Scientists with ARS and Mississippi State University have found significant amounts of resveratrol in the skin, pulp, and seeds of muscadine grapes. Resveratrol is the compound in French wines said to lower cholesterol and the risk of coronary heart disease. In the Southeast, muscadines are grown to make juice. But the researchers are now using muscadine waste from juice processing to make products like muffins, jams and granola cereal.
Powdered puree contains more dietary fiber than oat or rice bran.
This infection connection can be sneaky. A child will seem healthy until a repeated, but undiagnosed, infection uses up stored nutrients. Then classic hunger symptoms develop, possibly confounding the pediatrician and parents. A nutritionist at the ARS-funded center in Houston, Texas, collaborated with researchers from the University of the West Indies to examine infected and severely malnourished children at the university's Tropical Metabolism Research Unit in Kingston, Jamaica. They get enough calories to survive, but their diets are low in protein.