Eating five servings of fruits and vegetables per day! This is what is highly recommended and heavily advertised nowadays to the general public to stay fit and healthy! Drinking green tea on a regular basis, eating chocolate from time to time, as well as savoring a couple of glasses of red wine per day have been claimed to increase life expectancy even further! Why? The answer is in fact still under scientific scrutiny, but a particular class of compounds naturally occurring in fruits and vegetables is considered to be crucial for the expression of such human health benefits: the polyphenols! What are these plant products really? What are their physicochemical properties? How do they express their biological activity? Are they really valuable for disease prevention? Can they be used to develop new pharmaceutical drugs? What recent progress has been made toward their preparation by organic synthesis? This Review gives answers from a chemical perspective, summarizes the state of the art, and highlights the most significant advances in the field of polyphenol research.

Plant Polyphenols: Chemical Properties, Biological Activities, and Synthesis

The concept of resistant starch (RS) has evoked new interest in the bioavailability of starch and in its use as a source of dietary fiber, particularly in adults. RS is now considered to provide functional properties and find applications in a variety of foods. Types of RS, factors influencing their formation, consequence of such formation, their methods of preparation, their methods of estimation, and health benefits have been briefly discussed in this review.

Resistant Starch–A Review

Extraction of oil from microalgae for biodiesel production: A review

Epidemiological studies have clearly shown that whole-grain cereals can protect against obesity, diabetes, CVD and cancers. The specific effects of food structure (increased satiety, reduced transit time and glycaemic response), fibre (improved faecal bulking and satiety, viscosity and SCFA production, and/or reduced glycaemic response) and Mg (better glycaemic homeostasis through increased insulin secretion), together with the antioxidant and anti-carcinogenic properties of numerous bioactive compounds, especially those in the bran and germ (minerals, trace elements, vitamins, carotenoids, polyphenols and alkylresorcinols), are today well-recognised mechanisms in this protection. Recent findings, the exhaustive listing of bioactive compounds found in whole-grain wheat, their content in whole-grain, bran and germ fractions and their estimated bioavailability, have led to new hypotheses. The involvement of polyphenols in cell signalling and gene regulation, and of sulfur compounds, lignin and phytic acid should be considered in antioxidant protection. Whole-grain wheat is also a rich source of methyl donors and lipotropes (methionine, betaine, choline, inositol and folates) that may be involved in cardiovascular and/or hepatic protection, lipid metabolism and DNA methylation. Potential protective effects of bound phenolic acids within the colon, of the B-complex vitamins on the nervous system and mental health, of oligosaccharides as prebiotics, of compounds associated with skeleton health, and of other compounds such as alpha-linolenic acid, policosanol, melatonin, phytosterols and para-aminobenzoic acid also deserve to be studied in more depth. Finally, benefits of nutrigenomics to study complex physiological effects of the 'whole-grain package', and the most promising ways for improving the nutritional quality of cereal products are discussed.

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New hypotheses for the health-protective mechanisms of whole-grain cereals: what is beyond fibre?

Tea polyphenols: prevention of cancer and optimizing health. Discussion 4.

Scientific evidence linking several diseases with diet has brought to light the beneficial effects of a number of natural food ingredients. Zeaxanthin is one such natural pigment emphasized for its critical role in the prevention of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness. The review highlights zeaxanthin as a carotenoid pigment with promising nutraceutical implications, and enumerates the important plant and microbial sources for its production, the absorptive pathway of zeaxanthin in human system, and methods to assess its bioavailability besides other relevant aspects.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1541-4337.2007.00028.x

The Carotenoid Pigment Zeaxanthin—A Review

Food packaging, although an integral part of the food chain, has a major drawback in that, often, the packaging material interacts with the flavor constituents of the food, causing either a selective or an extensive loss of desirable food flavors or absorption of undesirable off-flavors from the packaging material, thereby resulting in an eventual loss of quality of the packaged food item. The process is called “scalping” and is of great concern to the food industry, which is always looking out for new avenues in “packaging solutions” for its final product quality needs. The review highlights the various attributes of the scalping process, explores approaches to the reduction of the manifested undesirable effects, and covers other relevant aspects.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1541-4337.2007.00014.x

Scalping of Flavors in Packaged Foods

Specialty starches for snack foods

The use of dietary ingredients is gaining much significance as a practical approach to the reduction of the risk of a number of diseases. Epidemiological evidence has linked the habitual consumption of tea with reduced risk of cardiovascular disorders and cancer. Polyphenols appear to play an important role in the potential health benefits associated with tea. With growing interests on the positive health attributes of tea, the present review covers relevant findings on many therapeutic properties of tea. Types of tea, the polyphenols, and their nutraceutical implications, as well as adverse effects and course of action together with bioavailability form the essence of coverage in this review.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1541-4337.2008.00043.x

M.G. Sajilata

Papers

Resistant Starch–A Review

The Carotenoid Pigment Zeaxanthin—A Review

Scalping of Flavors in Packaged Foods

Specialty starches for snack foods

Tea Polyphenols as Nutraceuticals.