The Use of Controlled Postharvest Abiotic Stresses as a Tool for Enhancing the Nutraceutical Content and Adding‐Value of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

Abstract

This paper proposes a concept based on applying postharvest abiotic stresses to enhance the nutraceutical content of fresh fruits and vegetables. We hypothesize that selected abiotic stress treatments, such as wounding, phytohormones, temperature, ultraviolet light, altered gas composition, heat shock, and water stress, among others, will affect the secondary metabolism of fresh produce and increase the synthesis of phytochemicals with nutraceutical activity or reduce the synthesis of undesirable compounds. Controlled stresses may be used as tools by the fresh produce industry to enhance the health benefit properties of fresh-cut or whole fresh produce and by the food processing and dietary supplement industries to obtain healthier processed products or enhance extractable nutraceutical yields.

UV-C and hyperoxia abiotic stresses to improve healthiness of carrots: study of combined effects

“…However, TAC was apparently increased immediately after UV-C radiation and, in a greater extend, after wounding (showing the combination of both stresses an additive effect according to Limpel's formula). TAC was highly correlated (R 2 = 0.70) to TPC throughout storage of samples as previously found (Cisneros-Zevallos 2003). Accordingly, the observed higher TAC immediately after wounding and UV-C pretreatment may be an experimental artifact resulted from higher extraction of other antioxidant compounds of carrots such as carotenoids due to increased cell wall depolymerization (Alegria et al 2012;Bhat et al 2007).…”

“…Consequently, such postharvest abiotic stresses enhance the levels of phenolic compounds like caffeoylquinic (CQA) acid, ferulic acid and their derivates as a defense mechanism of the plant (JacoboVelázquez et al 2011). Previous studies have shown that single application of wounding, low UV-C doses and hyperoxia storage enhanced phenolic content on carrots and other plant products (Artés-Hernández et al 2009a, b;Cisneros-Zevallos 2003;Martínez-Hernández et al 2013b;Martínez-Hernández et al 2011;Sánchez-Rangel et al 2013). Nonetheless, to the best of our knowledge, the combined effect of wounding, moderate UV-C radiation and hyperoxia atmospheres on the phenolic compounds levels and related total antioxidant capacity (TAC) has not been studied yet.…”

“…Nowadays, health recommendations rely on a diet rich in multiple antioxidant compounds than one used based on a single antioxidant (Shahidi and Ambigaipalan 2015). Plant products such as carrots have been proposed as biofactories of phenolic compounds through different mechanisms induced by abiotic stresses (Cisneros-Zevallos 2003). Concisely, phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) is the key enzyme of primary (shikimate) and secondary (phenylpropanoid) pathways and is, therefore, involved in the biosynthesis of polyphenolic compounds (Dixon and Paiva 1995).…”

UV-C treatment on physiological response of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) during low temperature storage

“…UV-C is also an effective measure to maintain the quality of fresh fruit and vegetables, such as strawberry (Xie et al 2015). Researches have reported that UV-C treatment may increase the contents of nutritional metabolites in fresh fruits and vegetables (Cisneros-Zevallos 2003). However, a previous report indicated that the content of vitamin C was decreased by UV-C treatment in fresh-cut fruits (Alothman et al 2009).…”

Substantiaton of selecting the method of pre-cooling of fruits

“…Increasingly applied in the practice of storing is the pre-treatment of fruit and vegetable products by antioxidant substances [18,19]. The treatment with antioxidant compositions can be performed in various ways: by spraying in the garden or by irrigation or immersion on the line of preparation the fruits for storage [20,21].…”