Wild sweet cherry, strawberry and bilberry as underestimated sources of natural colorants and bioactive compounds with functional properties.

Wild edible fruits, neglected by the development of commercial agriculture, have recently aroused as a good source of natural colorants and bioactive compounds. These novel uses could cover the recent demand for healthier foods with functional properties. Prunus avium, Fragaria vesca and Vaccinium myrtillus wild fruits were characterized by individual anthocyanin profile and color CIELAB parameters, as well as phenolic fraction.

Potential Health Claims of Durum and Bread Wheat Flours as Functional Ingredients.

Wheat is an important cereal with a key role in human nutrition. In this study, dietary fiber (DF) and arabinoxylans of different durum ( ssp. L.

Antioxidant Phytochemicals in Pulses and their Relation to Human Health: A Review.

Pulses are a staple food cultivated since ancient times, which play an important role in the human diet. From a nutritional point of view, pulses are very interesting foods as they are rich in proteins, carbohydrates and dietary fibre. Dietary antioxidants are a complex mixture of hydrophilic and lipophilic compounds usually present in foods of plant origin, including pulses.

Dietary fiber sources and human benefits: The case study of cereal and pseudocereals.

Dietary fiber (DF) includes the remnants of the edible part of plants and analogous carbohydrates that are resistant to digestion and absorption in the human small intestine with complete or partial fermentation in the human large intestine. DF can be classified into two main groups according to its solubility, namely insoluble dietary fiber (IDF) that mainly consists on cell wall components, including cellulose, some hemicelluloses, lignin and resistant starch, and soluble dietary fiber (SDF) that consists of non-cellulosic polysaccharides as non-digestible oligosaccharides, arabinoxylans (AX), β-glucans, some hemicelluloses, pectins, gums, mucilages and inulin. The intake of DF is associated with health benefits.

Lactose malabsorption and intolerance: a review.

Food lactose and lactose intolerance are today hot topics in the field of food and nutrition. About 70% of the adult world population is lactose-intolerant, due to low levels of intestinal lactase, also called lactase-phlorizin hydrolase (LPH), a β-d-galactosidase found in the apical surface of the intestinal microvilli. This may be due to the loss of intestinal lactase in adulthood, a condition transmitted by an autosomal recessive gene, which differs in humans according to race.

Comparison of the mineral and trace element concentrations between 'gazpacho' and the vegetables used in its elaboration.

Contents of moisture, ash and minerals and trace elements (sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, zinc and manganese) were determined in vegetable samples--garlic, tomato, white onion, cucumber, pepper--in 'gazpacho', which was elaborated using these vegetables. The mean sodium concentration in 'gazpacho' was much higher than those mean values observed in the fresh vegetables. The mean values of the minerals studied in the 'gazpacho', except sodium and calcium, tend to be lower than the mean values in the vegetables used.