Moringa plants: Bioactive compounds and promising applications in food products.

Moringa plants have an extensive range of bioactive compounds that can be obtained from different vegetative structures, such as leaves, seeds, stems and pod husks. These bioactive molecules include carbohydrates, phenolic compounds, oils and fatty acids, proteins and functional peptides and have great potential to be used in several formulations of food products. This report collects recent information concerning bioactive molecules in other species of the Moringaceae family, different from Moringa oleifera. Thus, this document aims to describe these bioactive compounds and their functional properties on foodstuffs. In addition, more suitable methodologies applied for their extraction and characterization are reviewed. Finally, an overview of patents required to protect Moringa-derived products and processes is provided.

Fluctuations in phenolic content, ascorbic acid and total carotenoids and antioxidant activity of fruit beverages during storage.

Stability of the total phenolic content, ascorbic acid, total carotenoids and antioxidant activity in eight fruit beverages was analyzed. The influence of storage temperature (4, 8 and 11 °C) during the product shelf-life (20 days) was evaluated. Pomegranate Juice presented the highest values for antioxidant activity by DPPH• assay (552.93 ± 6.00 GAE µg mL(-1)), total carotenoids (3.18 ± 0.11 ßCE µg mL(-1)), and total phenolic content (3967.07 ± 2.47 GAE µg mL(-1)); while Splash Blend recorded the highest levels of ascorbic acid (607.39 ± 2.13 AAE µg mL(-1)). The antioxidant capacity was stable at 4 and 8 °C for the first 8 days of storage; while carotenoids and ascorbic acid were slightly degraded through the storage time, possibly due to oxidation and/or reactions with other compounds. The results suggest that the observed variation during testing could be related to storage conditions of the final product.

Macromolecular and functional properties of galactomannan from mesquite seed (Prosopis glandulosa).

In this work, galactomannans from Prosopis glandulosa seeds were evaluated for their chemical composition and functional properties for potential industrial applications. In addition, those characteristics were compared with the commercial galactomannan guar gum. Mannose and galactose were the two most abundant carbohydrates present in P. glandulosa seeds, which represent 95.32% of total carbohydrates present in this material. Galactomannans from mesquite seed (GMS) yield was 16.53% and presented a M/G ratio of 2:1, which was higher than value observed for guar gum (1.6:1). The results obtained from functional properties showed that GMS has considerable potential to be considered as a food additive.

Fruit wastes fermentation for phenolic antioxidants production and their application in manufacture of edible coatings and films.

Agro-industrial by-products are important sources of potent bioactive phenolic compounds. These compounds are of extreme relevance for food and pharmacological industries due to their great variety of biological activities. Fermentation represents an environmentally clean technology for production and extraction of these bioactive compounds, providing high quality and high activity extracts, which can be incorporated in foods using coatings/films wax-based in order to avoid alterations in their quality. In this document is presented an overview about importance and benefits of solid-state fermentation, pointing out this bioprocess as an alternative technology for use agro-industrial by-products as substrates to produce valuable secondary metabolites and their applications as food quality conservatives.