Lloyd W. Rooney

Areas of Expertise

•  Improve cereal, processing, feed/food quality attributes and develop a better understanding of mechanisms that influence cereal quality
• Use light fluorescence, SEM, ESEM analyses of food microstructure as affected by process modifications for a variety of products and processes including pretzels, tortilla chips, extruded snacks, popped and puffed products and ready to eat breakfast foods
• troubleshooting for cause of product defects
• flaking and micronizing of cereals
• role of modified starches and rice in baked chip texture
• role of starch and protein in shelf stability of tortillas, texture measurement of tortillas, snacks and noodles
• changes in corn during processing into nixtamal
• improved methods to produce and evaluate dry masa
• masa composition and quality factors
• baking of low fat snacks
• in-plant trials of steam flaking and tortilla production
• sensory evaluation of food products
• tortilla staling prevention; maize quality for nixtamalization
• documented that special sorghums have antioxidants that produce healthy products with natural dark color and increased dietary fiber.

Professional Summary

Graduate level courses provide an in-depth understanding of chemical and biochemical properties of cereals and prepare students for academic, industry, government service and many other careers. Our best legacy is our former graduate students (90 MS, 49 PhD) located around the world interacting with breeders, geneticists, biotechnologists and others to improve crop quality. Their collaboration in numerous workshops, seminars and publications transfer useful information.