In recent years, consumers have developed an ever-increasing interest in natural products as alternatives for artificial additives or pharmacologically relevant agents. Among them, essential oils have gained great popularity in the food, cosmetic, as well as the pharmaceutical industries. Constituting an array of many lipophilic and highly volatile components derived from a great range of different chemical classes, essential oils are known to be susceptible to conversion and degradation reactions. Oxidative and polymerization processes may result in a loss of quality and pharmacological properties. Despite their relevance for consumers, there is a paucity of information available addressing this issue. Therefore, the present review provides a comprehensive summary on possible changes in essential oils and factors affecting their stability. Focusing on individual essential oils, the various paths of degradation upon exposure to extrinsic parameters are outlined. Especially temperature, light, and oxygen availability are recognized to have a crucial impact on essential oil integrity. Finally, analytical methods to assess both genuine as well as altered essential oil profiles are evaluated with respect to their suitability to track chemical alterations. It is believed that only a careful inspection of essential oils by a set of convenient methods allows profound quality assessment that is relevant to producers and consumers alike.

Stability of Essential Oils: A Review

Essential Oils as Ecofriendly Biopesticides? Challenges and Constraints

Enzyme-assisted extraction of bioactives from plants

Carrot is one of the important root vegetables rich in bioactive compounds like carotenoids and dietary fibers with appreciable levels of several other functional components having significant health-promoting properties. The consumption of carrot and its products is increasing steadily due to its recognition as an important source of natural antioxidants having anticancer activity. Apart from carrot roots being traditionally used in salad and preparation of curries in India, these could commercially be converted into nutritionally rich processed products like juice, concentrate, dried powder, canned, preserve, candy, pickle, and gazrailla. Carrot pomace containing about 50% of β-carotene could profitably be utilized for the supplementation of products like cake, bread, biscuits and preparation of several types of functional products. The present review highlights the nutritional composition, health promoting phytonutrients, functional properties, products development and by-products utilization of carrot and carrot pomace along with their potential application.

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Chemical composition, functional properties and processing of carrot—a review

Essential oils are complex blends of a variety of volatile molecules such as terpenoids, phenol-derived aromatic components, and aliphatic components having a strong interest in pharmaceutical, sanitary, cosmetic, agricultural, and food industries. Since the middle ages, essential oils have been widely used for bactericidal, virucidal, fungicidal, antiparasitical, insecticidal, and other medicinal properties such as analgesic, sedative, anti-inflammatory, spasmolytic, and locally anaesthetic remedies. In this review their nanoencapsulation in drug delivery systems has been proposed for their capability of decreasing volatility, improving the stability, water solubility, and efficacy of essential oil-based formulations, by maintenance of therapeutic efficacy. Two categories of nanocarriers can be proposed: polymeric nanoparticulate formulations, extensively studied with significant improvement of the essential oil antimicrobial activity, and lipid carriers, including liposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, nanostructured lipid particles, and nano- and microemulsions. Furthermore, molecular complexes such as cyclodextrin inclusion complexes also represent a valid strategy to increase water solubility and stability and bioavailability and decrease volatility of essential oils.

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Essential Oils Loaded in Nanosystems: A Developing Strategy for a Successful Therapeutic Approach

Conventional production of spices implicates a number of hygienic problems which can pose tremendous risks for farmers, producers and consumers. Furthermore, food quality may also be adversely affected. Only few conventional technologies exist for the sanitation of spices, however, some applications such as the fumigation with ethylene oxide are restricted and even banned by law in the European Union. As a consequence, there is a need for the development of innovative technologies for the production of high quality spices. This contribution summarizes the major problems associated with conventional spice production and provides a review of alternative technologies developed very recently.

