Fruit Seeds as Sources of Bioactive Compounds: Sustainable Production of High Value-Added Ingredients from By-Products within Circular Economy

Abstract

The circular economy is an umbrella concept that applies different mechanisms aiming to minimize waste generation, thus decoupling economic growth from natural resources. Each year, an estimated one-third of all food produced is wasted; this is equivalent to 1.3 billion tons of food, which is worth around US$1 trillion or even $2.6 trillion when social and economic costs are included. In the fruit and vegetable sector, 45% of the total produced amount is lost in the production (post-harvest, processing, and distribution) and consumption chains. Therefore, it is necessary to find new technological and environmentally friendly solutions to utilize fruit wastes as new raw materials to develop and scale up the production of high value-added products and ingredients. Considering that the production and consumption of fruits has increased in the last years and following the need to find the sustainable use of different fruit side streams, this work aimed to describe the chemical composition and bioactivity of different fruit seeds consumed worldwide. A comprehensive focus is given on the extraction techniques of water-soluble and lipophilic compounds and in vitro/in vivo functionalities, and the link between chemical composition and observed activity is holistically explained.

Green and Sustainable Valorization of Bioactive Phenolic Compounds from Pinus By-Products

“…Currently, the agroforestry by-products have been increasingly exploited to isolate biocompounds with high industrial interest. Studies using natural matrices as a potential source of bioactive compounds have been published in recent decades [7,[62][63][64][65][66][67]. For instance, in a new review paper [68], the authors report that in addition to fruits and vegetables, tree barks are rich in phenolic compounds with excellent biological properties (such as antioxidant, immunostimulatory, anticancer, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antimutagenic, etc.)…”

Response surface optimization of phenolic compounds extraction from camu‐camu (Myrciaria dubia) seed coat based on chemical properties and bioactivity

“…Although camu‐camu fruit has received much attention from nutraceutical companies, the seeds, representing 10 to 15% of the fruit weight, are usually discarded and/or burnt as there are no industrial applications (Fidelis et al., 2018, 2019). According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO, 2020—search made on 21 April 2020), a total of 169 patents are available, encompassing alcoholic fermented beverage, a wide variety of topic skincare products, energy drink, appetizer, antioxidant juice, microcapsules, dried extract rich in ascorbic acid, pet feed, beer, dairy beverages, and gelatin‐based gums, all of which are based on the camu‐camu pulp and/or skin.…”

“…However, the use of camu‐camu seeds is virtually nonexistent. Considering the amount of seeds generated in South America and their bioactivity, it is possible to incentivize their industrial processing, thus, avoiding losses and contributing to the circular economy engagement in the fruit processing sector (Dzah, Duan, Zhang, Boateng, & Ma, 2020; Fidelis et al., 2019; Villacís‐Chiriboga, van Camp, Vera, & Ruales, 2020).…”

Fruits By-Products – A Source of Valuable Active Principles. A Short Review

“…Therapeutic properties of bioactive compounds derived from fruits are widely described in the scientific literature. A number of reviews summarized anticancer, antidiabetic, antihypertensive, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant, immunomodulatory, or neuroprotective activity of plant secondary metabolites extracted from fruits, underlining their importance in the human diet (Banerjee et al, 2017;Yalcin and Çapar, 2017;Karasawa and Mohan, 2018;Marli et al, 2018;van Breda and de Kok, 2018;Fidelis et al, 2019). Scientific information related to biological activities of raw fruits byproducts is focused mainly on food applications.…”