Functional Properties of Fresh Fruit Produce (Hardcover)

Consuming fruits and vegetables is essential for maintaining a healthy and balanced diet, as outlined in recent research studies. In fact, their consumption is positively associated with the prevention of various disorders and diseases.

This new book, Functional Properties of Fresh Fruit Produce: A Quality-Centric Approach explores the beneficial aspects of commonly consumed fresh fruit. Each chapter focuses on one particular fruit, covering the health benefits, nutritional and antinutritional composition, antioxidant phytochemicals, antioxidant potential, and factors influencing the antioxidant content, such as genotype, environmental variation and agronomic conditions. The chapters comprehensively cover the bioactive compounds, mineral composition, vitamins, carotenoids, phenolics, flavonoids, tocopherols, anthocyanins, glucosinolates, etc., that contribute the functional quality and help prevent various chronic diseases.

The volume explores new bioactive compounds and their mechanisms of their action and promotes nontraditional/underutilized sources of bioactives. It helps to simplify and increase the availability of information related to the nutritional content of fruits and vegetables and health outcomes of various agricultural products.

Key features:

• Provides nutritional and antinutritional composition data for various fresh fruits
• Presents advanced information about antioxidant properties of fresh fruits
• Discusses the factors influencing antioxidant content, such as genotype, environmental variation, and agronomic conditions
• Includes detailed information on the beneficial health effects

This volume will be valuable for academic researchers, scientists, and food processors interested in food chemistry, nutrition, nutraceuticals, and functional foods. Additionally, the book is suitable for both undergraduate and postgraduate students in the field of food science and technology, food chemistry, and nutrition.

Riadh Ilahy, PhD, is currently working as an Associate Professor at the National Agricultural Research Institute of Tunisia, Department of Horticulture. He is specialized in breeding for higher nutritional quality crops, mainly tomato and potato. He has published three book chapters, 17 communications/posters, and more than 33 scientific articles. He has acted as an external examiner as well as paper reviewer for many internationally indexed journals. He was awarded the Amitom Young Researcher Prize from HM Clause for his research on chloroplast/chromoplast of high-pigment tomato. He earned his PhD after collaboration with Professor Marcello Salvatore Lenucci and Professor Giuseppe Dalessandro from the University of Salento, Lecce, Italy. His research interest are in horticultural crop breeding, phytochemistry, natural antioxidants, food chemistry, and postharvest management.

Imen Tlili, PhD, is currently working as a researcher in the Department of Horticulture at the National Agricultural Research Institute of Tunisia. She is specialized in breeding for higher nutritional quality crops, mainly cucurbits. She has published two book chapters, 17 communications/posters, and more than 30 scientific articles. She has acted as an external examiner, paper reviewer for many international indexed and impacted journals. Her research interests are in horticultural crop breeding, phytochemistry, natural antioxidants, and agriculture. She was awarded her PhD in Phytochemistry in 2011.

Thouraya R’him, PhD, is currently working as a permanent Researcher in the Department of Horticulture at the National Agricultural Research Institute of Tunisia. She is specialized in selection and breeding, plant physiology, and environmental stress, mainly of pepper. She has published communications/posters and more than 30 scientific articles. She has acted as an external examiner and paper reviewer for many international indexed and impact factor journals. She earned her baccalaureate degree (Experimental Sciences) from the secondary school, Monastir. She also earned a Diploma of Engineering in Horticultural Sciences from the Higher School of Horticulture and lanscape of Chott Meriem, Sousse, Tunisia. Afterwards, she was awarded a diploma of in-depth studies in plant eco-physiology from the Faculty of Science, Tunis, Tunisia. She received her PhD (Plant Production) from the National Agricultural Institute of Tunisia (INAT). Her research interests include, horticultural crop breeding, environmental stress, and plant physiology.

Muhammad Azam, PhD, is an as Associate Professor at the Institute of Horticultural Sciences, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan. He has more than 14 years of experience in research and teaching. He completed his research work on citrus volatiles during his PhD in Zhejiang University, China. He worked as a consultant on a Citrus GlobalGAP certification project, Bhalwal, Sargodha, Pakistan. He is actively working and participating in different national and international projects. He is working as principal investigator and co-principal investigator for six projects and has been working in collaboration with local and international institutions. He has supervised 32 MSc students, and four PhD students are working under his supervision on different projects. He has published research papers in peer-reviewed journals as well as several book chapters, popular brochures, abstract books, popular articles in Urdu and English, some for the farming community.