Potential of Fruits and Vegetable By-Products as an Alternative Feed Source for Sustainable Ruminant Nutrition and Production: A Review

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Abstract

The agro-food industry produces tons of waste at different stages in the food production process, creating a massive ecological crisis. If implemented, the use of fruit and vegetable by-products (FVBPs) in animal nutrition has the potential to lessen the environmental footprint of the food production chain, lower animal feeding costs, and improve the quality and sustainability of animal products. Recent research on the inclusion of FVBPs, naturally enriched with polyphenols, in the diets of small and large ruminants has shown some promising outcomes, which we discuss in this review. The effects of FVBPs on digestion, rumen fermentation, methane emissions, rumen liquor fatty acid profile, and milk production are examined. Due to the chemical composition and the presence of certain bioactive compounds, FVBPs are capable of influencing the ruminal and intestinal ecosystem through improved kinetics of fermentation. Several in vivo studies have demonstrated that the dietary inclusion of FVBPs resulted in improved milk production and composition without any negative effect on animal performance. Using FVBPs as an alternative to conventional feedstuffs may promote sustainable animal production and nutrition. However, it must be stressed that the efficacy of these feed supplements is conditional on the source, kind, and quantity employed.

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Polyphenols: chemistry, dietary sources, metabolism, and nutritional significance.

Laura Bravo (1998)

Polyphenols constitute one of the most numerous and ubiquitous groups of plant metabolites and are an integral part of both human and animal diets. Ranging from simple phenolic molecules to highly polymerized compounds with molecular weights of greater than 30,000 Da, the occurrence of this complex group of substances in plant foods is extremely variable. Polyphenols traditionally have been considered antinutrients by animal nutritionists, because of the adverse effect of tannins, one type of polyphenol, on protein digestibility. However, recent interest in food phenolics has increased greatly, owing to their antioxidant capacity (free radical scavenging and metal chelating activities) and their possible beneficial implications in human health, such as in the treatment and prevention of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other pathologies. Much of the literature refers to a single group of plant phenolics, the flavonoids. This review offers an overview of the nutritional effects of the main groups of polyphenolic compounds, including their metabolism, effects on nutrient bioavailability, and antioxidant activity, as well as a brief description of the chemistry of polyphenols and their occurrence in plant foods.

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Plant polyphenols: chemical properties, biological activities, and synthesis.

Céline Douat-Casassus, S Quideau, Denis Deffieux … (2011)

Eating five servings of fruits and vegetables per day! This is what is highly recommended and heavily advertised nowadays to the general public to stay fit and healthy! Drinking green tea on a regular basis, eating chocolate from time to time, as well as savoring a couple of glasses of red wine per day have been claimed to increase life expectancy even further! Why? The answer is in fact still under scientific scrutiny, but a particular class of compounds naturally occurring in fruits and vegetables is considered to be crucial for the expression of such human health benefits: the polyphenols! What are these plant products really? What are their physicochemical properties? How do they express their biological activity? Are they really valuable for disease prevention? Can they be used to develop new pharmaceutical drugs? What recent progress has been made toward their preparation by organic synthesis? This Review gives answers from a chemical perspective, summarizes the state of the art, and highlights the most significant advances in the field of polyphenol research. Copyright © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.