ABSTRACT
Antibiotics have been supplemented in poultry diets as growth promoters for disease prevention and efficient production for the many decades. However, residues of some antibiotics used in poultry feeds as growth promoters have been found in poultry products that pose considerable risks to human health and acceptability. Emergence of antimicrobial resistance in human is the major threat associated with the incessant practice of supplementing the poultry diets with multiple antibiotics. Therefore, the 88scientific community has great concern on indiscriminate usage of antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) in poultry feeds and most of the industrialized countries have banned the use of AGPs in the diets of poultry. Nevertheless, intensive poultry production requires alternatives to AGPs for sustainable and efficient poultry farming to feed the ever-increasing human population around the globe. Therefore, search for some potent, cost-effective, natural, and safe antibacterial principles are urgently required. Plants are a well-known source for isolation of a wide array of high-value components and bioactives, especially free and bound phenolics with potential as drug and nutraceutical leads. Agro-wastes are one of the potential sources of high-value bioactives including phenolics, which can be revalorized into useful nutraceuticals and pharmaceutical products. Currently, there has been an increasing interest in the investigation of bioactives obtained from the agro-residues such as fruit wastes. However, despite their significant nutraceutical potential, these agro-residues are often discarded as agro-wastes and thus are treated as underutilized materials. Considerable quantity and variety of bioactive compounds with therapeutic value are reported in fruit wastes. Anthocyanin, anthocyanidins, caffeic acid, catechin, cyanidin, epicatechin, eriocitrin, gallic acid, gallic acid derivatives, and procyanidins are some of the important phytochemicals present in waste materials of different fruits. These bioactive principles possess significant antibacterial capacity along with other health-promoting and disease-preventing potential. The use of fruit waste as a natural growth promoter is certainly considered as safe with low cost and no side effects that can enhance feed efficiency because of positive effects on the nutrient digestibility and better immune response to pathogenic organisms ensuring the efficient poultry production in terms of meat and eggs. The exploration of phytogenic feed additives based on fruit wastes is very helpful in global food and nutritional security and thus is a step forward toward utilization of sustainable natural plant resources.
