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In recent years, studies have been focus not only on the nutritional properties of Vernonia amygdalina, but its pharmacological, medicinal and antioxidant values. The antioxidant, antidiabetic, hepatoprotective, haematological, antiplasmodial, antimicrobial, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, pharmacological and medicinal value of Vernonia amygdalina is no longer in doubt and is comprehensively documented in this study. Some studies attribute its medicinal properties to its phytochemical compounds while other studies link its health benefits to its bioactive components. It is expected that this review will be useful to researchers, agriculturists and herbal medical practitioners and improve interest in the study and utilization of this plant in other part of the globe where it is not presently cultivated or utilize. Relevant information was obtained from online resources such as Google Search, Google Scholar, PubMed and Medline. Only literature highlighting the nutritional, medicinal, pharmacological, and antioxidant activities of the plant were selected for this review.

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Pawpaw (Carica papaya Linn) seeds, peels and leaves are well known for their medicinal and potent pharmacological values. The plant belongs to the family Caricaceae and its fruit is commonly known for its food and nutritional values. Though the roots, bark, peel, pulp and the seeds had been shown to have medicinal properties, little is known about their nutritional properties. During the last few years, there had been series of research to explore further pharmacological and medicinal properties as well as it nutritional qualities of these plants parts, thus giving rise to it nutraceutical abilities. Scientific attempts have also been made over the decades to authenticate its nutraceutical properties. While nutritional constituents such as oil, proteins, and minerals haven been characterised from its seeds, little is known about other parts of the plant. Though the nutraceutical properties of papaya as drug or quasi-food product are not well understood or value, still it is an important gift of nature that is readily available in our eco-world and worth exploring. This review focuses on previous studies by various researchers on the medicinal, nutraceutical properties as well as the antioxidant potential of these plant parts and suggestions for further studies as regarding the optimisation of the potential of this plant.

This research investigates the effect of baking temperature and time on the resistant starch (RS), glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) of gluten-free cookies, optimized the processing parameter using a chemometrics approach of response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural network (ANN). The in-vitro starch digestibility of the formulated cookies exhibited a monophasic starch digestogram. Increase in resistant starch, and a decrease in the predicted GI of the cookies, was associated with low temperature and high baking time. The use of RSM and ANN modelling techniques accurately predict the RS, pGI and GL (coefficient of determinant, R 2 > 0.93 and root mean square of error = 0.43–0.62) of the gluten-free cookies. The optimal condition for the production of cookies with high RS, low pGI and GL were baking temperature of 158 °C and baking time of 20 min with predicted RS value of 19.61 g/100g of dry starch, pGI value of 56.98 and GL value 52.64.

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