A study of the bioactive potential of seven neglected and underutilized leaves consumed in Brazil

Unconventional Edible Plants of the Amazon: Bioactive Compounds, Health Benefits, Challenges, and Future Trends

The pursuit of an improved quality of life is a major trend in the food market. This is driving the reformulation of the industry's product portfolio, with the aim of providing nourishment while also contributing to beneficial health metabolic processes. In this context, the use of local biodiversity and the recovery of the traditional knowledge associated with the consumption of vegetables that grow spontaneously in nature emerge as more sustainable and nutritionally adequate concepts. The Amazon region is known for its abundant biodiversity, housing numerous unconventional food plants whose nutritional and biological properties remain unknown due to a lack of research. Among the different species are Xanthosoma sagittifolium, Acmella oleracea, Talinum triangulare, Pereskia bleo, Bidens bipinnata, and Costus spiralis. These species contain bioactive compounds such as apigenin, syringic acid, spilanthol, and lutein, which provide various health benefits. There are few reports on the biological effects, nutritional composition, bioactive compounds, and market prospects for these species. Therefore, this review provides an overview of their nutritional contribution, bioactive compounds, health benefits, and current market, as well as the use of new technologies that can contribute to the development of functional products/ingredients derived from them.

Unlocking hot trub's potential: a simple method for extracting bitter acids and xanthohumol

BACKGROUND

Hot trub is a macronutrient- and micronutrient-rich by-product generated in the brewing industry, which is still underrated as a raw material for reprocessing purposes. In this context, this study aimed to investigate the extraction of bitter acids' and xanthohumol from hot trub as well as identify the significance of parameters for the process. The research assessed various extraction parameters, such as pH, ethanol concentration, temperature, and solid-to-liquid ratio, using a Plackett-Burman design.

RESULTS

Ethanol concentration and pH were the most significant parameters affecting extraction yield. β-acids were found to be the principal components of the bitter acids, with a maximum concentration near 16 mg g-1, followed by iso-α-acids and α-acids achieving 6 and 3.6 mg g-1, respectively. The highest yields of bitter acids were observed in the highest ethanol concentration, while pH was relevant to extraction process in treatments with low ethanol ratios. Concerning the xanthohumol extraction, the approach achieved maximum concentration (239 μg g-1) in treatments with ethanol concentration above 30%. Despite their variances, the phytochemicals exhibited comparable extraction patterns, indicating similar interactions with macromolecules. Moreover, the characterization of the solid residues demonstrated that the extraction process did not bring about any alterations to the chemical and total protein profiles.

CONCLUSION

Ethanol concentration was found to have the most significant impact on the extraction of bitter acids and xanthohumol, while temperature had no significant effect. The solid remains resulting from the extraction showed potential for use as a protein source. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.

Bioactive Compounds from Agrifood Byproducts: Their Use in Medicine and Biology

Agrifood produces a high amount of waste, millions of tons per year worldwide, the disposal of which is a significant environmental, organizational, logistical, economic and ethic problem and in the last decades the scientific interest about this argument has increased significantly [...].

Extracts of Eryngium foetidum Leaves from the Amazonia Were Efficient Scavengers of ROS and RNS

Eryngium foetidum L. is an edible plant widespread in Amazonian cuisine and its leaves have high levels of promising phenolic compounds for the production of extracts to be used as natural antioxidant additives. In this study, the in vitro scavenging capacity of three freeze-dried extracts of E. foetidum leaves, obtained by ultrasound-assisted extraction using green solvents [water (H₂O), ethanol (EtOH), and ethanol/water (EtOH/H₂O)], was investigated against the most common reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) generated in both physiological and food systems. Six phenolic compounds were identified, chlorogenic acid (2198, 1816 and 506 μg/g) being the major compound for EtOH/H₂O, H₂O, and EtOH extracts, respectively. All E. foetidum extracts were efficient in scavenging all the ROS and RNS (IC₅₀ = 45-1000 µg/mL), especially ROS. The EtOH/H₂O extract showed the highest contents of phenolic compounds (5781 μg/g) and showed the highest efficiency in scavenging all the reactive species, with high efficiency for O₂^•- (IC₅₀ = 45 μg/mL), except for ROO^•, for which EtOH extract was the most efficient. Therefore, E. foetidum leaf extracts, especially EtOH/H₂O, showed high antioxidant potential to be used as natural antioxidants in food formulations and are promising for nutraceuticals products.

Updating the status quo on the extraction of bioactive compounds in agro-products using a two-pot multivariate design. A comprehensive review

Extraction is regarded as the most crucial stage in analyzing bioactive compounds. Nonetheless, due to the intricacy of the matrix, numerous aspects must be optimized during the extraction of bioactive components. Although one variable at a time (OVAT) is mainly used, this is time-consuming and laborious. As a result, using an experimental design in the optimization process is beneficial with few experiments and low costs. This article critically reviewed two-pot multivariate techniques employed in extracting bioactive compounds in food in the last decade. First, a comparison of the parametric screening methods (factorial design, Taguchi, and Plackett-Burman design) was delved into, and its advantages and limitations in helping to select the critical extraction parameters were discussed. This was followed by a discussion of the response surface methodologies (central composite (CCD), Doehlert (DD), orthogonal array (OAD), mixture, D-optimal, and Box-Behnken designs (BBD), etc.), which are used to optimize the most critical variables in the extraction of bioactive compounds in food, providing a sequential comprehension of the linear and complex interactions and multiple responses and robustness tests. Next, the benefits, drawbacks, and possibilities of various response surface methodologies (RSM) and some of their usages were discussed, with food chemistry, analysis, and processing from the literature. Finally, extraction of food bioactive compounds using RSM was compared to artificial neural network modeling with their drawbacks discussed. We recommended that future experiments could compare these designs (BBD vs. CCD vs. DD, etc.) in the extraction of food-bioactive compounds. Besides, more research should be done comparing response surface methodologies and artificial neural networks regarding their practicality and limitations in extracting food-bioactive compounds.