Purple Corn Cob: Rich Source of Anthocyanins with Potential Application in the Food Industry

Abstract

As every year, the entire food chain generates huge amounts of food loss and waste, and there is a great interest in solving the inefficient waste management by implementing the sustainability concept for achieving “waste-to-wealth” goal. This refers to recovering renewable bioactive compounds from food wastes in order to use them as low-cost source of value-added ingredients for different industries. In this way, this work focuses its attention on purple corn cob, a by-product that was not very used in food industry. Purple corn has gained attention due to its capability of coloring food and beverages and the evidence of the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and cardiovascular health benefits. As the production is growing year by year, the amounts of waste produced is rising. As a result, purple corn cob caught our attention, reason why in this study we concentrate to summarize and emphasize the compounds that give the color of this waste, anthocyanins.