Pachira aquatica (Malvaceae): An unconventional food plant with food, technological, and nutritional potential to be explored.

Pachira aquatica (Malvaceae) is an unconventional food plant (UFP) native to Mexico and found all over Brazil, where it is commonly known as monguba. It has an arboreal shape, exotic flowers, and a fruit similar to cocoa with several seeds. Although its main application is in urban ornamentation and folk medicine, monguba's fruit has a great potential for use in the food, pharmacology, cosmetic, and bioenergy industry, mainly due to its oil's characteristics. This review aims to compile the nutritional composition, bioactive and antioxidant activities, and technological and nutritional potential of monguba's seed, leaf, and fruit pericarp. It reviews studies of different databases between January 2018 and October 2021. Monguba seeds are rich in lipids, proteins, and minerals; the bark is rich in fiber; and all parts of the fruit have bioactive compounds. Discussing the use of UFP is a way of finding new alternative food sources, usually discarded, offering products with high nutritional value allied to technological and consumption potential, such as the monguba fruit.

Nutritional and technological potential of cactus fruits for insertion in human food.

The Cactaceae family can be easily found in the arid and semiarid regions, with a significant waste of its potentials, being generally used as forage. Considering that much research have shown antioxidant properties and bioactive compounds in cacti species, this review aimed to review and discuss recent advances in physicochemical composition, bioactive compounds, and antioxidant activity of Cereus jamacaru, Melocactus zehntneri, Pilosocereus gounellei, Opuntia ficus-indica and Pilosocereus pachycladus fruits to investigate their food technology potential for new products development. These fruits have important amounts of micro, macronutrients, and bioactive compounds, which allow them a wide variety of uses, fresh or processed, and for industrial purposes for the production and extraction of compounds of interest (dyes, antioxidants, antimicrobials, etc.) as demonstrated in the literature. Furthermore, exploring the diversity of uses of these fruits can provide significant benefits from an economic, technological, social, environment, food, and nutritional security point of view.

Rosaceae rubus rosifolius smith: nutritional, bioactive and antioxidant potential of unconventional fruit.

Rubus is an economically important fruit, highly valued for its taste and medicinal properties. Itis estimated that there are between 400 and 700 species, but many of them are still unknown to the general population. There is a little information in the literature about the physicochemical and bioactive composition, as well as the antioxidant activity of these fruit, which is why this research was carried out. The fruits showed lipids (7.42%), ash (0.27%), dietary protein (11.54%), fiber (23.72%), carbohydrates (59.18%), low acidity, and good °Brix. Regarding bioactive compounds, good concentrations of phenolic compounds (289.4 (mg. g-1 EAG), flavonoids (155 mg100g-1), anthocyanins (120.11 mg cyanidin-3-glucoside 100 g-1), and phytoene (517.3 mg100g-1) were found. The wild strawberry showed a good antioxidant capacity, which was confirmed by different analytical methods. Because of the results of this research, it is concluded that this fruit has nutritional and phytochemical potential that should be included in the human diet, and its consumption should therefore be encouraged.

Novel bioactive nanoparticles from crude palm oil and its fractions as foodstuff ingredients.

Novel bioactive nanoparticles derived from crude palm oil (CPO), palm olein, and palm stearin for use in foodstuff products were produced, and their physicochemical characteristics and stability were evaluated. The nanoparticles were prepared by homogenization, using biodegradable casein or gum arabic as an encapsulating material. The encapsulation efficiency (EE), morphology, long-term stability, particle size, polydispersity index, zeta potential, pH, apparent viscosity, color parameters, total carotenoids, and antioxidant activity were determined. All nanoparticles methods produced spherical nanoparticles with EE higher than 85%. Highly homogeneous small particles (<300 nm) showing a tendency toward a yellow color were observed after 60 days of storage at 4 °C. The nanoparticles showed a carotenoid retention index higher than 40% and an antioxidant activity higher than 1,000 µM Trolox/g oil. The bioactive nanoparticles retained the carotenoids and are proposed as a green innovative product to replace synthetic colorants and antioxidants in foodstuffs.

Study of the thermal stability of γ-oryzanol present in rice bran oil over time.

BACKGROUND: Rice bran oil is unique among edible oils owing to its rich source of commercially and nutritionally important phytochemicals, such as oryzanol. γ-Oryzanol performs an important role in the stability of rice bran oil. The crude rice bran oil obtained by solvent extraction is subjected to either chemical or physical refining to meet the specifications of edible-grade vegetable oil. These refining processes can cause the compounds present in rice bran oil to degrade. The aim of this study was to evaluate the stability of γ-oryzanol present in chemically and physically refined rice bran oils, when submitted to temperatures of 100, 140, and 180 °C for a period of 1368 h. RESULTS: The chemically refined rice bran oil presented a lower γ-oryzanol content than the physically refined rice bran oil at all heating temperatures. The losses of γ-oryzanol at 100 °C, 140 °C, and 180 °C at the end of the heating periods for the chemically refined oil were 53.47%, 58.48%, and 97.05% respectively, and for the physically refined oil the losses were 38.11%, 53.58%, and 91.11% respectively. CONCLUSION: Based on the results of the time to reduce the oryzanol concentration by 50% and 100%, it is observed that the oil of rice meal refined physically presents greater stability, in the different temperatures studied and over time, than the oil of rice meal refined chemically. Thus, for situations where the oil needs to be subjected to prolonged heating, a temperature of 100 °C is indicated. In this condition, the physically refined oil is better for maintaining a higher concentration of γ-oryzanol. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry.