www.ijcrt.org © 2018 IJCRT | Volume 6, Issue 2 April 2018 | ISSN: 2320-2882
IJCRT1813451 International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts (IJCRT) www.ijcrt.org 60
Healthy waste: Potent nutraceutical bioactives from
bio-waste for wellbeing
Girish Chandran*, Punyashree C, Meghana J, Smitha Grace SR, and Jyoti Bala Chauhan
* Department of studies in Biotechnology, Microbiology and Biochemistry
Pooja Bhagavat Memorial Mahajana Education Centre
PG Wing of SBRR Mahajana First Grade College
Mysuru-570016, Karnataka, India
Abstract
Bio-waste from food processing and other household related sources like flowers/ornamentals are
a menace as they surely end up in landfills or dumpsters. Specially, food waste and floral ornamentals
from a marriage/party hall are bigger sources for dumpsters. Getting piled up routinely, these biological
wastes are degraded by anaerobic microbes resulting in an unpleasant stunk leading to compromised
elegance of the surroundings. Interestingly, the plant parts considered waste are in fact rich sources of
bioactive principles with greater therapeutic potential for various ailments. The wastes usually include
peel, leaves, seeds of vegetables and petals of old flowers. Most of these plant products have been
indicated to possess considerable quantities of various phytochemicals with potential biological activities.
Owing to the marked rise in the food industry activities, there is an enormous scale of food waste
generated globally. Quercetin, gallic acid, ferulic acid, resveratrol are a few popular examples of
phytochemicals reported among biological wastes like peels of banana, orange, apple, seeds of guava,
avocado, and petals of lilies and roses which are usually generated at home. These bioactives/
nutraceuticals have been indicated to possess significant biological activities ranging from antioxidant to
anticancer properties. Numerous secondary metabolites, minerals and vitamins have been extracted from
food waste, using various extraction approaches. Shortly, these approaches could provide an innovative
approach to increase the production of specific compounds for use as nutraceuticals/functional food.
However, there is an urgent need for a meticulous awareness program for processing these wastes at the
household and locality levels. There is constant research for exploring the utilization of these bioactive by-
products, to prevent pollution and related adversities. Here we review a definite list of plant wastes
generated at home and their pharmaceutical propensities.
Introduction
Nutraceutical is established as a nutrient (food) with medicinal (pharmaceutical) property. A
nutraceutical product may be defined as a substance, which has physiological benefit or provides protection