Polyphenols and Food Quality

Raul Ferrer-Gallego, Rosa Perez-Gregorio, José M. Hernandez-Hierro, Natalia

Quijada Morin, Ignacio Garcia-Estevez

► To cite this version:

Raul Ferrer-Gallego, Rosa Perez-Gregorio, José M. Hernandez-Hierro, Natalia Quijada Morin, Ignacio Garcia-Estevez. Polyphenols and Food Quality. Journal of Food Quality, 2017, 2 p. 10.1155/2017/1640519. [hal-01837820](https://hal.science/hal-01837820)

HAL Id: hal-01837820

https://hal.science/hal-01837820

Submitted on 26 May 2020

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Editorial

Polyphenols and Food Quality

Raúl Ferrer-Gallego,<fnref n="1" /> Rosa Pérez-Gregorio,<fnref n="2" /> José M. Hernández-Hierro,<fnref n="3" /> Natalia Quijada-Morín,<fnref n="4" /> and Ignacio García-Estévez<fnref n="5" />

Correspondence should be addressed to Raúl Ferrer-Gallego; raul.ferrer@vitec.cat

Received 12 June 2017; Accepted 12 June 2017; Published 16 July 2017

Copyright © 2017 Raúl Ferrer-Gallego et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.

Polyphenols are abundant secondary metabolites present in
many species of plants. Over the lasts years, polyphenols
have shown increasingly interest in Food Science. The intake
of polyphenols in our diet is closely related not only to
human health but also to food quality, since these compounds
are greatly related to organoleptic properties and biological
activity. This special issue addressed novel research regarding
the importance of polyphenols for food quality from dif-
ferent point of view from their biological activity and their
importance in nutrition to their role in the quality and the
organoleptic properties of food.

Among the submitted works, five papers have been
selected to be part of this special issue. The paper authored
by Y. Zhao et al. is focused on the potential use of some
polyphenols as food preservatives. These authors have car-
ried out comparative studies on the effects of several food
preservatives (among them, tea catechin) on bacteria growth.
The aim of this work was to assess these products for
use as antimicrobial agents in food preservation avoiding
the bacteria proliferation (Staphylococcus aureus) and the
secretion of enterotoxins that have been associated with
food poisoning. The results obtained in this study indicated
that tea catechin not only suppressed S. aureus growth but
also inhibited Staphylococcal Enterotoxin I production and

secretion. This work reported that the natural preservatives
exert higher antibacterial activity than the chemical ones,
such as sodium nitrite, polylysine, or chitosan, and that tea
catechin was the most efficient among food preservatives
assayed for keeping the food from the contamination with
enterotoxins. These investigations would be useful for food
industry to provide safer food products due to S. aureus
enterotoxins-related control strategy.

J. O. Jiménez-Zurita et al. have carried out studies on the effect of different postharvest cold storage on the phenolic composition and physicochemical and biochemical properties of yoursop fruit. These studies were mainly focused on the fruit weight and firmness changes and on their composition and enzymatic activity depending on the storage employed during postharvest maturation of yoursop fruit. The reported results pointed out that the concentrations of phenolic compounds decreased by the end of the ripening. The highest levels of phenolic compounds were reached when fruits were stored at 22°C. However, storage at 15°C did not affect the biochemical processes related to ripening. Indeed, the occurrence of chilling injury in fruits was avoided. Hence, the shelf life of the fruit increases conserving the organoleptic properties of ripened fruit.

<footnote n="1">¹VITEC (Wine Technology Centre), Falset, 43730 Tarragona, Spain</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²LAQV-REQUIMTE, Departamento de Química e Bioquímica, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto,
4169-007 Porto, Portugal</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Food Colour and Quality Laboratory, Á. Nutrición y Bromatología, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad de Sevilla,
41012 Sevilla, Spain</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴UMR 1083 INRA Sciences pour l'Enologie, Faculté de Pharmacie, Université de Montpellier, 34000 Montpellier, France</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵Grupo de Investigación en Polifenoles, Unidad de Nutrición y Bromatología, Facultad de Farmacia, University of Salamanca,
37007 Salamanca, Spain</footnote>
With regard to the biological activity of food polyphenols, F. Gai et al. have studied the changes in the total polyphenolics and antioxidative capacity of the perilla (*Perilla frutescens* L.) plant, during the growth cycle. This plant, which has traditionally been used as a source of human and animal food mostly in some Asian countries, such as Korea, Japan, and China, has been reported to be rich in fat and good quality proteins. Moreover, in this paper, authors reported the phenolic composition of this plant at five different growth stages and they correlated it with the antioxidant activity. The phenolic compound profile was characterized by the presence of three major compounds, with rosmarinic acid being the most abundant one. Moreover, the phenolic contents and the antioxidant activity were significantly different according to the growth stage. These data may be useful in determining the optimal harvest time at which phenolic compounds reach their maximum content, which, in turn, are related to a higher antioxidant activity. The results obtained allowed the authors to point out that perilla may constitute a new functional food and could be an important dietary source for the prevention of diseases caused by oxidative stress.

This special issue also includes the study performed by I. Jerez-Martel et al. in which the phenolic composition and the antioxidant activity of crude extracts from both microalgae and cyanobacteria strains have been studied. The seaweed extracts have been proposed as additives for food enrichment due to their preservative properties and/or nutritional benefits. Thus, different extracts of several microalgae and cyanobacteria were studied for their antioxidant activity and phenolic contents. The results obtained by these authors highlight the effectiveness of microalgae and cyanobacteria extracts as scavengers of free radicals and that this activity might be related to the phenolics compounds that were detected. In particular, high contents of phenolic compounds such as gallic acid, protocatechuic acid, (+) catechin, chlorogenic acid, and (−) epicatechin were found in the extract that showed the highest antioxidant capacity (which was obtained from microalgae *Euglena cantabrica*). These findings could be relevant in order to consider the microalgae and cyanobacteria extracts to be used to different industrial applications during food processing.

The study carried out by E. M. Tanvir et al. is focused on the antioxidant properties of different varieties of turmeric (*Curcuma longa*) from Bangladesh. Turmeric is a golden spice derived from *Curcuma longa* plant, which has been traditionally used not only as principal ingredient of some Bangladesh and India dishes but also in folk medicines against various ailments and infectious diseases. The results reported strongly suggest that the turmeric varieties from Bangladesh, in particular "mura" turmeric variety from Chittagong, are promising sources of natural antioxidants, which can be related to their high contents on polyphenols, flavonoids, tannins, and ascorbic acid. Moreover this work reported that the extraction of antioxidant compounds is more effective by using ethanol. Hence, this study suggests the importance of the turmeric varieties investigated as sources of natural antioxidants.

We are pleased to present this special issue, which includes five papers that provide new insight into the interesting field of the relationship between polyphenols and food quality and we sincerely hope that the readers will find this special issue interesting and informative.

## Acknowledgments

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the authors of the papers for their contributions as well as all the reviewers for their valuable participation in the evaluation process.

Raúl Ferrer-Gallego

Rosa Pérez-Gregorio

José M. Hernández-Hierro

Natalia Quijada-Morín

Ignacio García-Estévez
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