ABSTRACT

184As a consequence of awareness on the potential use of by-products from food processing, both from the environmental and from the economical point of view, several studies are focusing on finding possible technical applications. In the minimally processed industry, there is a double objective for those studies: reduce environmental impact of the waste obtained from the food processing and increasing revenue for the producers by giving 185added value to otherwise undeveloped resources. This way, instead of spending money on waste management, those residues could be processed to obtain important compounds with added value that may have several uses.

In later years, minimally processing of fruits and vegetables production has increased, thus a large amount of by-product is available but currently underdeveloped and all those unused resources are wasted like seeds, leaves, or steams. Moreover, many of those by-products obtained from fruits and vegetables minimal processing are important sources of bioactive compounds of added value for the pharmaceutical or food industry, especially those with antioxidant activity due to the growing interest in functional foods and nutraceutical products and their economic value. In the present chapter, several by-products are presented along with their uses and applications to describe the advantages of the total usage of fruits and vegetables. On other hand, by-products obtained from fruits and vegetables minimally processed are important sources of fiber and bioactive compounds with antioxidant capacity that could be used as food additives in functional foods or to produce nutraceuticals. Many of these compounds extracted have presented antimicrobial activity and have potential applications in active packaging, edible coatings or as additives in foods to increase shelf life. Polyphenols, fibers, vitamins, and small proteins are frequently found in the by-products of fruits and vegetables. Future research should focus on the extraction procedure and the purification of those bioactive compounds obtained in the by-products of minimally processed fruits and vegetables.