodine and iron in combination with folic acid, zinc and B vitamins. We received a major grant from the Grand Challenges Canada, Saving Lives at Birth program for iron fortification of tea. The current research is focused on microencapsulation for the stabilization and controlled delivery of micronutrients and nutraceuticals for improving the nutritional value of foods in both the developing world and in Canada.

The second major research area is processing of vegetable oils. There is inevitable conflict between the use of agricultural products for food or fuel, and I consider it unethical to divert the supply of staple foods to fuel, when there is a real need for food in most of the world. My students and I developed a process for production of protein isolates from canola, rapeseed and mustard seed. These isolates have excellent food functionality and can replace expensive meat proteins in many processed foods. We are working on developing processes that will recover food grade protein, and high quality biodiesel from a number of oilseeds and algae, thus contributing both fuel and food from crops that are now unused, or have marginal utility. Our membrane-based processes offer an opportunity to recover minor components with nutraceutical or cancer preventative value from these oil sources.

We are continuing the development of multi-component low nitrite, or nitrite free meat curing systems that reproduce the colour, flavour and oxidative stability of cured meat without the formation of carcinogenic nitrosamines.

A number of modern chemical engineering unit operations have special applications in food processing. While we have focused on using our expertise in membrane processes, we have worked with industrial partners in the monitoring, control and modeling of extrusion in systems including multiple-fortified, reconstituted rice grains.

Research programs leading to the Ph.D., M.A.Sc., and M.Eng. degrees are open to graduates in chemical engineering, food science, chemistry, and biochemistry.

Selected Publications

Chan, Y.K.K., Gurumeenakshi, G., Varadharaju, N. et al. Debittering Moringa oleifera (Lam.) Leaves in Fortified South Indian Instant Soup. Chem. Percept. (2020). https://doi-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.1007/s12078-020-09280-1

Cristian Ricardo Hernández-Marín; Paula Cecilia Guadarrama-Mendoza; Rogelio Valadez-Blanco, Bih-King Chen; Levente L. Diosady - Alkaline Extraction and Purification of Huauzontle (Chenopodium berlandieri subsp. Nuttalliae) Seed Proteins by Ultrafiltration Membranes – ICASAT 2019 IEEE International Congress on Applied Science and Advanced Technology, Queretaro, Mexico, Nov 27/28, 2019

Sinichi S, Legorreta Siañez AV, Diosady L,L Recovery of Phenolic Compounds from the By-product of Yellow Mustard Protein Isolation; Food Research International 115 (2019) 460-466.

Levente László Diosady and Kiruba Krishnaswamy Micronutrient Fortification of Edible Oils, Chapter 17. M.G. Venkatesh Mannar and R.F. Hurrell Ed. Food Fortification in a Globalized World, Elsevier Academic Press, London, 2018

McGee, E.J.T and Diosady, L.L. Prevention of iron-polyphenol complex formation by chelation in black tea, In LWT- Food Science and Technology, Volume 89, 2018, Pages 756-762, ISSN 0023-6438, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lwt.2017.11.041, 2017

V. Dueik, B-K. Chen, and L.L.Diosady "Iron-Polyphenol Interaction Reduces Iron Bioavailability in Fortified Tea: Competing Complexation to Ensure Iron Bioavailability," Journal of Food Quality, 89 756-762 (2018) Article ID 1805047, 7 pages, 2017. doi:10.1155/2017/1805047 .

Sinichi S, Boocock DG, Diosady L(October 2017) Mixed alcohol transesterification of mustard oil; International News on Fats, Oils, and Related Materials (INFORM). 28: 16-18 November/December 2017 DOI:10.21748.

Anubhav P. Singh, Juveria Siddiqui & Levente L. Diosady, (2017), Characterizing the pH-Dependent Release Kinetics of Food-Grade Spray Drying Encapsulated Iron Microcapsules for Food Fortification, Food Bioprocess Technology, Food Bioprocess Technol (2018) 11:435–446 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11947-017-2022-0

Nouraei, M, E. Acosta, L. Diosady, Predicting the Solubilisation Features of Ternary Phase Diagrams for lecithin- linker microemulsion, Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 495 p178-190 (2017)

Sayeh Sinichi, David G. B. Boocock and Levente L. Diosady - Production of Isopropyl and Methyl Esters from Yellow Mustard Oil/IPA Miscellas - J. Am. Oil Chem Soc 94:3 485-495 (March 2017)

Solmaz Tabtabaei, Benjamin Hijar, Bih-King Chen & Levente L. Diosady - Functional Properties of Protein Isolates Produced by Aqueous Extraction of DehulledYellow Mustard – J. AM. Oil Chem Soc 94: 149-160 (January 2017)

McGee, E.J.T., Sangakkara, A.R. and Diosady,L.L. - Double fortification of salt with folic acid and iodine – Journal of Food Engineering 198 (April) 2017 72–80