Onion (Allium cepa L.) peel: A review on the extraction of bioactive compounds, its antioxidant potential, and its application as a functional food ingredient.

Functional food development is rapidly increasing as a result of consumer consciousness concerning healthy and nutritious foods. In turn, research exploring novel ingredients for formulating functional foods has been accelerated. Onion peel or skin is a byproduct obtained from onion processing that contains abundant phytochemicals, contributing to its antioxidant potential. The main focus of this review is to highlight different extraction techniques (both conventional and nonconventional) that can be implemented to extract the bioactive compounds from onion peel and assess their antioxidant activity. Furthermore, this review highlights the major areas for the application of onion peel and its extract as prospective functional ingredients, thus aiding in the preparation of designer foods with additional health benefits. The use of onion peel could also assist in redesigning popularly consumed processed foods, such as baked products, noodles or pasta, as packaging material, meat quality improvers, colorants, and juice clarifiers. This review serves as a preliminary document that can assist in exploring different ways of incorporating bioactive onion peels or skin into the functional food industry and concludes that future research can assist in the effective and efficient utilization of this resource.

Quality assessment of nutri-cereal bran rich fraction enriched buns and muffins.

Millet bran, a by-product obtained during millet processing is rich in nutrients, fiber, antioxidants and phyto-nutrients, but remains underutilized. Consumption of bakery products have increased significantly among all age groups. Majority of the bakery products are calorie dense and lack nutrients. There are limited studies on utilization of minor millet brans and bran rich fractions (BRF) in development of bakery products. Thus, present study aimed at formulating designer buns and muffins using foxtail and kodo millet BRF respectively. It was observed that buns prepared with 20% foxtail and muffins prepared with 30% kodo BRF showed better acceptability. The nutritional profile of BRF enriched buns and muffins had significant increase in dietary fibre (2.73% and 2.79%), iron, calcium, zinc, antioxidant capacity and phytonutrient content. A reduction was observed in the available carbohydrates in both buns (51.11-47.85 g/100 g) and muffins (46.76-43.87 g/100 g). Buns and muffin exhibited moderate glycemic index (57.71, 56.42) and glycemic load (19.32, 14.85) respectively. Shelf life of buns and muffins was 3 and 7 days respectively at room temperature. In both the products moisture, water activity and microbial plate count increased during storage whereas sensory acceptability decreased. The study indicates that addition of minor millet BRF in baked products enhanced nutritional content and reduced glycemic index thereby exhibiting its potential as a functional ingredient in food processing.

A Review of Recent Studies on the Antioxidant and Anti-Infectious Properties of Senna Plants.

The use of phytochemicals is gaining interest for the treatment of metabolic syndromes over the synthetic formulation of drugs. Senna is evolving as one of the important plants which have been vastly studied for its beneficial effects. Various parts of Senna species including the root, stem, leaves, and flower are found rich in numerous phytochemicals. In vitro, in vivo, and clinical experiments established that extracts from Senna plants have diverse beneficial effects by acting as a strong antioxidant and antimicrobial agent. In this review, Senna genus is comprehensively discussed in terms of its botanical characteristics, traditional use, geographic presence, and phytochemical profile. The bioactive compound richness contributes to the biological activity of Senna plant extracts. The review emphasizes on the in vivo and in vitro antioxidant and anti-infectious properties of the Senna plant. Preclinical studies confirmed the beneficial effects of the Senna plant extracts and its bioactive components in regard to the health-promoting activities. The safety, side effects, and therapeutic limitations of the Senna plant are also discussed in this review. Additional research is necessary to utilize the phenolic compounds towards its use as an alternative to pharmacological treatments and even as an ingredient in functional foods.

Onion (Allium cepa L.) peels: A review on bioactive compounds and biomedical activities.

Huge quantities of byproducts/wastes generated in onion processing are usually discarded, but they are excellent sources of bioactive compounds and phytochemicals. However, with growing interest in the sustainable use of resources and the circular economy to reduce adverse impacts on the environment, food processing wastes such as onion peel/skin can be extracted and employed as inputs in developing or reformulating nutrient supplements, and pharmacological drugs. This review highlights major bioactive components, especially total phenolics, total flavonoid, quercetin and its derivatives present in onion peel/skin and their therapeutic applications as cardioprotective, neuroprotective, antiobesity, antidiabetic, anticancer and antimicrobial agents. The present review emphasized that onion peel is one of the important agricultural by-products which is rich in bioactive compounds and can be utilized as health promoting ingredient especially in pharmacological and biomedical fields. Thus, with increasing burden of life style disorders/non-communicable diseases, finding suitable natural alternative for their treatment is one major concern of the researchers and onion peel and its extract can be exploited as a prime ingredient.