Conventional and alternative processes for spice production – a review

Characterization of major and minor capsaicinoids and related compounds in chili pods (Capsicum frutescens L.) by high-performance liquid chromatography/atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry

Carotenoids and carotenoid esters were extracted from red pepper pods (Capsicum annuum L.) without saponification. Among the 42 compounds detected, 4 non-esterified, 11 mono- and 17 diesters were characterized based on their retention times, UV/Vis spectra and their fragmentation patterns in collision-induced dissociation experiments in atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry (APCI-MS). Positive and negative ion mode measurements were used for the characterization of major and minor carotenoids and their esters. Capsanthin esterified with lauric, palmitic and myristic acids represented the predominant compounds in the red pepper extracts. Additionally, three beta-cryptoxanthin and one zeaxanthin monoester were tentatively identified in red pepper pods for the first time. Furthermore, the specific fragmentation patterns of capsanthin-laurate-myristate and capsanthin-myristate-palmitate were used for the distinction of both regioisomers. The results obtained from LC-DAD-APCI-MSn experiments demonstrated that the carotenoid profile of red pepper pods is considerably more complex than considered hitherto.

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Characterization of carotenoids and carotenoid esters in red pepper pods (Capsicum annuum L.) by high-performance liquid chromatography/atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry

Comprising the major pungent principles capsaicin, dihydrocapsaicin and nordihydrocapsaicin, changes in capsaicinoid contents of chili powders after thermal treatment and during storage experiments were monitored. For this purpose, freshly harvested chili pods and chili pastes were immediately pasteurized at 80 °C, 90 °C and 100 °C for 5 and 10 min, respectively, and finally lyophilized. Heating and drying resulted in a 21.7% to 28.3% degradation of the initial capsaicinoid content, the three major capsaicinoids showing similar heat susceptibility. During storage at ambient temperature over 6 months with and without illumination, further degradation of the pungent principles by 6.8–11.9% was observed. Since residual enzyme activities were assumed to cause capsaicinoid losses, soluble peroxidase (POD) activity was investigated. It was shown that immediate thermal treatment of the plant material did not result in a complete POD inactivation even under rigorous temperature–time regimes. In contrast, a regeneration of about 30% of initial POD activity was found in those samples which were first blanched at 80 °C for 5 and 10 min and then minced. However, no correlation between POD activity and capsaicinoid losses could be established. Industrial relevance Besides microbial contamination and color properties, the pungent principles called capsaicinoids are the major quality parameters of hot chili peppers and might be influenced by peroxidase activity. The present contribution demonstrated that heating of fresh chili pods slightly diminishes capsaicinoids, which were further reduced during storage at ambient temperature irrespective of soluble peroxidase activity. The production of high quality spices characterized by low microbial load and bright color requires thermal treatment of the raw material; however, a slight decrease in capsaicinoid concentration cannot be excluded.

Effects of blanching and storage on capsaicinoid stability and peroxidase activity of hot chili peppers (Capsicum frutescens L.)

A novel process for the recovery of a carrot pomace hydrolyzate rich in carotene was developed on pilot plant-scale. The process includes techniques of fine grinding, enzymatic hydrolysis, finishing, homogenization, and concentration. An extensive optimization of the enzymatic hydrolysis on a laboratory scale was performed before scaling up. An enzyme mixture composed of pectolytic and cellulolytic activities at a 1:1 ratio achieved the best degradation, and with a dosage of 1500 ppm at 50 °C and pH 4, the hydrolysis time was reduced to 1 h on pilot plant-scale. Total carotene content (α- and β-carotene) of the concentrated hydrolyzate (3.8 °Bx) was 64 mg per kg.

Ute Schweiggert

Papers

Conventional and alternative processes for spice production – a review

Characterization of major and minor capsaicinoids and related compounds in chili pods (Capsicum frutescens L.) by high-performance liquid chromatography/atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry

Characterization of carotenoids and carotenoid esters in red pepper pods (Capsicum annuum L.) by high-performance liquid chromatography/atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry

Effects of blanching and storage on capsaicinoid stability and peroxidase activity of hot chili peppers (Capsicum frutescens L.)

Process for the recovery of a carotene-rich functional food ingredient from carrot pomace by enzymatic liquefaction