Potential use of banana peel (Musa cavendish) as ingredient for pasta and bakery products.

The consumption of fruits and vegetables involves the disposal of the inedible parts, conveying challenges such as waste management and environment pollution. In recent years, there have been multiple studies aimed at finding alternatives that reduce the negative impact of food/agricultural waste. Since most studies done with by-products recommend their careful selection, the aim of this study was to verify if discarded banana peels could be disinfected until microbiologically safe and to determine if they could still provide nutrients to formulate food products with sensory characteristics acceptable to a consumer market after disinfection. Banana peels were collected from markets, restaurants, and greengrocers. They were disinfected, dried, and pulverized to obtain a flour which was subjected to microbiological and proximal analysis. Once its microbial safety was assured, this flour was incorporated into bakery and pasta products, replacing wheat flour with 5-20% banana peel flour (BPF). The sensory evaluation of the different products was carried out and, after verifying that the products were sensory acceptable, the proximal analysis was implemented. The formulated products were suitable for the addition of BPF up to 10%, in which the Acceptability Index was higher than 80% and significant increases in fiber and fat were achieved. We conclude that waste banana peel flour can be incorporated into bread and pasta products for human consumption to provide nutrients which might contribute to reduce this type of waste and to recover nutrients from otherwise disposed banana peels.

Production of arachidonic acid by Mortierella alpina using wastes from potato chips industry.

AIMS: This research aimed to determine the potential use of wastes from the potato chips industry as a carbon source to develop an economical culture medium for the production of biomass, lipids and arachidonic acid (ARA) by Mortierella alpina. METHODS AND RESULTS: A synthetic culture medium was optimized using a Plackett-Burman and central composite rotatable design, and used as a base to evaluate and characterize the potential use of wastes from the potato chips industry as carbon sources for the production of biomass, lipids and ARA by M. alpina. The waste was selected among other solid and liquid hydrolysed residues/by-products, and local low-cost alternatives for nitrogen sources were also evaluated. After 6 days of fermentation, the biomass concentration reached 20 g l-1 with 40% of total lipids, and a 35% ARA content in the lipids fraction. Savings in production were calculated using a sensitivity analysis for the alternative culture medium in different scenarios. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed a 7% savings in culture media expenses in the production of ARA-enriched biomass of M. alpina, compared to the conventional synthetic culture medium, when waste from the potato chips industry was used as an alternative source of carbon and macro/microelements, supplemented with a low-cost yeast extract alternative. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: The demonstration of the use of potato chips wastes as a low-cost carbon source for the biomass, lipids and ARA production, suggesting an eco-friendly alternative for the use of agri-food wastes for valuable metabolites production.

Laccases in Food Industry: Bioprocessing, Potential Industrial and Biotechnological Applications.

Laccase is a multi-copper oxidase that catalyzes the oxidation of one electron of a wide range of phenolic compounds. The enzyme is considered eco-friendly because it requires molecular oxygen as co-substrate for the catalysis and it yields water as the sole by-product. Laccase is commonly produced by fungi but also by some bacteria, insects and plants. Due it is capable of using a wide variety of phenolic and non-phenolic substrates, laccase has potential applications in the food, pharmaceutical and environmental industries; in addition, it has been used since many years in the bleaching of paper pulp. Fungal laccases are mainly extracellular enzyme that can be recovered from the residual compost of industrial production of edible mushrooms as Agaricus bisporus and Pleurotus ostreatus. It has also been isolated from microorganisms present in wastewater. The great potential of laccase lies in its ability to oxidize lignin, one component of lignocellulosic materials, this feature can be widely exploited on the pretreatment for agro-food wastes valorization. Laccase is one of the enzymes that fits very well in the circular economy concept, this concept has more benefits over linear economy; based on "reduce-reuse-recycle" theory. Currently, biorefinery processes are booming due to the need to generate clean biofuels that do not come from oil. In that sense, laccase is capable of degrading lignocellulosic materials that serve as raw material in these processes, so the enzyme's potential is evident. This review will critically describe the production sources of laccase as by-product from food industry, bioprocessing of food industry by-products using laccase, and its application in food industry.