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The processing of fruits results in high amounts of waste materials such as peels, seeds, stones, and oilseed meals. A disposal of these materials usually represents a problem that is further aggravated by legal restrictions. Thus new aspects concerning the use of these wastes as by-products for further exploitation on the production of food additives or supplements with high nutritional value have gained increasing interest because these are high-value products and their recovery may be economically attractive. It is well known that by-products represent an important source of sugars, minerals, organic acid, dietary fibre and phenolics which have a wide range of action which includes antitumoral, antiviral, antibacterial, cardioprotective and antimutagenic activities. This review discusses the potential of the most important by-products of apple, grape and citrus fruits processing as a source of valuable compounds. The relevance of this topic is illustrated by a number of references.

In an effort to discover new antioxidant natural compounds, wormwood (Artemisia absinthium L) an aromatic-bitter herb, was screened. The sequential extraction was realized with five solvents of different polarities (70% methanol, petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate, n-butanol). The antioxidative activity was tested by measuring their ability to scavenge stable 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical and reactive hydroxyl radical during the Fenton reaction trapped by 5,5-dimethyl-1-pyrroline-N-oxide (DMPO), using electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy. Results demonstrated that the antiradical and antioxidative activity depend on the type and concentration of applied extracts and increased in the order ethyl acetate > methanol > n-butanol > chloroform > petroleum ether > remaining water extracts. The investigation showed that the antiradical activity increased with increasing concentration of all extracts. The high contents of total phenolic compounds (25.6 mg g −1 ) and total flavonoids (13.06 mg g −1 ) indicated that these compounds contribute to the antiradical and antioxidative activity. In a model system, the formation of o-semiquinone radicals from quercetin and chlorogenic acid was obtained to prove the mechanism (hydrogen donating and/or one-electron reduction) of free-radical scavenging activity.

This study is concerned with the effect of the process of roasting of naked pumpkin seeds prior to their pressing on the chemical composition and oxidative stability of the extracted oil. Ground seeds were roasted at temperatures of 90, 110, and 130°C for 30 and 60 min, according to the traditional technology of production of roasted pumpkin oil. Depending on the roasting conditions of the seeds, this treatment resulted in a significant increase of the contents of phospholipids (from 0.005 to 0.463%), total phenolic compounds (from 4.63 to 19.60 mg/kg), and total tocopherols (from 265.79 to 350.98 mg/kg) in oil. Higher contents of these minor components enhanced the oxidative stability of the oil, i.e., increased the induction period (from 4.50 to 12.93 h). However, at the same time, the applied thermal treatment generated an increase in the primary and secondary oxidation products, resulting in higher Totox values that could lower the quality of the oil.