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The strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo L.), grown throughout the Mediterranean, produces edible fruit; as it is easily bruised, the sweet, reddish fruit is used mostly to prepare jams, marmalades and alcoholic beverages. As the genus is paraphyletic, phytochemical analysis can assist in defining the fruit composition with the species Arbutus unedo L. (A. unedo). Here we report on the carbohydrate, total sugar, protein, fat, fiber, ash, and mineral content of wild fruit, harvested from 45 specimens from five locations. The dominant nutrients were carbohydrates (78.2–84.8 g/100 g), total sugars (52.1–67.2 g/100 g) and dietary fiber (11.0–20.1 g/100 g). Other important nutrients supplied by A. unedo fruit include P, K, and Fe. The fruit was observed to contain health-promoting components providing 42 and 36%, of recommended daily allowance (RDA) for fiber and zinc, respectively, as well as iron and manganese, at levels exceeding minimum RDA. The free-sugar profile revealed high glucose followed by fructose content with minor amounts of sucrose (14, 11, and 6 g/100 g, respectively). Significant differences both between regions and within individuals were observed for several traits. The richness of fruit nutrients in A. unedo confers nutritional value and as such, a promising alternative fruit source.

The current study was performed in order to evaluate the effect of using argane by-products (oil cake and pulp) as fattening diet of lambs. This was achieved through an experimental lamb fattening investigation using argan byproduct as feeding source and the exploration of the fattened lamb performance, carcass characteristics and the chemical fatty acid composition of the quality produced meat.Twenty fattening Sardi lambs (26 AE 0.5 kg body weight and six months old) were divided into two (n ¼ 10) homogenous experimental and control groups. Argane by-products (ABP) and traditional (CF) diets have been used for feeding the experimental and control groups respectively during a period of 75 days. The results obtained for both groups were used to determine the effect of feeding argane by-products on animal weight, average daily gain (ADG), carcass weight, muscle pH values, dressing %, dry matter, ash, ether extract, crude fiber, crude protein, and fatty acid composition.The obtained results showed that the experimental ABP group lambs had higher average daily gain and meat chemical, crude protein and ash and proportion of C18:0 than the control CF group lambs, while the control CF group had a higher feed conversion ratio, ether extract, mesenteric and perirenal fat. The results obtained for pH 0 and pH 24 were similar for both explored groups. The obtained results showed thus that the use of ABP as a diet to fattening lambs increased their performance and lean meat yield.