Production of a rich-carotenoid colorant from pumpkin peels using oil-in-water emulsion followed by spray drying.

Peels and seeds are byproducts generated during the processing of fruits and vegetables that have been cut off or rejected in the food industry. Pumpkin peels are an example of products that provide valuable nutritional aspects but that have low commercial value. This work aimed at recovering carotenoids from pumpkin peels to produce valuable powders. The pumpkin peel flour was obtained from convective drying and milling processes. Liquid-solid extraction produced the ethanol raw extract with a high carotenoid content. Carotenoid extract and Arabic gum suspensions were mixed in proportions of 1:2, 1:3, or 1:4 w/w. Emulsions produced via Ultra-Turrax (UT) and Ultra-Turrax plus high pressure (UTHP) were evaluated and spray dried. The particles carotenoid concentrations varied from 159.1 to 304.6 µg/g and from 104.3 to 346.2 µg/g for samples primarily produced via UT and UTHP, respectively. UTHP 1:3 particles showed the lowest degradation of carotenoids during 90 days of storage, with a retention index of 79%. The homogenization and spray drying techniques were proven to be suitable steps to preserve the carotenoids recovered from the byproduct studied. Microparticles can be used as a natural dye with potential use in food, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics.

Advances in biopolymeric active films incorporated with emulsified lipophilic compounds: a review.

The attention towards active films has increased due to consumer demand for high-quality foods without chemical additives. Active biopolymer-based films have shown great potential for active films by impacting food safety, acting as the carriers of various natural antioxidant and antimicrobial compounds, and decreasing environmental pollution from petrol-derived packaging materials. However, there is a wide range of challenges concerning the different characteristics of biopolymers and plasticizers, often hygroscopic/hydrophilic, compared to numerous lipophilic bioactive compounds. Therefore, recent studies have focused on applying oil-in-water emulsion-based systems to enhance the lipophilic bioactive compounds' dispersibility into the film matrix, improving their performance. It is worth emphasizing that resulting complex systems give rise to new challenges such as (i) dispersion technology of the bioactive compounds with minimum adverse effects on its bioactivities, (ii) interactions between different components of the active films, giving rise to new physicochemical properties, and (iii) the change of the diffusion properties of bioactive compounds into the active films, resulting in different release properties. These challenges are profound and critically discussed in this review, as well as the encapsulation techniques employed in preparing emulsions loaded with lipophilic bioactive compounds for the active film development. An outlook of future directions in the research, development, and application of these active films are given.