Assessing Nutritional Traits and Phytochemical Composition of Artisan Jams Produced in Comoros Islands: Using Indigenous Fruits with High Health-Impact as an Example of Biodiversity Integration and Food Security in Rural Development

Abstract

In the Comoros Islands, as in other developing countries, malnutrition and food insecurity affect a very large percentage of the population. Developing fruit-based products in order to make profit, reduce poverty and improve indigenous people diet could be very important for local population of countries as Comoros Islands. The aim of the present work was to study the chemical composition of jams and jellies produced from seven fruit species harvested in Grand Comore Island. The following parameters were studied sugars and organic acids, total phenolics, total anthocyanins and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) fingerprint of the main phytochemicals. Antioxidant activity was also measured. A multivariate approach (Principal Component Analysis) was performed in order to better characterize the products and to set a potential analytical tool for jam characterisation. Results showed that the analysed products are a good source of polyphenolic constituents, as caffeic and gallic acids, catechin and quercetin and volatile compounds, as limonene and γ-terpinene: these molecules may be considered as suitable markers for these fruit-derived products as characterizing the chromatographic patterns. The characterisation of these products and their nutritional and nutraceutical traits is important as valorisation of local food production for poverty reduction and rural development. Further benefits of this approach include the maintenance of local agro-biodiversity as raw material for fruit-based products and the strengthening of food security practices.

Pulsed Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction as an Alternative Method to Conventional Maceration for the Extraction of the Polyphenolic Fraction of Ribes nigrum Buds: A New Category of Food Supplements Proposed by The FINNOVER Project

“…Bioactive compounds were identified and quantified by comparison and combination of their retention times and UV spectra with those of authentic standards. The calibration parameters for all the employed analytical standards were previously reported by the authors [22,34]. The total bioactive compound content (TBCC) was determined as sum of the selected and identified markers with health-promoting activities and positive antioxidant effects on human health-status according to “multimarker approach” [35]: phytochemicals were grouped into different bioactive classes in order to evaluate each class contribution to phytocomplex composition.…”

“…Samples were filtered with circular pre-injection filters (0.45 µm, polytetrafluoroethylene membrane) prior to HPLC-DAD analysis. Chromatographic analysis was carried out using an Agilent 1200 High-Performance Liquid Chromatograph coupled to an Agilent UV-Vis diode array detector (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA), based on HPLC methods previously validated for fresh fruits, herbal medicines, and other food products [2,22,23]. Chromatographic conditions were set in order to obtain a phytochemical information with a good resolution and a reasonable analysis time.…”

“…Untargeted phytochemical fingerprints coupled with chemometrics [2,20], particularly the UV-Visible and fluorescence spectra of each extract as multivariate response variables, have been employed to quickly screen the best experimental conditions of PUAE investigated by the design of experiment (DoE) method [21]. Finally, the extract obtained by PUAE in the optimized conditions has been characterized using targeted phytochemical fingerprinting by HPLC [2,22,23] in order to identify and quantify the main polyphenolic compounds. The polyphenolic fraction has been selected as the marker of activity and degradation susceptibility in order to make a comparison with the corresponding R. nigrum glyceric macerate (RNGM), representing the commercial product.…”

Traditional Foods and Sustainable Rural Development: Exploiting the Case of the Comoros Tea as a Potential Source of Bioactive Compounds

“…The mechanism involved in the FRAP assay is to measures the production of Fe(II) from Fe(III) at 595 nm. The presence of a high antioxidant capacity results in the appearance of an intense purplish-blue colour [35]. Although the FRAP protocol is an in vitro chemical-based assay with little application in biological systems (antioxidant action includes up-regulation of detoxifying enzymes and antioxidant compounds, modulation of redox cell signaling and gene expression, and it is not limited to scavenging free radicals), many studies in the scientific literature highlighted that it may show the potential of a plant material as inhibitor of a target-molecule oxidation; this chemical-based method is useful for screening, it is low cost, high-throughput and yields an index value (expressed as ferrous iron equivalents) that allows ordering and comparing several materials to test the antioxidant power of natural products [36,37].…”

Analytical Strategies for Fingerprinting of Antioxidants, Nutritional Substances, and Bioactive Compounds in Foodstuffs Based on High Performance Liquid Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry: An Overview

“…Adulteration is closely linked to authenticity [118,119], although authenticity is commonly related to the voluntary mislabelling as economic deception [120]. Rice, honey, olive oil, wine, and fruit-derived products (as jams or juices) are the main products that relate their authenticity to botanical species, floral type, and geographical origin [121][122][123][124]. Table 4 reports data on 137 identified single incidents of economically motivated adulteration in several food categories, based on media reports journal and articles from 1980 to 2013 [120]: Targeted analyses (i.e., adulterant is known) and untargeted ones (i.e., adulteration involves not known substances) are related to the detection of adulteration of beverages and foods [125].…”