Functional Foods, Nutraceuticals and Probiotics: A Focus on Human Health.

Functional foods are classified as traditional or staple foods that provide an essential nutritional level and share potentially positive effects on host health, including the reduction of disease by optimizing the immune system's ability to prevent and control infections by pathogens, as well as pathologies that cause functional alterations in the host. This chapter reviews the most recent research and advances in this area and discusses some perspectives on what the future holds in this area.

Pretreatment of tamarind pericarp to increase antioxidant availability and its application in a functional food.

Diverse researchers have considered by-products of food and agricultural processing industries as a source of antioxidants. Tamarind (Tamarindus indica) is a leguminous tree, native from tropical Africa bearing edible fruit. The fruit is composed of 30% pulp, 40% seed, and 30% pericarp. Currently, tamarind pericarp is a waste from tamarind processing (approximately 54,400 tons of pericarp in 2012 worldwide) and is contributing to environmental contamination. This research aimed to determine the effect of maceration, microwaves, and ultrasound on the increase in the antioxidant availability in tamarind pericarp and its incorporation as a functional ingredient in cookies (5 and 10% substitution). Antioxidant content, antioxidant activity, proximate, and sensorial analysis of the cookies were conducted. The microwave method was the best pretreatment compared with sonication and maceration since it showed 1.3-fold higher amounts of phenolic compounds and 1.2-fold higher antioxidant capacity. The 10% substitution of tamarind pericarp powder in cookies, significantly increased the fiber content (four-fold) and phenolic compounds content (2.6-fold) and the product presented good acceptance in a sensorial test. Thus, tamarind pericarp powder could be considered as an antioxidant and fiber source and could be used as a functional ingredient in food products.

In vitro starch digestibility and predicted glycemic index of microwaved and conventionally baked pound cake.

The present study compares the effect of baking process (microwave vs conventional oven) on starch bioavailability in fresh pound cake crumbs and in crumbs from pound cake stored for 8 days. Proximal chemical analysis, resistant starch (RS), retrograded starch (RS3) and starch hydrolysis index (HI) were evaluated. The empirical formula suggested by Granfeldt was used to determine the predicted glycemic index (pGI). Pound cake, one of Mexico's major bread products, was selected for analysis because the quality defects often associated with microwave baking might be reduced with the use of high-fat, high-moisture, batted dough. Differences in product moisture, RS and RS3 were observed in fresh microwave-baked and conventionally baked pound cake. RS3 increased significantly in conventionally baked products stored for 8 days at room temperature, whereas no significantly changes in RS3 were observed in the microwaved product. HI values for freshly baked and stored microwaved product were 59 and 62%, respectively (P > 0.05), whereas the HI value for the conventionally baked product decreased significantly after 8 days of storage. A pound cake with the desired HI and GI characteristics might be obtained by adjusting the microwave baking process.