article · Heliyon
An evaluation of plant species reveals valuable functional and nutritional characteristics for industrial and dietary use. Ferric reducing antioxidant power shows a strong positive correlation with total flavonoid and anthocyanin content. Calyces of Karkade demonstrate high antioxidant capacity, desirable pigmentation, and rich phytochemical profiles, indicating their suitability as plant-derived substitutes for synthetic antioxidants and artificial colourants in food, beverage, and pharmaceutical processing. In addition, the leaves of Figl and Girgir are identified as rich sources of essential micronutrients, specifically vitamin C and beta-carotene, whilst displaying low bulk density. These physical and nutritional qualities position the leaves as viable candidates for dietary micronutrient supplementation programmes, particularly aimed at improving nutrition for vulnerable groups such as infants and young children.
Replacing artificial additives with natural compounds is increasingly vital for consumer safety and sustainable food processing. In addition, combating micronutrient deficiencies requires affordable and accessible dietary sources. Showing that these plants provide effective antioxidant action, stable natural colour, and critical vitamins supports clean-label manufacturing and public health efforts to enhance infant nutrition.
The findings point to early-stage applications for food, beverage, and pharmaceutical processors seeking natural replacements for synthetic antioxidants and colourants using Karkade. Manufacturers of fortifying foods could also formulate infant supplements using nutrient-rich Figl and Girgir leaves. Moving from this initial material profiling to real-world products will require applied formulation, processing optimisation, and stability testing.
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with low amounts of these bioactive compounds). The ferric reducing antioxidant power was positively strong correlated with total flavonoids and anthocyanins content. The finding showed that calyces of Karkade can be used as a candidate to substitute synthetic antioxidants and food colorant in food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries because of their high antioxidant capacity, desired color and as a good source of phytochemicals. The study also showed that the leaves of Figl and Girgir were found to exhibit good sources of vitamin C, β-carotene with low bulk density. Because of these properties, they can be regarded as good candidate to supplement micronutrients particularly for vulnerable groups like infants and young children.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e05939
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