Evaluation of oil seed by-products as potential food ingredients

The objective of our research work was to study the application of by-product of cold-pressed sunflower seed and cold-pressed pumpkin seed as ingredients of bakery and coatings. We made detailed chemical analysis to evaluate the nutritional value and made microbiological tests to know the safety of these materials. Food development trials were made. The pumpkin and sunflower seed by-products were found to be rich in nutritive and physiologically important compounds. High protein, dietary fibre and fat ratio. They had very high ratio of the unsaturated fatty acids, especially the essential linol acid (~60%/total fat). The by-products were found microbially safety. Application as food ingredients can be unique, because of the product's new look and claim of healthy product. For bread making, using of dough improvers are proposed, because of byproducts' dough weakening effect. As coating (batter) ingredients for deep-fat frying, the pumpkin seed by-product was less effective to decrease the oil uptake, than the sunflower seed by-product

Bioactive constituents and shelf-life of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) leaves

We aimed to evaluate the green biomass’ of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) quality, through quantitative analysis of microelements, colour characteristics, and UHPLC-MS screening of bioactive constituents. The shelf life examination included sealed raw sweet potato leaves in plastic packs were stored at 6°C and 12°C and the microbiological characteristics were monitored for 2 weeks, through enumeration of mesophilic total plate count, total fungi count, Enterobacteriaceae and mesophilic aerobic spores. We found, that the sweet potato leaves can be considered as the source of calcium, magnesium and phosphorus among the minerals, of which calcium is the most abundant. We identified 17 types of amino acids, 7 vitamins, mainly vitamins belonging to the Vitamin B family. Furthermore, it contained carboxylic acids, flavonoids, polyphenols and aromatic compounds. The sweet potato leaves stored at 6°C was of satisfactory microbiological quality on day 14. Our data suggest that the sweet potato leaves could be a valuable source for healthy nutrition