An efficient, fast, and green procedure to quantify α- and β-acids and xanthohumol in hops and their derived products

Reaction of the Phytochemistry Community to Green Chemistry: Insights Obtained Since 1990

This review article aims to study how phytochemists have reacted to green chemistry insights since 1990, the year when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched the "Pollution Prevention Act". For each year in the period 1990 to 2019, three highly cited phytochemistry papers that provided enough information about the experimental procedures utilized were sampled. The "greenness" of these procedures was assessed, particularly for the use of solvents. The highly hazardous diethyl ether, benzene, and carbon tetrachloride did not appear in the papers sampled after 2010. Advances in terms of sustainability were observed mainly in the extraction stage. Similar progress was not observed in purification procedures, where chloroform, dichloromethane, and hexane regularly have been employed. Since replacing such solvents in purification procedures should be a major goal, potential alternative approaches are discussed. Moreover, some current initiatives toward a more sustainable phytochemical research considering aspects other than only solvents are highlighted. Although some advances have been achieved, it is believed that natural products chemists can play a major role in developing a novel ecological paradigm in chemistry. To contribute to this objective, six principles for performing natural products chemistry consistent with the guidelines of green chemistry are proposed.

Sustainability and Gender Perspective in Food Innovation: Foods and Food Processing Coproducts as Source of Macro- and Micro-Nutrients for Woman-Fortified Foods

Micro- and macro-nutrient deficiencies among women are considered a global issue that the food industry has not adequately considered until recently. The industry must provide and guarantee a diversity of food products worldwide that allow women to get a correct and balanced diet according their life stage. The food industry must focus on this challenge within a framework of sustainable production, minimizing the use of natural resources and avoiding the emission of waste and pollutants throughout the life cycle of food. Food coproducts are presented as potential bioactive functional compounds which can be useful for technological purposes, due to the fact that they can serve as non-chemical, natural and health-improving food ingredients. In this review, we focus on the potential use of food processing coproducts which must be part of a strategy to promote and improve women's health and well-being. This knowledge will make it possible to select potential ingredients from coproducts to be used in the fortification of foods intended for consumption by females and to introduce sustainability and gender perspectives into food innovation. The attainment of fortifications for foods for women has to be linked to the use of sustainable sources from food coproducts in order to be economically viable and competitive.

QuEChERS extraction for quantitation of bitter acids and xanthohumol in hops by HPLC-UV

We hypothesised that QuEChERS could be successfully applied to the extraction of bitter acids and xanthohumol from hops, which would be less time consuming, cheaper, and more eco-friendly by the severe reduction of solvent use. High performance liquid chromatography was used to separate the compounds after extraction and quantitation was evaluated against standard calibration curves for bitter acids prepared from an International calibration extract (ICE-4) and an authentic standard of xanthohumol. The standard QuEChERS method was compared to mini and micro-versions including clean-up and spiking procedures. The quantitative analyzes indicate the applicability of the QuEChERS method for the quantitation of bitter acids compared to Soxhlet extraction. The statistical data confirm reproducibility of the total alpha- and beta- acids measured by the standard method and the modified mini- and micro-QuEChERS procedures. Our hypothesis is supported by the data described and is consistent with other previous methods described in the literature.